Reference

The retail operations glossary

The terms behind modern retail operations, defined in plain language. Link to it, quote it, settle arguments with it.

POS (point of sale)
The place and system where a sale is completed: till, scanner, payment and receipt. Modern POS is software that also writes the sale into stock and the books.
PLU
Price look-up code: the short number a cashier types for products without a barcode, classically fruit and vegetables.
SKU
Stock keeping unit: the identifier for one distinct product variant. One t-shirt in three sizes is three SKUs.
EAN / barcode
The scannable product code on the packaging. One scan resolves to one SKU, its price and its stock record.
Reorder point
The stock level at which you must order to avoid running out during the supplier’s lead time. Sales per day x lead time + safety stock.
Safety stock
The deliberate buffer above expected demand that absorbs late deliveries and unexpectedly good days.
Lead time
The days between placing a purchase order and sellable stock on the shelf. The single most underestimated number in purchasing.
Days of cover
How long current stock lasts at the current sales pace: stock divided by sales per day.
Dead stock
Stock that has stopped selling but still occupies money and shelf space. Recognising it early is a margin decision, not an admission of defeat.
Shrinkage
The gap between what the system says you have and what is physically there: theft, damage, miscounts, unbooked breakage.
Stocktake
Physically counting stock and correcting the records. With live stock registration it becomes a rolling spot-check instead of a yearly ordeal.
FIFO
First in, first out: sell the oldest stock first. For anything with a date on it, the only defensible rotation.
Purchase order (PO)
The formal order to a supplier: products, quantities, agreed prices and a reference. The document receiving is checked against.
Backorder
An accepted order for stock you do not have yet, to be delivered when it arrives.
Supplier price file
The supplier’s current article numbers and prices. Feeding these into your system is what makes purchase orders and margins accurate.
Margin
Profit as a share of the selling price excluding VAT. A 10 buy / 15 sell product has a 33% margin.
Markup
Profit as a share of the buying price. The same 10/15 product has a 50% markup. Margin and markup are different numbers.
Multi-VAT
Handling several VAT rates correctly in one sale - 9% groceries and 21% non-food on one receipt, each booked at its own rate.
BTW-aangifte
The Dutch periodic VAT return. With per-line VAT registration at the till, the return is an export rather than a reconstruction.
VIES
The European Commission service for validating EU VAT numbers, required in practice for zero-rated B2B trade across borders.
MT940
The SWIFT bank statement file format that makes automated bank reconciliation possible.
Reconciliation
Matching bank statement lines to invoices and payments until the books and the bank agree. Automatable for the clean majority of lines.
Day closure / Z-report
The end-of-day till ritual: counted cash versus registered sales, differences explained, the day sealed.
On account
B2B selling where the customer takes the goods now and pays on invoice terms later - with credit limits and open-balance tracking.
Debtor
A customer who owes you money. Debtor management is the polite, systematic pursuit of your own revenue.
CRM
Customer relationship management: who buys what, on which terms, with which history - so service and pricing follow the relationship.
ERP
Enterprise resource planning: the umbrella term for one system covering sales, stock, purchasing and finance instead of four disagreeing tools.
Audit trail
The unerasable log of who did what, when: corrections, voids, price changes, approvals. The difference between trust and hope.
Offline-capable POS
A till that keeps selling when the internet does not, then syncs back without duplicating or losing a cent.
Zero-touch registration
A new till or device that configures itself on first start instead of needing an engineer - what rolling out store number twelve should feel like.

The system behind the vocabulary

Every term on this page is a working feature of VFusion Retail - one platform, one database, one audit trail.

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