GROCERY POINT OF SALES

SCHOOL OF SCIENCE

DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE

BITC 414: RESEARCH PROJECT

SUBMITTED BY:

GRACE NJENGA

BIT/004/20

Supervisor: DR. FRANCIS MUSEMBI

THIS PROJECT IS SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF SCIENCE, DEPARTMENT

OF MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF ELDORET,
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT AS A REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF
BACHELORS DEGREE IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY.

2024
 DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the work reported in this project work on Grocery Point of Sale
submitted to University of Eldoret is my original work done in the form of partial
requirement for the degree of Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology.

The material contained in the report has not been submitted to any University or
Institution for the award of any degree.

Student Name ……………………………………. Date…………….

Student signature…………………………………

Supervisor name…………………………………... Date………………..

Supervisor signature………………………………

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This project is prepared in the partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of
Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. The satisfaction and success of
completion of this task would be incomplete without heartfelt thanks to people whose
constant guidance, support and encouragement made this work successful. On doing
this undergraduate project, I have been fortunate to have help, support and
encouragement from many people I would like to acknowledge them for their
cooperation.

My first thanks go to University of Eldoret for designing such a worthy syllabus and
making us do this project. My next batch of thanks goes to my friends without whose
help my project would have been impossible.

My very sincere and heartfelt thanks go to my project supervisor for his guidelines.

This project has been a wonderful experience where I have learnt and experienced
many beneficial things.

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 ABSTRACT
This project is aimed at developing a web-based application named Grocery Point of
Sales for managing the medium and small groceries for small grocery businesses. The
Grocery Point of Sales refers to the system and processes to manage the stock of a
small grocery business with the involvement of technology systems. This system can
be used to store the products in the grocery store, stock update based on the sales
details, generation among more.
In this system I am trying to solve different problems affecting small to medium
groceries owners and thus providing a seamless management of smaller grocery
stores and ‘mama mboga’ businesses. The system is important and ensures quality
control in small-medium grocery businesses that handle transactions revolving
around grocery consumer goods. Without proper system control, even that small
grocery store may run out of stock on a grocery item, or the grocery manager may fail
to manage their finances well. A Grocery POS will help the wholesaler when it is time
to record products and make sales easily.
An automated Grocery POS helps to minimize the errors while recording the grocery
stock.
Grocery shopping is one of the activities that some people consider part of their life,
while others do not even think of it. This comparison makes us discover Grocery
owners’ problems while conducting their daily Grocery business. The owners have
shopping problems such as limited time, and handling grocery transactions manually.
With these problems in mind, I have built this application to combine different
common activities occurring within any small-size grocery. The application helps
manage all such services and activities effectively. Grocery owners can use this system
to add grocery items based on category. They can also manage their transactions with
customer through effective accountability of reports generated per daily sales.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION..................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................ iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS .........................................................................................................v
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ vii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER ONE ...................................................................................................................... 1
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Introduction to Grocery POS ....................................................................................... 1
1.2 Problem Statement ........................................................................................................ 1
1.3 Objectives of the Project ............................................................................................... 2
1.4 Scope of the project ....................................................................................................... 2
CHAPTER TWO...................................................................................................................... 3
LITERATURE REVIEW.......................................................................................................... 3
2.1 Background study ......................................................................................................... 3
2.2 Common POS Systems for Grocery Stores ................................................................ 4
2.2.1 Single Dashboard POS ............................................................................................... 4
2.2.2 Fully-Online POS ........................................................................................................ 4
2.2.3 POS with Integral Features ....................................................................................... 4
2.2.4 Large Store POS Systems .......................................................................................... 5
CHAPTER THREE .................................................................................................................. 6
ANALYSIS AND DESIGN .................................................................................................... 6
3.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 6
3.2 Requirement Analysis................................................................................................... 6
3.2.1 Grocery POS Requirement ........................................................................................ 6
3.2.2 User Requirements ..................................................................................................... 7
3.3 Feasibility Analysis ....................................................................................................... 7
3.3.1 Economic feasibility ................................................................................................... 7
3.3.2 Technical Feasibility ................................................................................................... 7
3.3.3 Operational Feasibility .............................................................................................. 7

