Most days I update it on my phone between serving customers, using my evening data bundle. The tracker is just basic formulas, nothing fancy, and it's already helping me see which items move fastest. But that M-Pesa matching still takes me twenty minutes each night, and I'd love to cut that down. If you've worked with M-Pesa CSV reports or Google Sheets automation, I'd really appreciate your advice.
That VLOOKUP tip is gold. If you add a helper column that combines the transaction code and the amount with CONCATENATE, you can match on both at once and catch those sneaky duplicates. What kind of stock are you tracking, is it mostly stuff people grab after work?
I feel you on those M-Pesa reports, they eat up the whole evening. One thing that helped me was pasting the CSV into a second tab, then using simple VLOOKUP to match the transaction codes, so anything unmatched sticks out right away. What do you use to pull the CSV, does it come through as a download or email?
Huu, the M-Pesa matching struggle is real. If you're already on the Safaricom business portal, try sorting both lists by amount first before matching, at least for common prices like 50 or 100 bob, they'll line up faster and you'll spot mismatches easily. What's the item you sell most of, in the evenings?
The VLOOKUP idea is solid. If you get the report from the Safaricom business portal, you can set the date range to just that day so the list is shorter and easier to match. Also, what's your fastest moving item? My neighbour runs a kiosk and it's always something I don't expect.
Evening data bundle crew, respect. Since the VLOOKUP folks already covered matching, one small thing that saved me time: give the M-Pesa CSV a quick once-over and delete the reversal or failed rows before pasting, they mess up the counts. Which item surprises you most on the fast movers list?
The TRIM function saved me hours, M-Pesa CSV sometimes adds invisible spaces to transaction codes, so a VLOOKUP misses them. Paste your codes into a fresh column with =TRIM(A2) first, then match. Do you ever have customers who pay partly via M-Pesa and partly with cash? That one still trips me up.