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Sales & Customers

Ringing up a sale, issuing the invoice, collecting the money, and knowing who still owes you.

18 min read · 13 screenshots

This covers OPERATIONS → Sales & Customers: New Sale & Quotation, Customer Center, Sales & Quotation List and Deleted Sales. Together they are the full loop — sell, invoice, get paid, chase what's outstanding. The same menu now also holds Automatic Messages (texts that go out by themselves after a sale or payment), covered in the Customer Follow-Up guide, section 12.

Worked examples in this guide use three of your own customers — Dozie, Adaora and Kenneth — so the steps read against names you'll recognise.

1. Making a sale

Open New Sale & Quotation (or the green + New Sale button in the top bar, from anywhere).

New Sale screen showing Sale Details with date, transaction class, customer, payment type and transaction type, an empty Items panel with an Add Item button, and a Totals and Payment panel on the right — New Sale — details across the top, items on the left, totals pinned on the right.

Field	What it does
Date	Defaults to today. Backdate for a sale you're catching up on.
Transaction Class	Your own categories for sales — they drive the Transaction Class Report. Different from Expense Types.
Customer	Search and pick, e.g. Dozie. The + beside it creates a customer without leaving the sale.
Payment Type	Cash, a bank, a wallet. On an unpaid or part-paid sale this decides which bank details the customer is shown.
Transaction Type	SALES or QUOTATION — see section 4.
Invoice No	Allocated automatically. Edit lets you override it.

Pick the real customer for anything not fully paid. A credit sale left against a walk-in or cash customer is money you can no longer chase — it won't appear in anyone's balance, won't show in Customer Center, and won't be picked up by Customer Follow-Up.

2. Adding items

Click Add Item. Search by name or code and the picker shows a thumbnail and the live stock figure.

Add Items dialog over the new sale screen, showing an item search with a Basket Ball result displaying a thumbnail and Available 201, plus quantity, sales rate, amount, tax amount and total amount fields, an Apply Tax tick box and a memo field — The item picker — photo and available quantity, so staff can confirm they've grabbed the right product.

Type part of the name; pick from the list. Available shows current stock.
Set Quantity. The rate comes from the item, and you can override it for this line.
Tick Apply Tax if the line is taxable.
Add a Memo / Description for anything the item name doesn't say — a colour, a size, a serial number. It prints under the item on the invoice and its PDF (not on the waybill).
ADD ITEM puts the line on the sale. Repeat, then Close.

Back on the sale, each line has Edit and Remove. Items with a photo carry their thumbnail into the line, which makes a long sale easy to check at a glance.

3. Totals, discounts and loyalty

The Totals & Payment panel stays beside the item list as you build the sale, so nothing is hidden below the fold.

Field	Meaning
Amount	The lines added up.
Discount / Discount %	Money off, as a figure or a percentage of the sale.
Net Amount	After discount.
Tax Amount / Invoice Amount	Tax added, and the final total.
Amount Received	What the customer is paying now. Leave short for a part payment.
Balance	What they still owe — this becomes their outstanding balance.
Change	What to hand back when they've overpaid in cash.

Apply Customer Loyalty, above the item table, redeems the customer's accumulated points as a discount instead of a percentage off. It's either/or — a loyalty redemption is the discount for that sale. Coupon codes exist only on your online store (see the Merchant Storefront guide, section 13); at the till every reduction is set by you here.

4. Saving: sale or quotation

Choice	Result
Save	Records the sale without opening the invoice.
Save and Generate Invoice	Records it and opens the invoice ready to print, export or share.
Transaction Type = QUOTATION	Saves a quote instead. No stock moves and no balance is created; convert it to an invoice later from the Sales & Quotation List.
Clear	Empties the screen and starts again.

Quotations show no payment-status stamp, because nothing has been sold yet.

4.1 "Thank your customers automatically?"

Sale saved successfully box with a panel offering Turn on thank-you or Not now — After **Save**, while you have no thank-you message set up yet.

Until your shop has a purchase message, the Sale saved box after Save offers to send every customer a thank-you text a day after they buy. Turn on thank-you shows what it would cost in SMS units and asks you to confirm; Not now hides the offer for 30 days. Change or switch it off any time under Sales & Customers → Automatic Messages — see the Customer Follow-Up guide, section 12.