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 3.3.4 Schedule feasibility .................................................................................................... 8
E-R diagram for the Grocery Point of Sales ..................................................................... 8
UML Sequence diagram ..................................................................................................... 9
UML class diagram ........................................................................................................... 10
CHAPTER FOUR .................................................................................................................. 11
METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................. 11
4.1 Choice of methodology .............................................................................................. 11
4.2 Iterative model ............................................................................................................. 12
Program development life cycle...................................................................................... 13
CHAPTER FIVE .................................................................................................................... 14
IMPLEMENTATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROCESS............................................... 14
5.1 Technical specification: ............................................................................................... 14
5.2 Development: ............................................................................................................... 14
CHAPTER SIX ....................................................................................................................... 15
DISCUSSION AND RESULTS ............................................................................................ 15
6.1 Login page .................................................................................................................... 15
6.2 Dashboard page ........................................................................................................... 15
6.3 Product list page .......................................................................................................... 16
6.4 Add product page ....................................................................................................... 16
6.5 Sales list page ............................................................................................................... 17
6.6 Sales receipt .................................................................................................................. 17
CHAPTER SEVEN ................................................................................................................ 18
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ................................................................. 18
7.1 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 18
7.2 Recommendation......................................................................................................... 18
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 19

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 LIST OF FIGURES
Fig 3.1 E-R diagram for the GPOS ........................................................................................ 8
Fig 3.2 UML sequence diagram for the Grocery POS ........................................................ 9
Fig 3.3 UML class diagram for the GPOS .......................................................................... 10
Fig 6.1 Login page for the GPOS ......................................................................................... 15
Fig 6.2 User’s dashboard after login into GPOS ............................................................... 15
Fig 6.3 Page for products ..................................................................................................... 16
Fig 6.5 Page to show sales made over a given period ..................................................... 17
Fig 6.6 Receipt generation for the GPOS ........................................................................... 17

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 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
POS – Point of Sales

GPOS – Grocery Point of Sale

viii
 CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction to Grocery POS
The project Grocery POS is a complete desktop-based application designed on Django
framework and Python technology using Visual Studio Software. The main aim of the
project is to develop a Grocery Point of Sales Model software in which all the grocery
information and services of a small grocery store will be presented, and managed with
report generation. It is an intranet-based desktop application which has the admin
component to manage the grocery store and the related sales and services associated
with it.

This desktop application is based on the management of a small to medium grocery

store. The application contains general grocery profile, sales details, purchase details
and the remaining products in the grocery. There is a provision of updating the
grocery store also. This application also provides the remaining balance of grocery
stock as well as the details of the balance of transaction.

Each new stock is created and entitled with the name and the entry date of that stock
and it can also be updated any time when required as per the transaction or the sales
is returned in case. Here the login page is created in order to protect the management
of the Grocery store and prevent it from the threads and misuse of the inventory.

1.2 Problem Statement

Before building the Grocery POS application, there were a range of challenges to
encounter.

The problem statement to the development of this Grocery Point of Sales includes:

❖ To make desktop-based application of Grocery Point of Sales for a small to

medium grocery store.
❖ To make the POS secure and easily manageable even by a person who isn’t
tech-savvy.
❖ To cover various areas of Grocery Store services like purchase details, sales
details and stock management.

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1.3 Objectives of the Project
The objectives of the Grocery Point of Sales system include:

❖ To develop an application that deals with the day-to-day requirement of any

grocery store.
❖ To handle the grocery details like products details, categories, transactions
among others.
❖ To provide detailed information about sales and products within the grocery
store.
❖ To enhance sales reporting and analysis
❖ To increase inventory management and tracking
❖ To ensure easy manageability of any small Grocery store especially in local and
remote areas.

