Accelerate checkout and keep stock accurate with Ferbz’s fast counter billing

Below is a step‑by‑step walkthrough that shows exactly how a typical Australian general‑retail shop would use fast counter billing Ferbz in a busy afternoon. The example follows Sunny’s Corner Store, a family‑run shop in Newcastle that sells groceries, household staples and stationery.

1. Log in to the Ferbz dashboard
   Open a browser on the shop’s POS tablet and sign in with the store’s credentials. The home screen shows the main navigation bar on the left: Dashboard, Billing, Customers, Automation, Broadcasts, Reminders, Reports, Settings.

2. Open the Billing tab
   Click Billing → New Sale. The screen presents three panes:

   • Customer search (top‑left)
   • Product line (center)
   • Summary & Checkout (right).

3. Select the Customer
   Type “Emily Clarke” into the search box. Ferbz pulls up Emily’s profile, showing two previous orders (a bag of rice on 12 Mar and a pack of printer paper on 05 Apr). If the customer were new, the assistant could click Add New Customer and fill in name, phone, and email – all saved instantly to the Customers CRM.

4. Add the items
   In the product line, scan the barcode for “Whole‑grain Rice – 5 kg” (SKU RICE‑5KG). Ferbz pulls the product name, price (AU$9.95), and current stock (28 units). The assistant clicks Add; the line appears with quantity 1, amount AU$9.95, and a running total.
   Next, scan “Dishwashing Liquid – 1 L” (SKU DISH‑1L). Ferbz shows price AU$3.80 and stock 12 units. The assistant changes the quantity to 2 (two bottles) and sees the line update to AU$7.60.

5. Verify stock deduction
   As each line is added, Ferbz automatically reduces the “stock on hand” figure in the background. The Reminders board will later show a low‑stock warning if the remaining quantity falls below the threshold set in the Automation canvas (e.g., 5 units).

6. Apply any discounts or GST notes
   If the store runs a “buy 2 get 1 free” promotion on the dishwashing liquid, the assistant clicks the Discount icon next to that line, selects “Buy 2 Get 1 Free”, and Ferbz recalculates the line amount to AU$7.60 (the free unit is automatically added to the receipt but not charged). GST is not displayed as a separate line; Ferbz records the sale as a GST‑inclusive amount, and the store can later pull the exact GST component from the Reports tab, following ATO guidance.

7. Checkout
   Once all items are entered, the assistant clicks Checkout. Ferbz generates a PDF receipt in real time, stores it in the cloud, and provides a short link (e.g., https://ferbz.com/r/AB12). The assistant can:

   • Print the receipt on the shop’s thermal printer,
   • Email the link to Emily, or
   • Press the Send via WhatsApp button – Ferbz pushes the receipt through the official WhatsApp Business API, and Emily receives a message that reads “Your Sunny’s Corner Store receipt – thank you for shopping with us!”

8. Reminder enrollment
   As soon as the receipt is created, Ferbz looks for any Automation journeys that trigger on “order completes”. In Sunny’s store, the owner has set up an automation called “Reorder Rice in 30 days”:

   • Trigger – “Days since last order = 30” for product “Rice – 5 kg”.
   • Wait – 30 days.
   • Message – “Hi Emily, it’s been a month since you bought our Whole‑grain Rice. Need a fresh bag? Reply ‘YES’ to reorder now.”

   Ferbz automatically enrolls Emily in that journey, and the Reminders board now shows a pending reminder for 30 days from today, status “Scheduled”.

9. Low‑stock alert
   After the sale, the stock for “Rice – 5 kg” drops to 27 units, still above the low‑stock threshold of 5. However, “Dishwashing Liquid – 1 L” falls to 10 units. Because the store’s Automation canvas includes a stock‑monitor journey (“When stock ≤ 10, send restock reminder to staff”), Ferbz instantly creates a reminder for the manager, visible on the Reminders board as “Dishwashing Liquid low – 10 left”. The manager receives a WhatsApp message (via the business API) prompting them to order more from the supplier.

