Run multiple stores from one dashboard

The Consolidator is for anyone who runs more than one MAT Smart Shop store — branches, outlets, a warehouse and a shopfront, or several businesses under one owner. Each store keeps its own sales, its own stock and its own customers exactly as before. The Consolidator sits above them and answers the questions a single store's dashboard cannot: how much did all of my shops collect this month, who owes me across all of them, which branch is carrying the group, and which branch is dragging it — with reports that put every store side by side — plus it is the only place in Smart Shop where you can move stock from one store to another, or change a price in several stores at once.

1. Opening the Consolidator

There is no separate Consolidator login. It uses the Smart Shop account you are already signed in with.

1. Sign in to your Smart Shop web portal as usual.
2. In the left menu, under Tools, click Consolidator.
3. It opens in a new browser tab, shows "Signing you in …" for a moment, and lands on the Dashboard greeting you by name.

If you reach the Consolidator some other way — an old bookmark, a link someone sent you — and you are not signed in to Smart Shop in that browser, it will not ask you for a password. It shows a short message and a Go to my SmartShop Dashboard button instead. Sign in there first, then use the menu link.

Older versions had their own sign-up page. They no longer do: everyone who has a Smart Shop account already has a Consolidator. If you have no account at all, create one on the main site first.

2. The screen and its menu

The dark bar on the left is the whole application. Its links are grouped under four headings, and the page you are on is highlighted in blue.

Across the top of every page runs a bar showing where you are (for example Consolidator / Reports) and, on the right, a round badge with your initials and your name. Click it for Profile and Logout. The bottom of the left menu reminds you which account you are signed in as.

The older pages (Stores, View Stock, Transfer Items, Update Prices, Transfer History, Profile) keep their Add A Store and Transfer Items buttons at the top right. On the Dashboard the same buttons sit beside the greeting, together with a Reports button.

On a phone or small tablet the left menu is tucked away. Tap the ☰ button at the top left to open it, and tap anywhere outside it to close it again.

3. Adding a store

Click Add a store (beside the Dashboard greeting, at the top right of the older pages, or the dashed Add a store card at the end of Your stores). There are two ways in, and the window opens on whichever one applies to you.

(a) One of my own stores

If your Smart Shop account already has access to stores you have not linked yet, the window opens with a drop-down list of them. Pick one and click Add Store. No password is needed — you are already proven to own it.

(b) Link a different store

To bring in a store that is not on your account — a partner's shop, a business registered under a different email — click link a different store, then enter that store's admin email address and password and click Add Store.

If you have no unlinked stores of your own, the window skips straight to the email-and-password form. You can move between the two modes with the small pick one of my own stores / link a different store link underneath.

What you may see when it does not work:

On success the page reloads and the new store appears everywhere at once — as a card, in the store filter, on the charts and tables of the Dashboard and Reports, as a column on View Stock, and in both store lists on Transfer Items.

Adding a store changes nothing inside that store. Its staff, prices, stock and receipts carry on untouched; you have only been given a window onto it.

4. Removing a store, and opening one

Each card under Your stores at the bottom of the Dashboard has three controls:

• Open store — opens that store's own Smart Shop dashboard in a new tab, signed in as its administrator, so you can drill into a branch without logging out of anything. The Open button at the end of each row of the Store performance table does the same.
• Reports — jumps to the Store comparison report.
• ✕ in the top right corner of the card — remove this store. You are asked "Remove this store from your consolidator?" and must click Yes, remove. Cancel leaves everything as it was.

5. Dashboard — choosing the dates and the stores

Two bars sit under the greeting. Everything below them follows what you choose here.

The date bar

Click a shortcut — Today, 7 days, 30 days, This month, Last month, 90 days or This year — or type your own from and to dates in the two boxes. The page reloads as soon as you choose; there is no Apply button. The chosen span is written out on the right, for example 4 Sep – 3 Oct 2026 · compared with the 30 days before.