5. The invoice

Invoice for dozie with buttons for Print Invoice, Print Waybill, Export Invoice as PDF, Print with LetterHead, Share on WhatsApp and Receive Payment, a PART PAID watermark across the document, from and to blocks, the item table, and totals showing total ninety thousand, amount paid sixty thousand and balance due thirty thousand — A part-paid invoice — the stamp, the amount paid, and the balance still due.

A PAID / PART PAID / UNPAID stamp appears on screen, in print and on the exported PDF. Quotations carry no stamp.
The totals block spells out Total, Amount Paid and Balance Due, so a part payment is unambiguous to the customer.
Payment Details shows the bank or wallet for the payment type used, with the balance — on screen, on the PDF, and on the invoice link the customer opens (5.1), so they never have to ask where to send the money.
Receive Payment opens the payment form; the invoice re-reads its paid amount and the balance updates.
Print Invoice, Print Waybill, Export Invoice as PDF, Print with LetterHead and Share on WhatsApp cover the ways it leaves the building.

There is no Payment Receipt button on the invoice in this build. To give a customer a receipt for a payment, use Save & Print Receipt in the Receive Payment dialog (section 10) at the moment you record it. If you need a receipt for a payment taken earlier, print or export the customer's statement instead (section 11). The Android app does not have this gap — collecting a payment there prompts a shareable/downloadable receipt immediately, on the invoice itself. See the Android guide, §5.1.

5.1 The invoice link your customer opens

Share on WhatsApp works two ways. On a phone that can share files, it attaches the invoice as a PDF. Otherwise it opens WhatsApp with a one-line message — Hello Dozie, see your invoice from <your shop>. Click to view: <link> — ready to send.

The link opens a page made for the customer:

A band at the top with the status (Paid, Part paid or Unpaid), the big balance (or total) and buttons: Pay, PDF, Print and Share.
Below it, the invoice in the same layout as your printed one: your details, the items, Sub-Total, Discount, Net, Tax, TOTAL, Paid and Balance, your bank details, and a PAID stamp when settled.
Pay shows only while something is still owed. It opens the Online payment link saved on the payment type (Settings → Payment Types — see the Store Setup, Users & Security guide), or your storefront's online payment if no link is saved.
For a quotation the page hides Paid, Balance and Pay.
On a phone the items show as cards and the buttons stay in a bar at the bottom.

A payment you record after the sale is always on the PDF; the page itself may not show it straight away. If a customer says the page still shows a balance they have paid, send them the PDF.

6. Sales & Quotation List

Sales List with SALES and QUOTATION tabs, export buttons, and a table showing date, invoice number, customer name, sales point, user, amount and Details and delete actions — Every sale, with the till it was rung on and the user who rang it.

SALES and QUOTATION tabs. Convert a quote to an invoice from the quotation tab.
Sales Point and User show which till and which staff member — useful when reconciling a counter at close of day.
Details opens the invoice; the red bin deletes the sale.
Export Sales to Excel / Export Quotation to Excel.

7. Deleted Sales

Deleted Sales screen listing sales that were removed — Deleted Sales — nothing removed at the till simply vanishes.

A sale removed in error lands here rather than disappearing, so a wrongly-cancelled ticket can be found and accounted for. Check it when a day's takings don't reconcile — a deleted sale is a common explanation.

8. Customer Center

Customer Center showing a Summary panel with total, active, owing, in-credit and settled customer counts plus total owed and average owing, a Top Owing leaderboard, an Advances and Settled panel, and a customer activity chart — Customer Center — the credit position of the whole book on one screen.

Panel	What it tells you
Summary	Total, active, owing, in-credit and settled customers; Total Owed to Shop; Advances Held; Avg. Owing / Customer.
Top Owing	Your biggest debtors, ranked, each with the date they last paid. Click through to the customer.
Advances & Settled	Customers in credit (they've paid ahead) and those fully settled.
Customer Activity Overview	New customers per year.

Below sits the Customers List with a search box, Create Customer, Upload from Excel, Export to Excel and Balances brought in (8.2). Each customer appears as a card showing their phone and whether they're Settled or owing, with these actions: Trans (their statement), Pay (record a payment), Msg (schedule a text to them), the green WhatsApp button, and a gear for editing.

