📖 The Ultimate User Guide

What do you want to learn?

1 What is this software? 🧑‍💼 Everyone

Think of your shop's paper notebook — the one where you write what you bought, what you sold, and how much money came in. MadHound StockHound is that notebook, but digital and smart. It counts your stock for you, it never forgets, and it draws nice charts about your business.

Here is the whole idea in one picture:

…and the Dashboard & Reports watch all of this and tell you if you are making a profit 💰

2 Who uses this app? 🧑‍💼 Everyone

Not everyone in a business does the same job. So not everyone sees the same menus. There are four kinds of accounts:

Every menu in this software is like a locked door. Each account is handed a Role — a named key ring 🔑. If you don't have the key, you simply won't see that door — it's not broken, it's just not yours. 🙂 Store Manager and Store Cashier are also tied to one specific store — they only ever see that store's own data, never another store's.

Who can see what (typical setup)

^* Franchise stores don't buy from suppliers directly — Head Office (Admin/Super Admin) sends them stock through a Stock Transfer instead. See Chapter 16.

3 How to log in 🧑‍💼 Everyone

Picture: the login page (drawing of the real screen)

1. Type your email in box 1. This is the email your admin used when creating your account.
2. Type your password in box 2. Nobody can see it — it shows as dots.
3. Click the blue Login button 3. Done! You will land on the Home dashboard.
4. Forgot your password? Click "Forgot password?" 4, type your email, and check your inbox for a reset link. 📧

4 Know your screen 🧑‍💼 Everyone

After login, every page has the same 3 parts. Learn them once, and you know the whole app:

Picture: the 4 parts of your screen

• 1 Sidebar (left, dark blue) — your menu of "doors". Click a name to open that part of the app. You only see doors you have keys for. A single-store shop won't see a "Stores" door at all.
• 2 POS button (top) — one click jumps to the fast-selling cash counter screen.
• 3 Your profile (top right) — change your own profile or log out.
• 4 Work area (middle) — this big space changes depending on which door you opened.

5 One store, or many? 🧑‍💼 Everyone — mostly relevant to 🏢 Admin

If your business is a single shop, this chapter is a two-minute read and then you can move on — everything else in this guide already works for you exactly as written. If you run a franchise — one Head Office plus several branch stores — this is the chapter that ties it all together.

The idea in one picture

Every sale, every purchase, every product's stock belongs to exactly one store. A Store Manager or Store Cashier account is permanently tied to one store — their whole app (dashboard, sales, reports) only ever shows that store. Admin and Super Admin accounts are not tied down — they can see the whole company at once, or zoom into any single store.

Switching between "all stores" and one store (Admin / Super Admin)

Picture: the store-switching dropdown

1. On the Home page, find the store dropdown near the top (only Admin/Super Admin with more than one store see it).
2. Pick "All stores (Head Office)" 1 to see the whole company — the Executive Dashboard (Chapter 6), and every report covering every store.
3. Pick a store's name 2 to "step inside" that store — now the dashboard, products, sales and reports all narrow down to just that one store, exactly like a Store Manager would see it.
4. The dropdown auto-submits the moment you choose — no extra button to click. A small message confirms it: "Now viewing {Store Name}." or "Viewing all stores."

6 The dashboard (Home) 🔑 Needs permission

The dashboard is the report card of your business. You don't type anything here — you just look. It answers: "How is my business doing?" — and which numbers you see depends on whether you're looking at one store or the whole company (see Chapter 5).

🏬 Store Dashboard — what a single store sees

A Store Manager, a Store Cashier, or an Admin/Super Admin who has switched into one store, sees these cards:

If a delivery from another store is waiting for you, a banner appears: "{N} delivery(s) waiting for you to confirm." with a Review Transfers button — see Chapter 16.

🏢 Executive Dashboard — what Admin / Super Admin sees on "All stores"

Below those, a Store Rankings card lists your top 5 stores by this month's sales (columns: Store, Month Sales, Transactions, Alerts) with a "View Full Comparison" button that opens the full Store Comparison page (Chapter 17).

The classic charts — still there, for everyone

Picture: what the dashboard charts look like

• 1 Sales & Purchases (last 7 days) — two bars per day. Navy bar = you sold. Gold bar = you bought. Tall navy bars = good week! 🎉
• 2 This month's donut — one circle showing this month's sales, purchases, expenses and more, as slices. Big slice = big amount.
• 3 Monthly cash flow — green line is money coming in 🟢, orange line is money going out 🟠. You want green above orange.