The Dashboard opens on 30 days the first time, then remembers your last choice on that computer and browser.

The store filter

With two or more stores linked, a row of store names appears under the dates, each with its colour dot. Click a store to leave it out of the figures, charts and tables (it fades); click it again to bring it back. One store always stays switched on. The choice is remembered on that browser and is shared with the Reports page. It does not hide anything from Your stores or Recent transfers.

6. Dashboard — the six headline figures

Six cards add up the stores you have switched on.

Large amounts are shortened (₦140M, ₦908K). Rest the mouse on a card to see the exact figure.

7. Dashboard — Sales by store, and share of sales

Sales by store draws one line per store, day by day (month by month for ranges longer than three months). Rest the mouse on any day to see every store's sales for that day and the total for all of them. The Stacked switch at the top right piles the stores on top of each other instead, so the height of each bar is the group's total for that day; Trend switches back.

Share of sales, beside it, is a ring showing how the period's sales split between your stores, with the group total in the middle and a list underneath giving each store's percentage.

8. Dashboard — Store performance

One row per store with the figures that matter most, and an All stores row at the bottom. Click any column heading to sort by it; click again to reverse the order.

Full comparison at the top right of the table opens the Store comparison report, which has every figure (section 11).

9. Dashboard — Needs your attention, best sellers and recent transfers

Needs your attention

A to-do list the Consolidator builds for you from the period's figures, most serious first. Each line has a link to the report that explains it. It can contain:

Up to six lines are shown; the rest are counted underneath. All clear means there is nothing to flag for the period.

Best sellers

The items that brought in the most money across the stores you have switched on, with the coloured dots of the stores that sold them and the number of units sold. It is built from each store's own top five, so an item that sells steadily in every store but is never in any one store's top five will not appear here — the Items across stores report (All items) has the full list.

Recent transfers

Your last six stock transfers: which store to which, the description, and the date. History opens Transfer History.

10. Dashboard — Your stores

At the bottom of the Dashboard, one card per linked store: its initials in its colour, its name, ID and email, and its Sales and Net profit for the chosen period. The buttons are described in section 4. The dashed Add a store card at the end opens the Add a store window.

11. Reports — your stores side by side

Click Reports in the left menu (or the Reports button on the Dashboard). Seven reports sit on tabs across the top. Every figure in them comes from the stores' own reports — the same numbers each store sees on its own Smart Shop portal — lined up so you can compare.

Choosing what to look at

• Dates — the same date bar as the Dashboard (section 5). It opens on This month and remembers your choice. One date bar serves every tab, so switching tabs keeps the same period.
• Stock & transfers and Money owed always show things as they stand today, so on those two tabs the date bar is replaced by a short note saying so.
• Stores — the same store filter as the Dashboard. Leave stores out to compare just a few.
• Most tables can be sorted by clicking a column heading, and long lists have a search box.
• Print (top right) prints the tab you are on, without the menus — or save it as a PDF from the print window.

The first time you open a tab for a period it gathers the figures from every store, which can take a few seconds with many stores. Coming back to the same tab for the same period is instant.

11.1 Store comparison

Four cards: Total sales and Net profit for the group, the Most profitable store and the Fastest growing store (biggest rise in sales against the period before). Two charts: Sales and net profit per store, and Sales growth — each store's change in sales as a percentage, green for up and red for down. Under them, the Side by side table gives every figure for every store: sales and the previous period, cost of sales, gross profit and gross margin, expenses, net profit and net margin, sales count, average sale, items sold, customers, sold on credit, money received, what customers owe, what the store owes suppliers, stock value and items out of stock. Scroll sideways to see them all.

11.2 Profit & loss

A proper statement: Sales, less cost of sales, gives Gross profit (and gross margin); less expenses gives Net profit (and net margin). There is a column for each store, an All stores column, the group's Previous period, and the Change. Margins change by percentage points (+2.1 pts).

