Billing and stock for your medical store, on your phone
Hundreds of medicines, the fever season and the customer who comes every month, all in one place.
The shelf, the fever season and the customer who comes every month
The medicines every regular takes are counted first
A regular who buys the same blood pressure or sugar medicines every month is the customer the shop least wants to lose. Keep those few medicines as items with their own stock, and you will see at a glance when one is low, long before the day he comes in. It is the quiet kind of loyalty: a shelf that never lets him down. The quiet kind of loyalty is a shelf that never lets him down.
The regular's page holds what a low-cost shelf cannot
A low-cost shelf can match a rate, but your counter holds what a new shelf does not: what each regular took, month by month. Keep a page for each regular with every month dated, so you can tell him at the counter what he took last time, and a discount you set for customers who come back shows on his bill.
The monthly strip is sold singly, the supplier's pack is ordered whole
A regular takes one strip of his blood pressure tablets a month, but the supplier sends them by the pack. He does not wait for the supplier, so the last pack must never be the one that runs out before his visit. The count in strips shows how many monthly visits the pack still covers; when it covers two, the order for the next pack goes.
Tools for a counter of strips, bottles and monthly regulars
Low stock warnings
A warning for the medicines that go fast in fever season, before they finish. The warning comes on the phone, not from a customer at the counter.
Orders to suppliers
Note which of the medicines you ordered in the fever weeks arrived, so you know the same day whether what you asked for is on the shelf.
Offers for regular customers
An offer or discount for the customer who buys his blood pressure and sugar medicines every month, even when a low-cost pharmacy is nearby. It is the shop's own answer to the pharmacy down the road.
Where the count goes wrong at a medical store counter
The walk-in, the monthly regular and the clinic all stand at one counter
A person who needs a fever tablet today, a regular who buys the same medicines every month and a clinic next door that takes a stock of syrups and strips are three different customers. One counter serves all of them with one notebook, and the owner keeps in his head who gets what and who owes what.
The days when the whole town has a fever
Dengue cases in Chennai more than doubled to 1,290 in September 2026 from 605 in August, a seasonal rise before the northeast monsoon. Those are the same weeks when the owner's own staff are down with the fever too. The person left at the counter serves the whole queue alone, with no minute to count anything, and nobody to send to the supplier's shop.
A low-cost pharmacy a few shops away
In February 2025 Tamil Nadu launched 1,000 low-cost pharmacies under its Mudhalvar Marundhagam scheme. With that kind of competition, every rupee of profit matters to a private medical store. A medicine that sits unsold on the shelf for months is money stuck. Only the shop that knows what sells and what does not can hold its ground. The customer comparing prices also sees a board outside the other shop that tells him what he could save. A shop that knows which medicines its own regulars take can hold its place.
Questions medical store owners ask
Rules for medical stores keep getting stricter. How does this help?
Gujarat's drug control commissioner said a medical store open at night needs a qualified pharmacist, and a 24-hour chemist should employ at least three. When rules like these are checked, a dated bill for every sale makes the answer easier to give.
The clinic next door takes the same medicine of two companies. Can the bill tell them apart?
Yes. Make a separate item for each company's strip of the medicine and put the strength in the name. The clinic sees its bill line by line, and at the month's end you see which company's strips the clinic uses.
Counting every shelf at night takes hours. Can that be reduced?
Yes. Treat the stock on the phone as the base, and spend the saved time on what only a medical store must do: read the dates printed on the slow strips, because the phone keeps the count and not the date.
A syrup comes in a small and a large bottle. Do I make two items?
Yes. Each bottle size is its own item with its own rate and its own stock. The bill takes the size that was sold, and you see which size the neighbourhood prefers.
A medicine I stock is asked for by two names, the company's and the common one. Can both lead to the same item?
Add the item under the name your customers use and the other name in the item's description. The helper finds it by either, and the stock is one count.
Medical stores across India
Kerala has about 29,000 authorised drug stores, of which 18,000 are private; the rest are chains and government or co-operative outlets such as Jan Aushadhi and Sevana.
The All Kerala Chemists and Druggists Association says 80 to 100 drug stores close in every district each year because business is shrinking.
Karnataka has over 37,130 private pharmacies, according to the state health minister, who said licences of 292 pharmacies were withdrawn in 2023-24.
A Lok Sabha MP in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, said Jan Aushadhi Kendras offer over 2,000 medicines and 300 surgical products at prices cut by 50 to 80 per cent.
Bihar had 1,058 Jan Aushadhi Kendras, government generic-medicine shops, as of 31 December 2025, the Union Health Minister told the Lok Sabha.
West Bengal started Fair Price Medicine Shops in government hospitals in 2012; by 2014, 94 were working, giving 48% to 77% off MRP on 442 basic medicines.
Rajasthan ordered 538 cooperative medicine outlets, including Jan Aushadhi Kendras, open 8 am to 10 pm on 20 May 2026 during a chemists' strike; they stock about 2,000 medicines.