7 Get ready before your first sale 🔑 Needs permission

You can't sell from an empty shop! Before selling, someone must set up these things once, in this order:

8 ⭐ Your first sale, step by step 🔑 Needs "Sales" access

This is the heart of the app. Follow these steps slowly — after 2–3 sales you will do it in 30 seconds. 😎

1. In the sidebar, click Sales → Create Sale.
2. At the top there is a search box 🔍. Type the product's name (or scan / type its code). A list appears — click the product you want. It jumps into the cart table below.
3. In the cart table, set the Quantity (how many pieces). You can also give a discount for that line if you want. The line total updates by itself. ✨
4. Repeat steps 2–3 for every product the customer is buying.
5. Below the cart you can set Order Tax %, Discount % and Shipping for the whole sale. Not needed? Leave them at 0.
6. Now fill the small boxes:
   • Reference — filled automatically (SL…). Don't touch it. 🙂
   • Customer — pick who is buying.
   • Date — today is already filled in.
   • Status — Completed = goods handed over (stock goes down NOW). Pending / Shipped = not delivered yet.
   • Payment Method — Cash, Credit Card, Bank Transfer, Cheque or Other.
   • Amount Received — how much money the customer gave you. Click the little ✔ button next to it to auto-fill the full amount. If they paid less, type the smaller number — the rest is remembered as due.
7. Click the blue Create Sale ✔ button. Done! 🎉
8. You land in All Sales. Find your sale in the list and use the ⋮ action menu to view it, print the invoice 🖨️, or add a payment later when the customer pays the due.

9 Fast selling with POS 🖥️ 🔑 Needs "POS" access

POS means Point of Sale — the cash counter screen. It does the same thing as "Create Sale", but faster and more visual. Perfect when a queue of customers is waiting. 🏃

1. Click the round blue POS button at the top of any page.
2. You see your products as picture cards. Click a card — it drops into the cart on the side. You can filter by category to find things faster.
3. Change quantities in the cart if needed.
4. Pick a customer. If your shop has the Loyalty Program switched on and this customer has tokens, a "Loyalty Wallet" card appears showing their balance, like "320 tokens (₹32 redeemable)".
5. Want to use their tokens as a discount? Type how many in the "Apply Tokens" box (it won't let you go over their max redeemable amount). The cart shows a "Token Discount" line subtracting it.
6. If this sale will earn the customer new tokens, you'll see a green line: "This sale will earn {N} tokens." — nothing to do, it's automatic. See Chapter 19 for the full picture.
7. Click Proceed / Pay, enter the amount received, and confirm.
8. A small receipt is ready to print for the customer. 🧾

10 Products & barcodes 📦 🔑 Needs "Products" access

Create a category first (a shelf label)

1. Sidebar → Products → Categories.
2. Type a name like "Drinks" or "Snacks" and save. That's it — 10 seconds. ⏱️

Create a product

1. Sidebar → Products → Create Product.
2. Fill the important boxes:
   • Name — what you call it. e.g. "Cola 500ml".
   • Category — pick the shelf label you made.
   • Code — the product's ID / barcode number.
   • Quantity — how many you have right now.
   • Cost — what YOU pay for it. 🛒
   • Price — what the CUSTOMER pays you. 🧾
   • Unit — piece, kg, litre… (from Settings → Units).
   • Alert quantity — "warn me when stock gets this low." 🔔
3. You can also add a photo 📷. Then click save.

Print barcodes 🏷️

1. Sidebar → Products → Print Barcode.
2. Search the product, choose how many stickers, and print. Stick them on your goods — then at sale time you can just scan. 🔫

11 Buying stock (Purchases) 🛒 🔑 Needs "Purchases" access

A purchase is the opposite of a sale: you buy from a supplier, money goes out, and stock goes UP ⬆️. If you learned Chapter 8, you already know this screen — it's the same dance:

1. Sidebar → Purchases → Create Purchase.
2. Search products and add them to the cart (yes, same as a sale).
3. Set quantities — how many you are buying.
4. Pick the Supplier, the date, and set the Status — Completed means the goods arrived, and stock goes up immediately.
5. Enter how much you paid the supplier (partial is fine — the app tracks what you still owe).
6. Save. Check Products → All Products — the stock numbers just grew. 🌱

12 Returns ↩️ 🔑 Needs "Returns" access

Sometimes goods travel backwards. There are two directions:

1. Open Sale Returns → Create Sale Return (or the purchase version).
2. Add the returned products to the cart and set the quantity being returned.
3. Pick the customer (or supplier), save — stock and money records fix themselves automatically. 🧮

13 Quotations 💬 🔑 Needs "Quotations" access

A quotation is a price promise, not a sale. A customer asks: "How much for 100 chairs?" — you build a quotation and give it to them. No stock moves. No money moves. It's just a nice printed offer.

1. Sidebar → Quotations → Create Quotation.
2. Add products and quantities, exactly like a sale.
3. Pick the customer and save. Print it or send it to the customer. 📄
4. If the customer says YES 🎉 — open the quotation in All Quotations and turn it into a real sale from its action menu. No retyping!