1.4 Scope of the project

The Grocery POS is targeted to the small or medium groceries which doesn’t have too
many complexities in management that is, that has single power of authority. Some of
the scopes are:

❖ Only the super users can access the system and perform every service related
to the grocery store. In this case, super user privileges are assigned to the
grocery store owner.
❖ The Grocery POS is security driven.

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 CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Background study
This chapter give emphasis to the previous researches about the Point-of-Sale System,
the technology’s impact in the small grocery stores, Software Quality Models for
evaluating such systems, their advantages and disadvantages.

In modern conditions of globalization and development of information technology,

information processing activities have come to be seen as essential to success of
businesses and organizations. Information has become essential to make decisions
and crucial assessment in small grocery stores, where grocery stock management and
transaction handling are necessary.

Information technology has become a vital component in even smaller entities and
continues to make a big impact in all sectors of the economy. Deployment of
technology in any product store leads to higher sales, reduced expenses and increased
gross margins which have ultimately produced an increase in the overall profitability
of some stores. In over the past fifteen years more and more independent business
persons have installed software and hardware in their stores for the purpose of
collecting sales data in the last five years. The efficiency in such operations relies in
fundamentals of information flow and transparency, and that managing information
has become the core of competency in every day businesses. Several threats affect the
survival of small, independent retail stores and the use of such information systems
like the POS system offers important benefits to counter these threats.

Products are considered as the business resources for most local grocery stores. This
includes managing the product in appropriate ways to review them at any time as per
the requirements. Therefore, it is important to have a computer-based Grocery POS
which has the ability to generate reports, details about the purchases and sales in the
grocery store. This can be used by the small groceries for the management of their
grocery stock and finances.

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2.2 Common POS Systems for Grocery Stores
In grocery stores, the point-of-sale systems play a huge role. It not only allows grocery
owners to process transactions quickly but also provides the staff with data on
inventory. The following are common POS Systems for Grocery stores.

2.2.1 Single Dashboard POS

It is a POS software that is perfect for grocery stores. The simplicity behind this POS
system takes away many stressors. It contains a single dashboard for ease of access
and user-friendly capabilities. This is important when training new hires and ensuring
current employees understand how the system works.

These systems can also usually manage customer profiles and social media posts on
the same dashboard. This makes it a much updated software that is sure to keep up
with the needs of any grocery store. If statistics are needed, many POS systems such
as this are able to automatically track sales, order history, and obtain product
information.

2.2.2 Fully-Online POS

Nowadays, it is uncommon to encounter any business unfamiliar with cloud-based
systems. This has been steadily on the rise as one of the best types of POS systems to
date. It works on all devices, and it often has the capability to efficiently manage online
payment processing.

Along with its insights and analytics, cloud-based software can also produce card
readers for actually receiving monetary transactions on site. No traditional card reader
is required with most cloud-based systems, and many companies enjoy this element
because of the technical errors that can sometimes occur when using older hardware
and POS systems.

2.2.3 POS with Integral Features

This type of software is specifically designed with grocery stores in mind. It allows for
all of the necessary POS functions while also providing assistance with discounting
options, creating and accepting coupons, and maintaining ongoing sales campaigns.

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Integrated POS systems can also generate purchase orders automatically and help
keep track of inventory needs with its useful tools. This makes for efficient
transactions and faster checkout times, perfect for keeping any business running
smoothly. Several grocery stores are already thriving because their management
teams use integrated software to handle sales needs.

2.2.4 Large Store POS Systems

This option is great for larger stores or stores with several locations. It is fully
integrated to help managers and employees alike. With its cloud-based software, POS
systems designed for larger staffing can process sales transactions easily, have the
option to run locally in case the WiFi becomes unstable, and are equipped with tools
to manage inventory and restocking. This allows for easy integration, regardless of
which other hardware is already in use. These are all great assets to grocery stores to
keep them operating efficiently.

Since a grocery store PoS system is essential, it is very important for those in charge to
know exactly which ones are considered the very best on the market. Having an idea
of the features and perks involved makes the decision easy and allows for the efficient
handling of necessary monetary transactions.