Customer cards for Dozie Okafor, Adaora Nwosu and Kenneth Bello, each with Trans, Pay, Msg, a green WhatsApp button and a gear — Msg and WhatsApp sit on every card that has a phone number.

Msg opens a short form for a text to that one customer, on a date and time you choose — pick a ready-made wording ("Order ready for pickup", "Friendly balance reminder", "Special offer"…) or write your own, then Schedule message. It uses SMS units. Details in the Customer Follow-Up guide, 12.6.
WhatsApp opens a chat in your own WhatsApp with Hi <first name>, already typed — free, no SMS units. A number saved as 0803… is converted to the international form WhatsApp needs.
Neither button appears for the walk-in cash customer or a customer with no phone number.

8.1 Adding customers

Create Customer takes name, email, phone and address — plus an optional Balance brought in for what they owed before SmartShop (8.2) — using the same add-to-list-then-save pattern as items. For a batch, use Upload from Excel — see the Upload & Scan guide.

Phone numbers earn their keep. They're what Customer Follow-Up texts, what the WhatsApp button dials, and what the storefront uses to reach a buyer. A customer with no phone number is silently skipped by every reminder you ever send.

8.2 Customers who owed you before SmartShop (balances brought in)

When you start with SmartShop, some customers already owe you from your old book — or you are holding money for them (an advance, a deposit, change you kept). Record that once as a balance brought in so their balance, statement and the Customers Who Owe report are right from day one.

Where to find it: the Balances brought in button on the Customer Center, the Balances brought in card on Upload Data, or the link in a customer's panel (section 9).

One customer

Pick All customers and find the customer (or open it from their panel).
Choose They owed me (they bought on credit and had not paid) or I owed them (they paid in advance, or you had their change or deposit).
Type How much and On what day it was true — not a day in the future. Add a Note if it helps.
Save. The customer's balance now includes it.

To correct it, open it again and change the amount; to take it away, use Remove it. Every change is recorded and shown under Changes in the same box.

Many customers from Excel

Press Upload from Excel. Download a ready-made sheet if you want a start.
One row per customer: Name, Phone, Amount owed, and optionally As at date and Note. Write a minus in front of the amount (e.g. -2000) when you owe the customer.
Choose the sheet, set a Date for rows with no date, then Check the sheet. Each row says what will happen. Customers already in SmartShop are found by phone number, then by name; anyone not found is added as a new customer.
Save.

When you add a new customer

The Create Customer form has an optional Balance brought in box and On what day. Write a minus (-2000) if you owed them.

Payments clear the old balance first. When a customer with a balance brought in pays you, the payment clears that amount before any newer invoice. On their account and statement it shows as a BROUGHT IN row (payment mode Before SmartShop), first on its day.

Seeing balances brought in needs the right to view customers. Changing them is for the owner, and for staff given the Customers – Set Balances Brought In permission (the Store manager role has it). Balances brought in show on the web portal; the Android and Desktop apps don't show them yet.

9. The customer panel

Click any customer — here Dozie — to slide out their full position.

Customer panel for Dozie showing phone and email, an owing badge, total purchases, payments made, outstanding balance and last transaction, and a transaction history alternating invoice and payment received rows — Dozie's panel — lifetime purchases, everything paid, and the running history behind the balance.

Total Purchases and Payments Made — the lifetime figures.
Outstanding Balance — the difference, and what you're chasing.
Last Transaction — how recently they've been active.
Transaction History — every invoice (INV) and payment (PAY) in order, so you can see exactly how the balance was built.
Payment Timeline — the balance over time.
Contact — call, WhatsApp, schedule a text (the speech-bubble button — the panel closes and the message form opens) or record a payment; Notes carries any follow-up note, and the customer's Balance brought in with a Change link — or Add what they owed before SmartShop if there is none (8.2).

To correct a payment entered in error, find it in this history and delete it there.

10. Receiving payment

Two routes to the same result — use whichever matches how you're working.

Route	Best for
Receive Payment on the invoice	You're already looking at the invoice. Fastest for settling one specific sale.
Receive Payment in the top bar, or Pay on the customer's card	Someone walks in to pay off part of what they owe, e.g. Kenneth clearing an old balance.

