A phone, a stall, and every sale counted.

A business that fits on a table

A stall is the simplest food business there is, and the hardest to keep records for. You’re cooking, serving and taking money with the same two hands, often in the dark, often with no signal. At the end of the night there’s a bag of cash, some MoMo on the phone and no real idea whether the day was good.

The phone is the till

There’s no machine. The phone you already carry is the till: the menu as squares, a tap for each order, and the total adds itself up. The Free plan is one person on one till, which is a stall exactly. If you have a helper who takes the money while you grill, Pro gives each of you a PIN, so every sale says who took it.

No signal, no problem

Stalls are where the network is worst. Tabworthy saves every sale on the phone first and catches up by itself when a signal turns up, so the evening’s sales are safe even if you never see a bar of network until you’re home. Cash carries on with no network at all. A MoMo prompt needs a signal to reach the customer’s phone; when there’s none, take cash or let them send it to your number and check later.

Selling offline explains what works without a signal and what doesn’t.

Knowing what’s left

On Pro, stock counts what you set out with, by the piece or the kilo. Drinks by the bottle. Khebab by the stick, or the meat behind it by the kilo, as a supply each stick draws on. Every sale takes itself off, so you know when the chicken’s about to run out without opening the cool box.

When something’s gone, mark it sold out and it greys out on the till, so nobody promises the last tilapia twice.

What the night made

When you pack up, the report has the day: what came in, cash against MoMo, how many sales and what sold most. Set your day to start at the hour that suits you, so a night that runs past midnight counts as one night. And if you want to know which items actually make you money, food cost per plate works it out.

What it doesn’t do yet

It doesn’t know where you’re parked or send customers your location. It doesn’t take orders online or print receipts; the receipt is a picture sent to their WhatsApp. And it can’t send a MoMo prompt without a signal.