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 CHAPTER THREE
ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
3.1 Introduction
The project included different techniques to collect the data that can clearly give us
the overall image of the application. The techniques used were interviews with other
developers, visiting online websites that are presented as the templates and exploring
other Grocery Point of Sale Systems. Basically, the following factors forced to
development of the Grocery Point of Sales.

❖ Cost and affordability

❖ Lack of Grocery stock management.
❖ Effective flow of stock transfer and management.
❖ Difficulty in monitoring the Grocery store stock management.

3.2 Requirement Analysis

Several requirements for project require a primitive research, website visits, and
interviews to the concerned personnel and their experiences regarding the concepts
of its Grocery Point of Sales system development. Thus, building the similar types of
application with different logic flow and new language (Django) which will be
suitable for the small grocery store systems.

3.2.1 Grocery POS Requirement

The goal for the application is to help small grocery store owners manage their
products, transactions among more in their groceries. Once it is automated, all the
functions can be effectively managed and the grocery store can achieve the
competitive advantage. The system requires that the user- grocery owner to
experience a seamless experience in conducting their grocery business. Therefore,
requirements from the user by the system include:

❖ The ability to group grocery products in their categories.

❖ Accessibility of detailed information about the product sales and purchase.
❖ Access to brief information of the Grocery store daily status in terms of sales
and transactions made.

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 ❖ To know the balance and details of sales made in specific dates in the Grocery
store.
❖ All transaction can be accounted for.
❖ Only the super user (local grocery store owner) can access the POS.

3.2.2 User Requirements

The grocery owner is the super user of this Grocery POS and therefore they have total
privileges to make adjustments to the Grocery store – addition of products and
product categories, initiating transactions as well as generating reports among others.

Some of the user requirements in this system include:

• Ability to check the stock available in the Grocery Store.

• Ability to check and account for all transactions made per day.

3.3 Feasibility Analysis

This system has been tested for various feasibility criterions from various point of
views.

3.3.1 Economic feasibility

The system is estimated to be economically affordable. The system is a medium scale
desktop application and affordable. The benefits include increased efficiency,
effectiveness, and the better performance. Comparing the cost and benefits the system
is found to be economically feasible.

3.3.2 Technical Feasibility

Development of the Grocery POS requires use of open-source software and therefore
no software are paid for. Therefore, the entire development process of this system is
technically feasible.

3.3.3 Operational Feasibility

The system provides a better solution to the libraries by adding the typical
requirement and necessities. The solution provided by this system will be acceptable
to ultimate solution for the stock management.

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3.3.4 Schedule feasibility
The organized schedule for the development of the system is presented in the
schedule sub-section. The reasonable timeline reveals that the system development
can be finished on desired time framework.

E-R diagram for the Grocery Point of Sales

Fig 3.1 E-R diagram for the GPOS

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UML Sequence diagram

Fig 3.2 UML sequence diagram for the Grocery POS

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UML class diagram

Fig 3.3 UML class diagram for the GPOS

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 CHAPTER FOUR
METHODOLOGY
The main aim of this chapter is to transform the user requirements to a form
implementable using a programming language.

4.1 Choice of methodology

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is used in order to develop complete a
project. By definition SDLC is a set of steps used to create software applications,
consisting of Planning, Analysis, and Design and Implementation phases.

There are many process models that can be used to come up with a good software.
They each have advantages and disadvantages and they are normally applied
according to the type of software being developed, timeframe for the development
period and other valid reasons. The methodologies include waterfall model,
prototyping model, rapid application development (RAD) and iterative waterfall
model.

Iterative Waterfall Model is the extension of the waterfall model which is almost
identical to the waterfall model except some modifications are made to improve the
performance of the software development. It provides customer’s feedback paths
from each phase to its previous phases. There is no feedback path provided for
feasibility study phase. Iterative waterfall allows to go back on the previous phase and
change the requirements and some modification can done if necessary. This model
reduces the developer’s effort and time required to detect and correct the errors. In
iterative waterfall model, next phase can only begin when the previous phase is
completed as waterfall model.

The phases of Iterative waterfall model are listed below:

❖ Requirement Analysis
❖ Feasibility Study
❖ Software Design
❖ Coding/Implementation
❖ Software Testing

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 ❖ Software Deployment
❖ Software Maintenance

Fig 1.5 Waterfall model

4.2 Iterative model

The iterative waterfall model was chosen as the methodology in this project due to the
following advantages:

❖ It is very easy to understand and use.

❖ Every phase contains feedback path to its previous phase.
❖ It is simple to make changes or any modifications at any phase.
❖ Developer using this phase can complete a project earlier.
❖ Customer involvement is not required during the software development.

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Program development life cycle

Fig 1.3 Iterative waterfall model

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 CHAPTER FIVE
IMPLEMENTATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
One of the key features of this system is to develop a grocery Point of Sales for the
grocery users. The development of the grocery POS takes a number of steps with
inclusion of a wide range of software. The first step includes downloading and
installing all the necessary packages needed to develop the web application. Before
development of the system, some of the software is installed as shown in technical
specification below:

5.1 Technical specification:

❖ Language: python 3.8.3

❖ Library: bootstrap3

❖ IDE: Pycharm

❖ Framework: Django (latest version 4.1 or above)

❖ Text editor: sublime text, VS code

❖ Browser: Google Chrome, Edge

❖ Front end: Html, CSS, JavaScript

❖ Database: SQLite3

❖ Documentation, diagram and presentation: Microsoft Office, PowerPoint

5.2 Development:
After installing all above packages and library, it’s time to develop the ecommerce
system. First front-end part is made just like a wireframe with the help of html, css,
JavaScript and bootstrap using Vs code as a text editor. After that, front end is
connected to backend database SQLite3 with the help of python and Django. The
database is designed like the above-mentioned as illustrated in the entity relation
database diagram.

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 CHAPTER SIX
DISCUSSION AND RESULTS
A walkthrough of the application is illustrated in this chapter. Examples of system
features are presented for the grocery user. Additional functionality and features that
are common to all users are also explored in this report.

6.1 Login page

The login page involves a user interface where the grocery owner can log into the
Grocery POS. The login credential are created by the superuser creation command i.e
. py manage.py creates Superuser

Fig 6.1 Login page for the GPOS

6.2 Dashboard page
After the grocery owner logs into the system, they first have a view of the dashboard.
Here, they can view and edit available categories, daily sales, daily transactions and
the number of products available.

Fig 6.2 User’s dashboard after login into GPOS

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6.3 Product list page
This page shows the list on products available in the grocery. Here, the grocery owner
can easily add new products in each category and they can also update the status of
the products.

Fig 6.3 Page for products

6.4 Add product page
It’s an interface where the grocery owner can easily add products while providing
descriptions such as code, category, prices and status.

Fig 6.4 Page to add new product to the GPOS

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6.5 Sales list page
The page shows all the sales made within a given day. The grocery owner can check
through the page for accountability purposes.

Fig 6.5 Page to show sales made over a given period

6.6 Sales receipt

The grocery owner can easily generate and print a receipt at a later stage.

Fig 6.6 Receipt generation for the GPOS

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 CHAPTER SEVEN
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
7.1 Conclusion
Grocery POS a lot to do with making appropriate effort to stop the rising problem to
all manual small-size grocery operation in order to enhance the operation of such
grocery. In this project, the software or system will aid most small grocery owners
who are still operating manually. The software can be implemented most types of
small-scale groceries. The system has a large memory for storing all grocery
information, products and services while keeping records in high effectiveness and
accuracy.

7.2 Recommendation
In the development of this Grocery POS, I will recommend that if there is going to be
any modification, developers should endeavor to improve on the online payments.
The system currently works on a pay on cash basis. However, future integrations can
always involve online payments where a customer pays via an online payment
gateway such as MPESA, and Paypal and the payments reflect in the POS.

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