Below it, Where each store's sales went splits every store's sales into cost of sales, expenses and what was left as profit — a store with a short green section keeps little of what it sells. When the period covers two or more months, Net profit by month draws one line per store. Expenses by type lists every expense type with a column per store.

11.3 Sales analysis

Six cards for the group: net sales, number of sales, average sale, items sold, sold on credit, and discounts given, each compared with the period before. Then:

• Sales over time — a bar per day, stacked by store, with a dashed line for the same days of the period before.
• How customers paid — cash, transfer, POS and your other payment types, each bar split by store.
• Busiest times — a grid of days (Monday to Sunday) against hours of the day. The darker the square, the more you sold then. Use it to plan staff and opening hours.
• Who sold — switch between Cashiers, Tills, Sales classes and Payment types to see each one's sales and its share of its store's sales.

11.4 Items across stores

Every item sold in the period, store by store. Top 10 items charts the leaders, stacked by store; switch it between Sales value, Quantity and Profit (the table below follows the same switch). Every item, store by store has a column per store, an All stores total and the margin. A dash means the item did not sell in that store. Use the search box to find an item; the list shows the top 300.

Same item, different price lists items whose average selling price differs by 5% or more between your stores, showing where each is cheapest and dearest. Differences of 20% or more are marked red. If the stores should charge the same, Update prices takes you to Update Prices (section 14).

11.5 Stock & transfers

Four cards: the stock value at cost, its value at selling price, the number of items out of stock (and running low), and how many transfers are suggested.

Suggested transfers is the Consolidator's own idea of what to move, instead of buying more:

• A store is short of an item when it is out of stock, at its reorder level, or will run out within a week at its current speed of sale.
• Another store has it spare when the item has not sold there in the last 30 days, or it holds more than 60 days' worth. The suggestion always leaves the sending store at least 45 days' worth of its own sales.
• The suggested quantity is what the short store needs for about a month, limited to what the other store can spare. Value at cost shows what the stock being moved is worth.

Nothing moves by itself. When you agree with a line, click Transfer items and make the transfer as usual (section 13).

Under it: Stock health by store counts each store's items in five states — Out of stock, Low / reorder, Healthy, Overstocked (more than six months' worth) and Not selling (no sales in 30 days); Store by store gives each store's stock value, counts and batches expiring within 30 days; Stock on hand, every store shows every item with a column per store, coloured red (out), orange (low), blue (overstocked) or grey (not selling) — tick Problems only to see just the shortages; and Batches expiring soon lists batches expiring within 90 days, or already expired, with the store, quantity left and value.

11.6 Money owed

Switch at the top between Customers owe you and You owe suppliers. Four cards give the total, how much is over 90 days and over 60 days old, and any credit (customers who paid ahead, or money paid ahead to suppliers).

How old the balances are splits each store's total into 0–30, 31–60, 61–90 and over 90 days. The older the debt, the harder it is to collect — a long dark section is the one to chase. Who owes the most lists every customer (or supplier) with their store, phone, balance, the part over 90 days, the oldest unpaid invoice and when they last paid. Search by name or phone.

11.7 Expenses

Total expenses for the group against the period before, the biggest expense type and the store that spends the most. Top expense types charts the ten biggest types, split by store; Store by store compares each store's expenses with its previous period; and Every expense type, store by store lists every type with a column per store and the change. A rise in expenses is shown in red.

12. View Stock — the consolidated stock matrix

View Stock answers the question that costs multi-branch shops the most money: we are out of it here — does another branch have it?

It builds one table: one row per product, and one column per store, with that store's quantity in the cell. A zero means that store does not currently hold it. The heading tells you how many stores are in the table.

Three cards sit above it, all of them counts of products:

The bottom row of the table, Products stocked, counts how many different products each store currently holds. It is a count of lines, not a sum of units.