14 Expenses 💡 🔑 Needs "Expenses" access

Not all money leaves through purchases. Rent, electricity, tea for the staff ☕ — these are expenses. Write them down here so your profit numbers tell the truth.

1. First make groups: Expenses → Categories → e.g. "Rent", "Electricity", "Salaries".
2. Then: Expenses → Create Expense → pick the category, the date, the amount, and a short note.
3. Save. The dashboard and Profit/Loss report now include it automatically.

15 Customers & suppliers (Parties) 👥 🔑 Needs "Parties" access

"Parties" = all the people your shop deals with. There are two lists:

1. Open the list and click Add Customer (or Add Supplier).
2. Fill in name, phone, address… and save.
3. From the list you can later view, edit or delete each one.

16 Stores & stock transfers 🏬 🏢 Admin & Super Admin (receiving stock is also 🏬 Store Manager)

This whole chapter is only for a multi-store (franchise) setup. A single-shop business can skip it entirely.

Create or edit a store

1. Sidebar → Stores → Add Store (to edit one instead: Stores → All Stores → open it → Edit Store).
2. Fill in the basics: Store Name*, Store Code* (letters/numbers only, up to 10 characters — this appears in every document number for the store, e.g. SL-BLR01-00001), and Type (Store or Warehouse).
3. Optional details: Owner / Franchisee, Phone, Email, GST Number (printed on that store's invoices), Opening Date, and full Address / City / State / Country / Postal Code.
4. Status — Active or Inactive. Users of an inactive store can't log in.
5. When editing an existing store, you can also pick a Store Manager from a dropdown — but only users already assigned to that store show up here, so create the user first (see Chapter 20).
6. Save. The new store starts with zero products and zero stock — see the next two sections to give it something to sell.

Give a store its products (Allocate Products)

Creating a product doesn't automatically make it sellable everywhere. Allocating a product to a store is like saying "yes, this store is allowed to sell this item" — it does not by itself give the store any stock quantity (that's the next step, Stock Transfers).

1. Open the store: Stores → All Stores → click the store → Allocate Products.
2. Use Search and the Category filter to find what you're looking for, or tick "Allocated only" to see just what's already switched on.
3. Flip individual products on/off with the Yes/No toggle next to each row, or use "Allocate all shown" / "Withdraw all shown" to do it in bulk for everything the current filter is showing (both ask you to confirm first).

Move stock between stores (Stock Transfers)

This is how a franchise store actually gets goods to sell — Head Office (or another store) sends stock, and the destination confirms it arrived.

(A Pending transfer can instead be Cancelled. An In Transit one can instead be Rejected by the destination — stock returns to the sender.)

Sending stock (Head Office / Admin)

1. Sidebar → Stores → Stock Transfers → Create.
2. If you can see every store, a "Sending from" switcher sits above the form — pick whichever store you're sending out of there (it also refreshes the product search below to that store's own stock). Then pick To* (the destination store) and the Date.
3. Search products and add them with quantities, just like building a sale's cart. Add a Note if useful.
4. Choose how to save: "Save as Pending" (stock stays put, decide later) or "Save & Dispatch" (stock leaves your store right now — you'll be asked to confirm).
5. If you saved as Pending, open it later from the list and click Dispatch when ready (or Cancel if it's not needed anymore).

Receiving stock (Store Manager)

1. You'll see a banner on your dashboard when something is In Transit to you (Chapter 6), or open Stores → Stock Transfers directly.
2. Open the transfer. Each line shows an editable "Actually received" quantity, defaulting to what was sent — adjust it down if a box arrived short or damaged.
3. Click Confirm Receipt — the stock lands in your store immediately. If you received less than was sent, the shortfall is automatically recorded (never silently lost) as a stock write-off.
4. Something is completely wrong with the shipment? Click Reject Whole Transfer instead, type a Reason*, and confirm — every unit returns to the sender's stock.

Add a user to your own store

You don't need full User Management access to grow your own team.

1. Open your store's page: Stores → All Stores → click your store.
2. Click Add User. It opens the same account-creation form as Chapter 20, with your store already picked for you.

17 Store comparison 📊 🏢 Admin & Super Admin

One table, every store, side by side — the fastest way to spot your best and worst-performing branches.

1. Sidebar → Stores → Store Comparison.
2. Read the table: Store, Today's Sales, Month Sales, Transactions, Inventory Value, Profit, Returns, Customers, Alerts.
3. Click any column heading to sort by it — click again to flip between highest-first and lowest-first.
4. The Alerts column flags stores with low-stock items or incoming transfers waiting to be confirmed.