10. Review the transaction
    Back on the Dashboard, the sales widget now shows an additional AU$17.55 in today’s revenue. The Reports tab can be filtered by date range to see the exact contribution of fast counter billing to daily turnover, and the Customers profile for Emily now lists the new order with a clickable receipt link.

11. Repeat for the next customer
    The assistant returns to the Billing → New Sale screen, and the process repeats for the next shopper, all without leaving the counter interface.

Full worked example – numbers
Customer: Emily Clarke
Items:

• Whole‑grain Rice – 5 kg × 1 @ AU$9.95 = AU$9.95
• Dishwashing Liquid – 1 L × 2 @ AU$3.80 = AU$7.60 (Buy 2 Get 1 Free applied)

Total before GST: AU$17.55 (GST already included).
Receipt link: https://ferbz.com/r/AB12
Reminder scheduled: “Reorder Rice” – send on 30 Apr 2026 (today is 30 Mar 2026).
Low‑stock reminder: “Dishwashing Liquid – 10 left”, sent to manager on 30 Mar 2026.

All of these actions happen within a single screen, taking roughly 45 seconds from scan to receipt, compared with the previous manual method of writing a paper receipt, updating a ledger, and noting stock on a separate spreadsheet.

Fast counter billing Ferbz directly attacks the two biggest pain points for Australian general‑retail shops: customer drift and inaccurate stock tracking.

Time saved: In the manual workflow, a clerk spends about 2 minutes per transaction writing a paper receipt, then another minute entering the sale into an Excel sheet, and a further minute ticking off stock on a printed ledger – roughly 4 minutes per customer. With Ferbz, the same transaction completes in 45 seconds. Over a typical 8‑hour day with 30 customers, that’s a saving of 1 hour 15 minutes of labour, which can be redeployed to greet more shoppers or restock shelves.

Revenue recovered: The automated “win‑back” reminder (e.g., “no order in 30 days”) is triggered the instant a sale is recorded. In a pilot at a Melbourne stationery shop, the reminder flow recovered 12 % of customers who had not returned in a month, translating to an extra AU$1 842 in monthly revenue on a baseline of AU$15 350. For Sunny’s Corner Store, the same flow is expected to generate an additional AU$2 310 per quarter, simply by nudging customers at the right moment.

Stock accuracy: Because each sale decrements stock instantly, the Reminders board can flag low inventory in real time. Previously, a paper‑based stock count often lagged by a day or more, leading to missed sales when an item appeared on the shelf but was actually out of stock. With Ferbz, the manager receives a WhatsApp alert the moment stock hits the defined threshold, allowing a reorder within minutes. In a test at a regional hardware store, this reduced out‑of‑stock incidents from 8 per month to 1 per month, protecting roughly AU$4 200 of potential sales.

Compliance and reporting: All receipts are stored as PDFs with a secure link, satisfying ATO record‑keeping requirements without the hassle of scanning paper copies. The Reports module aggregates GST‑inclusive sales, so owners can generate a GST‑summary for their accountant with a single click, rather than reconciling multiple spreadsheets.

Overall, fast counter billing Ferbz transforms a fragmented, error‑prone checkout process into a streamlined, data‑driven operation that saves staff time, recovers lost revenue, and keeps inventory trustworthy – all essential for small retail owners competing against large chains and quick‑commerce platforms.

Ready to cut checkout time in half and keep your shelves accurate? Sign up for a free trial at https://dashboard.ferbz.com/ and explore fast counter billing in a live environment. If you have questions while setting up your first sale, drop us a line at support@ferbz.com – our onboarding team will walk you through importing your customer CSV, configuring low‑stock reminders, and topping up your credit wallet. Start billing faster, tracking stock smarter, and turning one‑off shoppers into repeat customers with Ferbz.