Getting started with Snnel in 5 minutes

The hardest part of moving a business onto your phone is not the app. It is finding a quiet half hour between customers to start. The good news is that you do not need half an hour. You can be recording real sales in about five minutes, and fill in the rest of the details over the next few days as you go.

This checklist walks you through the first day in the order that makes sense for a busy shop owner. Follow it once, and by closing time you will have your first receipts, your first numbers on the dashboard, and a clear picture of what to set up next.

Step 1: Sign in with your phone number

Snnel uses your phone number to sign you in. There is no long form and no password to forget. Open the app or go to the dashboard, type your number, and enter the code that arrives by SMS.

Use the number you will keep for a long time, ideally the one your customers and suppliers already know. If you change lines often, pick your most stable one. This number becomes the key to your business records, so treat it with the same care as your Mobile Money line.

Step 2: Create your business

Next, you set up the business itself. Keep it short on day one:

• Business name: the name customers know you by, for example "Auntie Ama Provisions" or "Kofi Phones and Accessories".
• Logo: if you have one, add it. It will show on your receipts and invoices. If you do not, skip it and add one later.
• Location: drop a pin where the shop is. This helps with deliveries and, later, your online store.

That is enough to start. You can come back to the finer settings, like taxes or branches, once you are comfortable.

Step 3: Add products, or just start selling

Many people stop here because they think they must enter every item in the shop before they can sell. You do not. You have two choices.

Option A: add your top products first

Walk to the shelf and add the 10 to 20 items you sell most. For each one, enter the name, the selling price and how many you have. If you sell by weight or length, choose the right unit, such as kg, litre or yard. A fabric seller can sell 2.5 yards of wax print, and a cold store can sell 1.5 kg of chicken, without any rounding.

Option B: sell custom items as you go

If you are in a hurry, make the sale by typing the item name and price at the till. This is perfect for a chop bar where the menu changes, or a busy morning when you just need to record what went out. Over the week, turn your regular custom items into proper products so stock tracking works for them too.

Step 4: Make your first sale and receipt

Now the fun part. Open the point of sale, tap the items the customer is buying, choose how they paid (cash, Mobile Money or card), and complete the sale. A receipt is created straight away.

You can print it on a Bluetooth receipt printer, share it on WhatsApp, or send it by SMS. Each receipt carries a QR code, so a customer can scan it to check the document is genuine.

If a regular customer is buying on credit, record it as a credit sale against their name. It will stay on their account as an unpaid invoice until they pay, so you are not relying on memory or a notebook that can get lost. Our guide on selling on credit without losing your money covers how to keep those debts under control.

Here is what a simple first morning might look like for a provisions shop:

By midday, the shop knows it sold GH₵ 400, that GH₵ 244 came in as cash and Mobile Money, and that Mr Mensah owes GH₵ 156. No guessing at the end of the day.

Step 5: Check your dashboard and reports

At the end of the first day, open the dashboard. You will see today's sales, how customers paid, and your best-selling items. It is worth looking at it every evening for the first week, just to build the habit.

When you want more detail, go to reports. The sales, stock, expenses and profit and loss reports can all be downloaded as PDF or Excel, which is handy when a partner, an accountant or a bank asks for figures. To get a true profit figure, remember to record your expenses too, even small ones like transport and airtime. Our guide to the five records that matter explains which records to keep from day one.

Step 6: Add your staff

If someone else serves customers, add them as staff rather than sharing your own login. Give each person a role with only the permissions they need. A shop assistant might make sales and print receipts, but not delete sales or see the profit report.

When every sale is linked to the person who made it, mistakes are easy to trace and honest staff are never wrongly blamed.

Step 7: Get the app on your phone

You can use Snnel in a browser on a computer, but most owners run the business from their phone. Download the app so it is one tap away. Sales keep recording even when the network drops and sync when it comes back, so a weak signal at the market will not stop you.

Later, look at the extras, such as an online store and payment reminder SMS. None are needed on day one. You can compare what each plan includes on the pricing page.

Five minutes today, a few more each day this week, and your business will have records you can actually trust.