How products are matched across stores

The same product in two stores is recognised by name — trimmed and case-insensitive, so "Peak Milk 400g" and "peak milk 400g " are treated as one row. Each store keeps its own internal item numbers, so the name is the only shared identity available.

Services are excluded. A stock matrix is about physical things; services have no quantity to hold.

Finding things

The search product… box filters the entire catalogue, not just the page you are looking at. The table shows 50 products a page with a numbered pager beneath it, and the line under the table tells you what you are looking at — for example Showing 1–50 of 214 products (filtered from 900). The header row and the totals row stay in place while the rows scroll.

Column headings are shortened when your stores share a long name: branches called "Popsicles by Happie hours (Town square)" and "Popsicles by Happie hours (Lekki)" are headed Town square and Lekki, because the shared part tells you nothing in a narrow column. Hover any heading for the full store name and its Store Id.

If one store's stock cannot be loaded, an orange warning names it and its column reads zero throughout — so a zero you were not expecting always has an explanation on screen.

13. Transfer Items — moving stock between stores

This is the only place in Smart Shop that moves stock from one store to another. It records the movement on both sides: goods leave the source, arrive at the destination, and both stores' stock figures change to match.

Step by step

1. From Store — choose where the goods are leaving from. Do this first; the item list is read from this store.
2. Click Select Items to Transfer. A window lists that store's items with Available, Quantity and Cost columns.
3. Tick an item. Its Quantity box switches on — type how many you are sending. Use the item name… search box and the pager to find things; Item (s) at the top ticks everything on the page at once.
4. Click Add Selected. The window closes and the rest of the form appears.

1. Transaction Date — the date the goods actually moved.
2. To Store — where they are going.
3. Check the table of selected items. New Cost is editable and starts at the source cost — this is the cost the goods will be valued at in the receiving store. Selling Price is what the receiving store will sell each item for (see below). The grey ✕ button removes a line.
4. Type a short transfer description (it is saved in upper case, and it is what you will recognise this transfer by later).
5. Click Validate. Each item is looked up in the destination store by name. A tick means it is already there and will be topped up. "Not in the destination store — it will be created there" means a new item will be made in that store; untick that line's box to leave it out of the transfer instead. The line dims and reads "Left out". Or pick the matching item that store already has from the search box under the message (see below).
6. Click Save. On success the form clears and confirms Item (s) Transferred Successfully.

Adding an item that is already on the list replaces that line with the new quantity, rather than adding a second line for the same item. If you change the To Store after validating, click Validate again — Save checks the items against the store they were validated for.

What the system checks for you

What a saved transfer actually does

• Records a TRANSFEROUT movement in the source store and a TRANSFERIN movement in the destination, each carrying its own cost, so both stores' costing stays honest.
• Reduces the source store's stock figure and increases the destination's by the same quantity.
• If the destination had no such product, creates it — copying the name, item type, reorder level and tax setting from the source, pricing it at the Selling Price on the transfer, and valuing it at the New Cost you entered.
• For an item the receiving store already has, sets that store's price to the Selling Price on the transfer — unless you unticked Update price there on that line.
• For a line you matched by hand with Rename it there ticked, gives the receiving store's item the source item's name.
• Writes the whole thing to Transfer History, where the item list stays available forever.

Matching an item that has a different name

Validate pairs items by exact name. If the receiving store sells the same product under a different name — "Peak 400g Milk" instead of "Peak Milk 400g" — the line says it will be created. Instead, click the search box under that message and pick that store's own item. Before you type, the closest names are listed first; each shows how many that store has and what it sells at.

• Matched: the line reads "Matched to … — the stock is added to it". Nothing new is created. Undo puts the line back to "will be created".
• Its price follows the Update price there tick, like any item that store already has.
• Rename it there to "…" (off by default) gives that store's item the source store's name, so the next transfer pairs them automatically and View Stock shows them on one row.
• Only that store's active items are listed. If you change the To Store, click Validate again — a match only applies to the store it was made for.

