Multi-Branch Management

Multi-branch management means running two or more shops, clinics or gyms from one system instead of several separate ones. The price list is shared, while the stock, the takings and the staff are kept apart branch by branch. That split is the point, because it lets the owner see the whole business on one page each evening without ringing anyone.

The shared half is what saves time, because you change a price once and every branch shows it at the next sale. Add a product once and it appears everywhere, with the option to hide it in the branches that do not sell it. Without that, somebody keeps a spreadsheet, the branches drift apart, and the same item goes out at two different prices in one week.

The separate half keeps the numbers honest, so each branch has its own stock count, its own cash drawer and its own daily total. Moving goods between branches is a transfer rather than a sale, which is why it should leave a record on both sides. Staff see only the branch they work in, and the manager of the second shop should not be able to read the first shop's takings. That is a setting you check yourself, not a promise you accept.

The mistake we meet most often is treating branch two as a copy of branch one, and it rarely is. Opening hours differ, the tax can differ, sometimes even the currency differs, and one branch sells services the other does not. Storek holds those differences as settings on the branch rather than a second installation, which is why a third shop takes an afternoon rather than a project.

The consolidated view is what owners ask for and rarely get, and it is not a pile of separate reports emailed at nine. It is one page showing sales by branch, stock sitting still where another branch has run out, and the hours worked behind both. Most owners read it on a phone between branches, so the phone app and the office screen must show the same numbers. When Linkysoft builds a web application for a growing business, that page is drawn first, because it decides what every branch has to record.

One more question is worth asking, and almost nobody does. What happens on the day a branch closes or is sold, and where does its history go. It should stay readable while dropping out of today's totals, which is why Linkysoft treats a closed branch as a normal state, not a deletion.