Receive Payment dialog with a customer search and list, date, payment type and amount fields, a new outstanding balance preview, and Close, Save and Save and Print Receipt buttons — Receiving a payment — the new outstanding balance is previewed before you commit.

Find the customer (type to filter, e.g. Adaora).
Set the Date, the Payment Type the money came in through, and the Amount.
New Outstanding Balance updates as you type — check it reads what you expect before saving.
SAVE, or Save & Print Receipt to hand the customer a receipt.

Customer says they paid by transfer? Before you record it, use Sales & Customers → Check a Transfer Receipt: upload the receipt they sent and SmartShop checks whether it looks genuine, then credits it as waiting for bank until your bank statement shows it. See the Bank & Cash guide.

Record the payment type honestly. It's what makes your cash, bank and wallet figures reconcile at the end of the day. A transfer logged as cash will have you hunting a phantom shortfall in the till.

11. The customer account and the statement

Two different things, one behind the other. The account is your working list of everything on a customer; the statement is the dated document you hand or send them.

11.1 The customer account

Customer Account page for dozie showing Receive Payment, Statement and Export to Excel buttons, the customer name and outstanding balance, and a table of rows badged INVOICE or RECEIPT with payment type, date, invoice amount, payment and a running balance — The customer account — invoices and receipts interleaved, with the balance running down the right.

Reached from Trans on a customer's card or Full Transaction History in the panel. Every row is badged INVOICE, RECEIPT or BROUGHT IN (a balance brought in — its Change button opens 8.2), with its Invoice Amount, Payment and the resulting Balance, ending in the Outstanding Balance. A payment entered in error can be removed from here.

Because each receipt appears as its own row with the payment type and date, this is also where you check a payment a customer says they made.

11.2 The statement

Click Statement on that page for the customer-facing document.

Customer statement screen showing From Date and To Date fields with a Generate Statement button, Print, Export PDF and Share via WhatsApp buttons, and the generated statement below with company header, customer name, statement period, opening balance, a transaction table with debit credit and balance columns, period totals and closing balance — Pick a period, **Generate Statement**, then print, export or send it.

Set From Date and To Date. It opens on a recent window; widen it to cover whatever the customer is querying.
Generate Statement builds the document.
Print, Export PDF or Share via WhatsApp.

Generated customer statement for Dozie on company letterhead, showing the statement period, one transaction in the period, opening balance, an invoice row with payment mode Zenith Bank and debit amount, period totals, and a closing balance labelled amount owed by customer — The finished statement — opening balance, what moved in the period, closing balance.

The document is built to be read by someone outside your business:

Part	What it says
Header	Your name, address, phone and email, with the date it was generated.
Statement Period	The window covered, and how many transactions fall in it.
Opening Balance	What they owed on the first day of the period.
The table	Each transaction: date, Type (INVOICE / RECEIPT), Payment Mode, Debit, Credit, and the running Balance.
Period Totals	Debits and credits for the period.
Closing Balance	The figure being claimed, labelled Amount owed by customer.

Debit and credit, in plain terms. A debit increases what the customer owes you — an invoice. A credit reduces it — a payment. Opening balance plus debits minus credits is the closing balance, and that arithmetic is what makes the document hard to argue with.

Since the invoice has no receipt button (section 5), a statement narrowed to the day of a payment is also how you produce proof of a payment taken earlier.

12. Chasing what's owed

The screens here tell you who owes; two other tools do something about it:

Tool	Use
Customer Center → Top Owing	Work the biggest balances by hand, calling or WhatsApping from the panel.
Customer Follow-Up (TOOLS)	Text a whole segment at once — everyone owing over a threshold for more than N days. See the Customer Follow-Up guide.
Automatic Messages (Sales & Customers)	Texts that go by themselves — a thank-you after each purchase, a note when someone pays what they owe. See the Customer Follow-Up guide, section 12.
Msg / WhatsApp on a customer card	One customer, now: a scheduled text, or a free WhatsApp chat.
Dashboard → Money Owed to You	The headline figure, with Chase Details straight into the list.

A workable routine: settle new sales at the till, review Top Owing weekly and call the top few personally, and let Customer Follow-Up handle the long tail by SMS.