Setting the selling price in the receiving store

The Selling Price column is what each item will sell for in the store receiving the goods. It starts at the source store's price, and you can type a different one. After Validate, an item the receiving store already has gets an Update price there tick under its price — ticked by default.

14. Update Prices — new selling prices across several stores

Use this when a price changes group-wide — a supplier puts up the price of milk, and every branch needs to charge the new price. Instead of opening each store and editing each item, give the Consolidator one list of item names and new prices, choose the stores it applies to, check the changes, and confirm once. It is a separate menu from Transfer Items: nothing moves between stores, and no stock changes.

Step by step

1. Click Update Prices in the left menu.
2. 1. Stores to update — tick each store the new prices should apply to, or tick All stores.
3. 2. Where the prices come from — choose one: Excel file — a spreadsheet with two columns, Item_Name and New_Price, on the first sheet. Download sample file gives you the layout. Choose the file and click Validate. Scan a price list — a clear photo of a printed or handwritten price list: item names on the left, prices on the right. A long list can be photographed in parts; choose all the photos together. Pick which store's DocScan units pay for the reading under Use DocScan units from, then click Read photos.
4. The Price Changes table appears. Check it (see below), untick anything you do not want, and correct any price in its New Price box.
5. Click Confirm and Update Prices and answer OK. The page confirms how many prices were changed.

Reading the Price Changes table

Each item in your list is looked up in each store separately, by name, against that store's own items. So one row can be changed in two branches and left alone in a third.

The badge beside Price Changes counts the ticked changes across all stores. Coloured notes above the table tell you when:

• the same item name appeared more than once in your list — the last price for it is used;
• a line was read without a price (usually from a photo) — type one in its New Price box, or it is skipped;
• an item was not found in any of the chosen stores — it is skipped.

Changing which stores are ticked after the table appears rebuilds it for the new set of stores, keeping the prices you typed.

What the system checks for you

What a confirmed update actually does

• Changes the selling price of each ticked item in each ticked store. Nothing else about the item changes — not its name, cost, stock or tax.
• Marks each item as edited, so that store's phones and tills pick up the new price on their next sync. Until a device syncs, it keeps selling at the old price.
• Affects sales from that moment on. Sales already made keep the price they were made at.
• Only touches stores linked to your Consolidator. If a store has been removed in the meantime, nothing in the batch is changed and you are asked to try again.

15. Transfer History

Every transfer you have ever saved, newest first, with a search box and pager over the top.

This is the record to reach for when a branch says stock never arrived, or when two people are not sure whether a movement was entered twice.

16. Stores

The Stores menu item shows one row per store — Sales, Cost Of Sales, Expenses and Profit and Loss — with a Total row, for the period in the from and to boxes at the top right. It opens on the current month; choose other dates and click Apply. The chosen span is printed under the heading.

For a fuller picture with gross profit, margins, the previous period and monthly trends, use Reports → Profit & loss (section 11.2).

17. Profile, and signing out

Profile shows the User Name and Email Address this Consolidator runs under. Both are read-only here.

Your password and account settings live on your main Smart Shop account, not in the Consolidator — the Manage account settings button takes you there. There is nothing to change on this page; it exists so you can confirm which account you are looking at the group through, which matters if you hold more than one.

Logout (menu, or under your name at the top right) signs you out of the Consolidator tab and returns you to its start page. Your main Smart Shop session in the other tab is untouched — closing the Consolidator does not sign you out of your shop.

18. Dates: which control drives what

The Dashboard and Reports remember their dates separately, so they can be on different periods. If figures on the two pages do not agree, check both are on the same dates first — that alone explains most "the numbers don't match" questions. The store filter, on the other hand, is shared by both pages.

19. Known quirks and what to do about them

20. Quick reference

Open the full illustrated guide on matsmartshop.com