Guides for running a shop in Uganda
These guides answer the questions Ugandan shop and restaurant owners ask before changing how they sell: how to choose a POS system, how to move a shop off a paper notebook without retyping everything, and how mobile money is recorded and reconciled on a till. Each one is written from building tills for Ugandan counters.
They are deliberately practical rather than promotional. Where a guide says what Stem does, it is set apart from the neutral advice, and where Stem is not the right answer, or is not finished, the guide says so plainly.
Which guide should I read first?
Start from the situation you are actually in, not the titles:
- You are still comparing systems and do not want to pick the wrong one. How to choose a POS system in Uganda.
- You have decided, and the shop is still running on a notebook. Move your shop from a notebook to a POS.
- Most of your customers pay by MTN or Airtel and the books never balance. How mobile money works with a POS.
All guides
How to check a phone is genuine in Uganda
The IMEI is the only part of a phone that cannot be faked convincingly — here is how to read it, check it against UCC, and what to do when a consignment fails.
6 min read
How to choose a POS system in Uganda
The seven questions that actually separate a POS you can run a Ugandan shop on from one you will fight every day.
7 min read
How to move your shop from a paper notebook to a POS
You do not have to retype a year of stock to go digital. Here is the afternoon-long path from notebook to first sale.
6 min read
How mobile money works with a POS in Uganda
What “mobile money integration” really means on a Ugandan till, and how to reconcile MTN and Airtel at close without guesswork.
5 min read
How to stop losing money to expired stock
Expiry losses are invisible until you count. Here is how batch tracking, oldest-first selling and honest counts turn that leak into a number you can see.
7 min read
Do I need QuickBooks or a POS system?
Accounting software and a till solve different problems. Which one a Ugandan shop needs first, and where Stem stops.
6 min read
Who writes these guides?
They are written by Talemwa Solomon, who builds Stem from Kampala. The material comes from the unglamorous end of the work: sitting with shopkeepers whose network drops mid-queue, reconciling a mobile money statement against a day’s takings, and importing stock lists that were never meant to be databases. That is why the guides keep returning to offline behaviour, the credit book and reconciliation: those are the things that decide whether a till survives a real Ugandan trading day.
What these guides will not do
They will not tell you every POS is inadequate except this one. Several of the checks recommended here are ones other Ugandan systems answer well, and a few are ones Stem does not yet answer at all. EFRIS filing is the clearest example, and the buyer’s guide names Stem as not yet transmitting sales to URA rather than quietly leaving it off the list.
They also will not give you tax or legal advice. Where something is a matter of regulation, the guides link to the primary source (URA for tax and EFRIS, Bank of Uganda for payments) so you can check it against the authority rather than against us.
Frequently asked questions
›What is the best POS system for a small shop in Uganda?
There is no single best one. The right POS is the one that answers your shop’s specific constraints. For most Ugandan shops that means it keeps selling with no internet, records MTN and Airtel mobile money as their own payment types, tracks the customer credit book, and is billed monthly by mobile money rather than as an annual card-only licence. The buyer’s guide walks through the seven checks that separate them.
›Do I need internet to use a POS system in Uganda?
To register and sign in the first time, yes. After that it depends entirely on the software. An offline-first till keeps a full copy of the shop on the machine at the counter, so selling, receipts, barcode scanning and credit all keep working with no connection and sync when it returns. A cloud-only till stops when the network does, which is the single most important thing to establish before you buy.
›How much does a POS system cost in Uganda?
Stem starts at a free plan for one user, then USh 20,000, 55,000 or 100,000 a month depending on the features and number of staff, billed by MTN or Airtel mobile money. When comparing any POS, add up the software plan, per-device or per-user fees, hardware and support together. A till advertised as cheap that charges per device across three counters is not cheap.
›Are these guides only about Stem?
No. They are written to be useful whichever POS you end up choosing, and the checks they recommend are ones Stem does not always win. Where a guide states what Stem does, it is marked out separately from the neutral guidance so you can tell the difference, including where Stem falls short, such as EFRIS filing, which is still in development and does not yet transmit sales to URA.
Page updated 22 July 2026