The Momentum journal

Field guides for running
more than one store.

Stock, tills, transfers, costing and the books, written for owners and operators of chains, pharmacies, grocers and distributors. Every guide starts with the short answer.

31 guides5 topicsUpdated Sep 29, 2026

Every guide

Four blank price tags hanging on strings against a pale wall
Commerce & POS5 min

How to Stop Selling Below Cost at the Till

Why retailers end up selling below cost (stale prices, overrides, stacked discounts, wrong units) and the controls that stop it, with worked numbers.

An open delivery van loaded with wooden pallets, parked beside stacks of pallets in a yard
Accounting & Finance6 min

Landed Cost Explained for Retailers (With a Worked Example)

What landed cost includes, how to split freight and duty across products by value or by quantity, and why the choice changes your margins.

A shop owner working on a laptop among racks of clothing
Buying Guides6 min

Multi-Store POS Buying Checklist: 30 Questions to Ask Before You Sign

Thirty questions for choosing a POS for several stores, covering offline selling, stock, transfers, purchasing, margin control, accounting and audit.

Fresh vegetables and fruit in baskets on wooden shelves
Inventory Management4 min

FEFO vs. FIFO: Expiry-Based Inventory Rotation for Food & Beverage Retailers

Perishables should rotate by expiry date, not arrival. What FEFO is, when it beats FIFO, and how to make the system enforce it instead of staff memory.

A cashier tapping a point-of-sale screen as a receipt prints
Commerce & POS4 min

Split Tender, Store Credit, and Layaway: The Payment Flexibility Features Retailers Actually Need

Split tender, store credit and layaway look simple in a demo and break in production. What each one needs to work, and what to test before you buy.

Two café owners in aprons standing together in their shop
Operations4 min

Franchise Inventory Management: How to Standardize Operations Across Franchisee-Owned Locations

How franchisors keep catalogues, prices and suppliers consistent across franchisee-owned stores, while each owner runs their own business.

A tall warehouse aisle with high racking full of boxed stock
Inventory Management4 min

Dead Stock and ABC Analysis: How to Find and Clear Inventory That's Killing Your Cash Flow

Find dead stock with ABC analysis and inventory aging, then clear it with staged markdowns, bundles and liquidation that recover the most cash.

A man standing beside stacked cardboard cartons in a busy warehouse
Operations5 min

Receiving Discrepancies: How to Catch Short Shipments, Overages, and Damaged Goods Before They Hit Your Books

Catch short shipments, overages, substitutions and damage at the dock with blind receiving and a resolution workflow, before they become shrinkage.

Two colleagues checking items from a storage box in a stockroom
Operations6 min

Purchase Order Management for Retail: From Manual POs to Sales-Based Replenishment

A structured purchase order process: lifecycle stages, reorder points, sales-based order suggestions and landed cost, from need to received goods.

A customer paying at a salon checkout counter
Commerce & POS6 min

How to Build a Retail Loyalty Program That Actually Increases Revenue

Most loyalty programs reward customers who would have bought anyway. How to design one that changes behaviour, and how to measure if it works.

Cardboard cartons stacked on pallet racking in a warehouse
Accounting & Finance6 min

FIFO vs LIFO vs AVCO: Which Inventory Costing Method Is Right for Your Retail Business?

FIFO, LIFO and weighted average cost compared, with a worked example, what IFRS and the IRS allow, and how to choose for your product mix.

A long stockroom aisle of packed shelving with a person in the distance
Inventory Management6 min

Retail Shrinkage Prevention: How to Find It, Measure It, and Stop It

US retailers reported shrink of 1.6% of sales in 2022. How to calculate your shrinkage rate, find where stock goes and cut losses.

Hardware store shelves of brass fittings with colour-coded labels
Buying Guides7 min

Canadian Retail Software: What US-Built Tools Get Wrong and What to Look For Instead

What Canadian retailers should check in retail software: GST/HST/PST/QST, multi-currency, French for Quebec, Interac, and the payroll gap.

A clothing store owner checking stock on a tablet beside a rail of garments
Buying Guides7 min

Retail ERP for Small Business: How Independent Retailers Get Enterprise-Grade Operations Without the Enterprise Price

What retail ERP means for independent retailers and small chains, what it costs you not to have one, and four questions to evaluate a platform.

Hands using a calculator beside a keyboard on a desk
Accounting & Finance6 min

Why QuickBooks and Your POS Never Quite Sync (And What It's Actually Costing You)

Why QuickBooks and POS syncs break (duplicates, drift, mapping gaps), what reconciliation really costs, and why one system removes the problem.

A smiling shop owner holding up a set of keys in his store
Commerce & POS5 min

How to Switch POS Systems Without Losing Data: A Retail Migration Guide

A step-by-step guide to switching POS systems without losing products, customers or sales history: audit, validate, run in parallel, train.

Staff walking through a large, bright distribution warehouse
Operations6 min

Managing Wholesale and Retail from One Platform: Why Separate Systems Are Costing You

Selling wholesale and retail from separate systems means two stock counts and endless reconciliation. What one system for both channels changes.

A person working through figures with a calculator and a notebook
Buying Guides6 min

Retail POS Total Cost of Ownership: What Vendors Won't Tell You

The monthly fee is only the start. How to model a POS's three-year total cost: processing, per-user fees, add-ons, integrations and reconciliation.

A customer checking out at a tablet point of sale on a busy salon counter
Commerce & POS3 min

5 Signs Your Multi-Location Business Has Outgrown Its POS Software

Five signs a multi-location business has outgrown its POS, from hours of weekly reconciliation to month-ends that take weeks to close.

A hand holding a page of sales charts over a desk with a laptop and calculator
Inventory Management6 min

Demand Forecasting for Retailers, Without the Hype: How to Work Out How Much to Order

A plain-arithmetic demand forecast you can check: daily sales rate, forecast period, stock on hand and on order. Where AI helps and where it doesn't.

A modern clothing boutique with rails of garments and a sunglasses display
Buying Guides4 min

Retail Trends 2026: The Operators Growing Fastest Have One Thing in Common

The retailers pulling ahead in 2026 share one advantage: POS, stock and the books in one system. What that looks like and how to get there.

A cashier serving a customer at the counter of a small shop
Commerce & POS5 min

Offline POS: What Happens When the Internet Goes Down (and What to Ask Your Vendor)

What an offline-first POS keeps doing without internet, what it can't, how sales sync without duplicates, and the questions to ask before you buy.

Pharmacy stockroom shelves filled with boxes of medicines
Inventory Management3 min

Batch and Lot Tracking: A Complete Guide for Retailers and Wholesalers

How batch and lot tracking works, who needs it, how it drives FIFO/LIFO/average costing and expiry control, and how it survives transfers.

A calculator on printed financial reports beside a laptop
Accounting & Finance3 min

Why Your Business Needs Tamper-Evident Accounting Software

How hash-chained, tamper-evident ledgers make edits to past records detectable, and why an audit trail alone isn't enough.

A customer paying a staff member at the counter of a bright shop
Operations3 min

Multi-Location Retail Management: How to Scale Without the Chaos

How to run several stores from one system: a single data model, recorded transfers, per-location and consolidated reports, and offline tills.

A hand ticking off items on a checklist on a tablet
Buying Guides3 min

Retail ERP Buyer's Guide: 7 Features You Can't Compromise On

What to look for when evaluating retail ERP software, and the seven features that decide whether a platform will grow with your business or hold it back.

Momentum by Ltiora

POS, inventory and the books for every store, in one system that keeps selling offline.