18 Reports & exports 📈 🔑 Needs "Reports" access

Reports answer questions about your business. Pick a date range (like "this month"), and the app does all the maths. Here's which report answers which question:

1. Sidebar → Reports → pick a report.
2. Choose the dates (and customer/supplier if you want to zoom in).
3. Click Filter Report. Read the table — the app already did the maths. 🧮

🏬 Extra filters for Admin & Super Admin

When you can see more than one store, every report grows extra boxes:

• Store — narrow the report to one store, or leave it on "All Stores".
• Cashier — who handled it. Only appears on the Sales Report — the other documents don't record which staff member created them.
• Payment Method, Category — narrow by how it was paid or what kind of product.
• Invoice Reference — search for one exact document, e.g. SL-BLR01-00001.
• Min Amount / Max Amount — only show transactions in a value range.

Exporting a report

Every report has three download buttons, always in the same place near the filters:

The export always uses whatever filters and dates you currently have set — filter first, then export, and the file matches exactly what's on screen.

19 Loyalty program 🎁 🏢 Settings: Admin & Super Admin. Using it at the till: 🧑‍💼 Everyone

Reward returning customers automatically — they earn tokens on every purchase, and can spend those tokens as a discount on a later sale.

Turning it on and tuning the rules

Sidebar → Settings → Loyalty Program. Switches:

• Enable Loyalty Program — the master switch. Off means no tokens anywhere, ever.
• Round Down Rewards — when a sale doesn't earn a whole number of tokens, always round down (never up) — so the shop never over-pays a reward.
• Allow Partial Redemption — off means a customer must use their whole balance at once, or none of it.
• Enable Manual Adjustments — lets a Super Admin hand-correct a customer's balance with a reason on file.
• Future Token Expiry — reserved for later; tokens don't expire yet even if this is on.

Reward & redemption numbers:

A live "Preview Reward Calculation" box lets you type a sample bill amount and instantly see the tokens it would earn and their redeemable value — test your settings before saving.

Using tokens on a sale

Covered fully in Chapter 9 (POS) — pick a customer, their Loyalty Wallet balance appears, apply tokens as a discount, and new tokens are earned automatically on checkout.

A customer's full token history

1. Open the customer: Parties → Customers → click their name.
2. The Loyalty Wallet card shows Current Balance, Redeemable Value, Total Earned, Total Redeemed, Total Orders and Lifetime Purchases.
3. Below it, a Token History table lists every Earned / Redeemed / Adjustment entry with the invoice, bill amount, tokens, value, and running balance.
4. If Enable Manual Adjustments is on and you're Super Admin, an Adjust Balance button opens a small form: Tokens* (positive to add, negative to remove) and Reason* — every adjustment is kept on the record.

20 Superuser zone 👑 👑 Super Admin (user creation is also 🏢 Admin & 🏬 Store Manager, for their own store)

This chapter is for whoever manages the team. It covers creating accounts and deciding which doors each person can open — see the four roles again in Chapter 2.

Step 1 — Create a role (a key ring 🔑)

1. Sidebar → User Management → Roles & Permissions → Add Role.
2. Give it a job name, like "Cashier" or "Store Keeper".
3. You now see a long list of checkboxes — every checkbox is a key to one door (see products, create sales, view reports…). Tick only what that job needs.
4. Save the role.

Picture: a cashier only gets the sales keys

Step 2 — Create the user and hand them the key ring

1. Sidebar → User Management → Create User (a Store Manager instead uses the Add User button on their own store's page — see Chapter 16).
2. Fill in their name, email and password (you can also add a photo).
3. Pick the Role you made — this is the moment you hand over the keys. 🤝 (Super Admin itself never appears in this list — it can't be assigned here.)
4. Multi-store only: if you can see every store, a Store dropdown appears — "Which store this user belongs to and will see data for." Head Office is labelled clearly. If you're a store-bound creator, this box doesn't appear at all — the new user is placed straight into your own store.
5. Keep Status set to Active, and save. They can log in right now with that email and password.

Managing the team later

• Someone left the company? Open All Users → edit → switch Status to Deactive. They can't log in anymore — a deactivated user sees a clear message at login.
• Job changed? Just change their role. Their menus change on their next page load — like magic. 🪄
• Moving to a different store? Change the Store dropdown on their edit page — it takes effect immediately on their very next click.

21 Settings ⚙️ 🏢 Admin & Super Admin (System Reset is 👑 Super Admin only)

Set these once, then forget about them:

System Reset — read this twice before clicking 🚨

1. Only Super Admin even sees this menu item: Settings → System Reset.
2. The page first shows exactly what will be permanently deleted (in red, with row counts) and what will be preserved (in green), so read it before going further.
3. Click Reset System…. A modal asks you to type the word RESET before the Permanently Reset button even becomes clickable.
4. The app automatically takes a full backup first — the wipe literally cannot run until that backup succeeds — then wipes the data, resets counters, and verifies the result. Every attempt is logged with who ran it and when.

22 Help! Something looks wrong 🆘 🧑‍💼 Everyone

23 Word dictionary 📚 🧑‍💼 Everyone

Big words, explained small: