5 management mistakes that cost pharmacies dearly

A pharmacy can have customers every day and still earn less than it should. Money is rarely lost all at once: it leaks out little by little, through management habits that seem harmless.

Here are the 5 mistakes we see most often in pharmacies across Africa, and how to avoid them.

Mistake 1: not tracking expiry dates batch by batch

When stock is recorded only by product ("30 boxes of amoxicillin"), you cannot tell which boxes expire first. The result: expired batches discovered too late, which have to be thrown away.

The fix: record every batch with its number and expiry date, put the oldest at the front, and check every month which batches expire in the next three months.

Mistake 2: ordering by guesswork

Ordering "by eye", just by looking at the shelves, leads to two opposite problems. On one side, stock-outs: a customer asks for a common product, there is none left, and they go and buy it elsewhere. On the other, overstock: money tied up in slow-moving products that may expire.

The fix: set an alert threshold for each product, meaning the minimum quantity below which you must reorder, and order according to each month's real sales.

Mistake 3: not recording credit sales

Selling on credit to a loyal customer is normal. But when these credits are written down nowhere, or on a scrap of paper, you forget who owes what. After a few months, the amounts never collected can become significant.

The fix: record every credit sale with the customer's name and phone number, record every repayment, and regularly check the total still to be collected.

Mistake 4: never running a stock count

Without stock counts, your "theoretical" stock slowly drifts away from reality: data entry errors, breakage, misplaced products, sometimes theft. You think you have a product that is no longer there, or you reorder something that is already on the shelf.

The fix: regularly count what is really on the shelves, compare it with the recorded stock, then correct the differences. A monthly count of expensive products and a quarterly count of the rest is a good rhythm.

Mistake 5: not knowing your real margin

Many pharmacists know their daily sales, but not what those sales actually earn. Without purchase prices, there is no way to know which products make money, and which ones lose money when the supplier raises its prices.

The fix: record the purchase price of each batch next to the selling price, and follow your revenue and margin every month. You then know where to adjust your prices and your orders.

What they have in common: everything relies on memory

These five mistakes have the same root: the information lives in the manager's head, in a notebook or scattered across several files. When the manager is away or the team changes, everything gets harder.

That is why Phagestion brings everything together in one place, for the whole team:

• stock by batch with expiry dates, and alerts at 90 days;
• alert thresholds and a "low stock" list so you reorder in time;
• sales paid in cash, by Mobile Money or on credit, with the list of customers who still owe money;
• stock counts with a printable sheet and one-click stock correction;
• sales and margin reports, based on your purchase prices;
• a stock log showing who did what, and when.

Phagestion is built for pharmacies across Africa: it works in 48 countries, shows amounts in your own currency and runs on a simple phone. Try it free for 7 days.