SHELF guide
Everything from redeeming your key to reading the shrinkage report. Written for someone who wants to be counting this afternoon, not studying.
The guide
Eight chapters, in the order you'll actually need them.
Buying SHELF sends a licence key to your inbox, usually within a minute. The key is what creates your account — you only ever use it once.
First time in, SHELF asks four things and then gets out of the way. None of it is permanent — all four can be changed later in Settings.
SHELF will take a spreadsheet in almost any shape. The only thing it genuinely needs is a column of product names — everything else is optional and can be filled in later.
Alongside names it will pick up barcode, SKU, category, supplier, cost, price, quantity, low stock level and expiry date if your file has them. There's a template to download if you'd rather start from the right shape.
Everyone who counts gets their own login. Nobody shares an account — that's the whole point, because every figure in your reports carries the name of whoever entered it.
Under More, then Team, give each person an email address and a six-digit PIN. They sign in on their own phone from the Staff tab straight away. There's no confirmation email to wait for.
Counting is blind by default. SHELF hides the figure it expects, so your counter writes down what's actually on the shelf rather than drifting towards the number on screen. You can reveal the expected figure any time with Show expected — but the first pass stays honest.
Phones get handed around during a count, which is normal. Tap Switch to hand over, and the name against each figure changes with it.
Stock changes all week without a count happening. Every one of those changes carries a reason, and the reason is what keeps your loss figures meaningful.
The reasons are Sold, Delivery received, Damaged, Expired or written off, Returned and Correction. Sales, deliveries and returns are ordinary trading. Only corrections, damage and write-offs ever reach your shrinkage figure.
Every report exports to a spreadsheet that opens cleanly in Excel. There's no higher tier — all ten are in the one plan.
Stock movement log — every change, with the reason.
Shrinkage & loss — unexplained loss only.
Count discrepancies — what each count found versus expected.
Stock valuation — what you're holding, at cost and retail.
Reorder needs — everything low, grouped by supplier.
Sales & movement — fastest and slowest movers.
Expiry watch — what's going out of date.
Counter accuracy — who counted what, and how often it matched.
Category breakdown — where your stock value actually sits.
Dead stock — money sitting still on a shelf.
The Reorder list collects everything at or below its low stock level and groups it by supplier, so a purchase list builds itself out of the count you just finished.
Importing a sales CSV needs two columns: a SKU and a quantity sold. Imported sales are recorded as sales — they never appear as shrinkage or loss.
Everything you put into SHELF comes back out. Export products, count history and any report from Settings, whenever you like, including after cancelling.
Quick tour
If you'd rather skim than read, this is the whole app in five taps.
Still wondering
Yes. Whatever was submitted most recently for a product becomes your stock when the count is finished. Earlier figures stay on the record, so you can see it changed and who changed it.
No. Every stock change is recorded with a reason. Sales, deliveries and returns are normal trading and are excluded from loss figures — only count corrections, damage and write-offs count as shrinkage.
Add them under Team with an email and a six-digit PIN. They sign in on their own phone from the Staff tab straight away — there's no confirmation email to wait for. Write the PIN down when you create it: it can never be read back, only replaced.
Yes. Each person has switches for editing products, adjusting stock, finishing counts and seeing reports, enforced properly rather than just hidden from view. Suspending someone blocks them immediately without losing their history.
Stock updates to match what was counted, and each change is logged as a count correction. Anything nobody counted is left alone.
No. The camera on the phone in your pocket is the scanner. If a product has no barcode, type a few letters of its name instead.
Any time, from Settings. Every report exports to a spreadsheet that opens cleanly in Excel — including after you cancel.
Not covered here? Ask us directly