13. Quick reference

I want to…	Do this
Ring up a sale	+ New Sale → pick customer and payment type → Add Item → Save and Generate Invoice
Quote a price without selling	Same screen, Transaction Type = QUOTATION
Turn a quote into a sale	Sales & Quotation List → QUOTATION tab → convert
Take part payment now, rest later	Enter a smaller Amount Received; the balance follows the customer
Give a discount	Discount or Discount % on the totals panel
Redeem loyalty points	Tick Apply Customer Loyalty
Collect an old balance	Receive Payment → find the customer → amount → Save & Print Receipt
Show a customer what they owe	Their card → Trans → Statement → pick a period → Export PDF or Share via WhatsApp
Give a customer a receipt	Save & Print Receipt when recording the payment — there is no receipt button on the invoice
Find a sale from last week	Sales & Quotation List → Search
Recover a sale deleted by mistake	Deleted Sales
See who owes the most	Customer Center → Top Owing
Text or WhatsApp one customer	Customer Center → their card → Msg (SMS, scheduled) or the green WhatsApp button (free)
Thank every customer after they buy	Sales & Customers → Automatic Messages → Set up the thank-you
Enter what customers owed before SmartShop	Customer Center → Balances brought in (one by one, or Upload from Excel)
Let a customer pay an invoice online	Save an Online payment link on the payment type, then Share on WhatsApp — the link page has a Pay button
Check a transfer receipt a customer sent	Sales & Customers → Check a Transfer Receipt

If something looks wrong

A customer's balance looks too high. Open their panel and read the INV/PAY history down — a missing PAY row is a payment that was never recorded.
A sale isn't against the right customer. Credit sales rung against a cash/walk-in customer can't be chased. Delete and re-enter against the real customer.
Today's cash doesn't reconcile. Check Deleted Sales, and check payment types — a transfer logged as cash creates exactly this gap.
The invoice shows no bank details. The payment type used has no bank or wallet set. Fix it under Settings → Payment Types.
A new customer's balance is wrong from day one. They owed you before SmartShop. Add it as a balance brought in (8.2) instead of a fake invoice.
The item note isn't on the waybill. Correct — notes print on the invoice and its PDF only.
A customer never gets reminders. They probably have no phone number saved.
Stock didn't drop after a sale. Quotations don't move stock — check whether it was saved as a quotation rather than a sale.
You need a receipt for a payment taken last week. The invoice has no receipt button in this build. Generate a statement narrowed to that date — the payment appears as a RECEIPT row with its payment mode.

NextItems & Purchases

Invoice and receipt software for Nigerian businessesCreate invoices and quotations, share them on WhatsApp as a PDF or link, record payments, print receipts and send customer statements.

More guides

Items & PurchasesYour item list, stock history, purchases and adjustments, and reorder levels. Dashboards & ReportsEvery dashboard panel and every report: sales, profit, money owed, stock health, and why two figures can disagree. Expenses, Vendors & BudgetsRecord bills paid now or later, keep each supplier's account, pay vendors, approvals for big bills, cash advances to staff, and budgets. Bank & CashHow much money you have and where it is, checking with your bank each month, bank charges, and checking a customer's transfer receipt. Store Setup, Users & SecuritySign-up and sign-in, your store profile and tax, payment types, sales points, staff accounts and permissions, and the login audit. Usage, Billing & HelpPlans, usage units, topping up and earning more, subscribing, and where to get help. Upload & ScanLoad data in bulk from a spreadsheet, or straight from a photo of your counter book. Customer Follow-UpText customers who owe you or have gone quiet, and set up automatic thank-yous, payment notes and date messages. Merchant Storefront (Wildfire)Publish items online, run offers and coupons, take orders, handle back-orders, and buy SMS units. Affiliate MarketingGive people their own link to your storefront, then approve and pay the commission on what they sell. Seasonal Sales PlaybookRun festive sales on your online store: 15 activities in order, from your free profile to your first offer, each with a short video. AssociationsYour own words, funds, contributions and dues, spending and approvals, advances to officers, meetings, and the treasurer's report. ConsolidatorEvery store on one dashboard, side-by-side reports, stock across outlets, transfers and price updates. Android AppSell from your phone, scan with the camera, and keep working with no internet. Desktop (Windows Till)Setting up and running MatSmartShop on a PC till, with its own offline database. Shopper's GuideHow to order from your storefront link. Share it with buyers as it is.

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