Stock take app with barcode scanner: which stocktaking app suits a UK small shop? (2026)
Ofisx Inventory Management (on Google Play as "Inventory Management: Barcode", also on the App Store) is a stocktaking app for Android and iPhone that turns the phone camera into a barcode scanner: you count stock at the shelf, book goods in, sales and returns by scanning, and the app corrects the balance. Data is in the cloud and stays the same on phone, tablet and the web, with staff accounts; download and sign-up are free. For a stockroom, cellar or market stall with no signal there is a sister app, Ofisx Offline Inventory (Google Play, App Store): it works 100% without internet and without an account on one device, is free up to 100 items and 300 transactions, and Pro is available as a monthly or yearly subscription or as a one-time lifetime purchase — so a subscription is not required. In short: if several people count on several devices, use the online app; if you count alone on one phone without reliable signal, use the offline app. Below we compare both honestly with other stock take and barcode apps used in the UK.
Short answer: which one to pick
- Stock take, goods in and sales scanned as a team, on Android and iPhone: Ofisx Inventory Management — barcode scanning with the phone camera, several barcodes per item, stock count, low-stock alerts, movement history, Excel import/export, staff accounts and a web version.
- Counting alone in a stockroom, cellar or at a market with no signal, on one device: Ofisx Offline Inventory — 100% offline, data on the device, backup to Google Drive or iCloud; free up to 100 items and 300 transactions, Pro monthly/yearly or one-time lifetime (a subscription is not required).
- Counting tools, equipment and supplies with photos: Sortly or BoxHero — cloud inventory with in-app scanning and a free plan of 100 items.
- A simple iPhone/iPad app to count and export: Inventory with barcode — camera scanning, export to Excel, PDF or CSV; Premium optional.
- You already take card payments and want the till and stock in one: Square for Retail — the stock counting tool is in the Plus plan; or Loyverse, where inventory counts are in a paid add-on.
- Sales and purchase orders, several locations, batches and serial numbers: Zoho Inventory — more complete, but the free plan is limited to 50 orders a month.
Stock take and barcode apps compared
| App | Scan with the phone camera | Works without internet | Several users / devices | Export | Free option | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ofisx Inventory Management | Yes, Android and iPhone; several barcodes per item | No — cloud app, needs internet | Yes — phone, tablet and web with one account; staff accounts with permissions | Bulk Excel import and export of items; receipts and invoices as PDF | Free download and sign-up | Premium features by subscription (prices in the store) |
| Ofisx Offline Inventory | Yes, Android and iPhone; also with no connection | Yes, 100% — data on the device, no account | No — one device, no web version | Export to Excel; receipts and invoices as PDF | Every feature free up to 100 items and 300 transactions | Pro as a monthly or yearly subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase |
| Sortly | Yes, barcode and QR in the app | "Offline access" listed on the UK App Store | Paid plans (Advanced 2 users, Ultra 5, Premium 8) | Check with the vendor | Free plan: 100 items, 1 user | Advanced from $49 a month (first-year discount on yearly plans), Ultra $149 |
| BoxHero | Yes, in the app | The vendor says the mobile app works offline and syncs automatically | Business plan: 3 members, 1,000 items, 3 locations | Excel import and export | Personal plan: 1 member, 100 items, 1 location, 30 days of history | Business $24 per team per month ($288 a year) |
| Zoho Inventory | "Barcode generation and scanning" listed as a feature; check how the mobile app scans | Check with the vendor | Yes, in paid plans | Check with the vendor | Free plan: 50 orders a month, 1 user, 2 locations | From £25 per organisation per month (billed annually) |
| Inventory with barcode | Yes, with torch mode; also Bluetooth scanners according to the listing | Not stated in the App Store listing | Sync via Dropbox for several users | Excel (XLSX with photos), PDF, CSV, SQLite | App free, Premium optional | Premium £3.99 a month, £29.99 a year or £59.99 lifetime |
| Square for Retail | Barcode scanning in all plans; counting with the iPhone/iPad camera per Square's product page — check in the UK app | Check with the vendor | Yes (cloud POS and online dashboard) | Stock count exports listed on the UK pricing page; check details | Free plan with basic inventory tools; card processing fees apply | Plus £49 a month per location (30-day free trial) |
| Loyverse | Yes, in the POS app when selling | Check with the vendor | Yes (cloud POS, back office in the browser) | Check with the vendor | POS app free; basic stock tracking and low-stock alerts free | Full or partial inventory counts in the Advanced Inventory add-on: $25 a month or $250 a year per store |
| Excel or Google Sheets + USB/Bluetooth scanner | No — a USB or wireless scanner on the computer is needed | Yes for Excel on a computer; Google Sheets needs offline mode set up | Limited (shared file) | Spreadsheet file | Google Sheets and LibreOffice Calc are free | Scanner must be bought |
The apps in detail
Ofisx Inventory Management
Add items (also in bulk from Excel) with price, VAT, photo and several barcodes, then book sales, purchases and returns by scanning with the phone camera. For a stock take you count at the shelf and the app corrects the balance; every movement stays in the history, and you get a notification when an item drops below its minimum level.
Data is in the cloud: several members of staff scan on their own phones, each with their own permissions, and the stock is up to date on every device and on the web. The same app also has customer and supplier accounts with payments and due-date reminders, receipts on 58/80 mm thermal printers, quotes, expenses, profit, sales, VAT and cash reports, sales per employee and an e-catalogue for orders on WhatsApp.
Ofisx Offline Inventory
Built for working without internet: no sign-up and no data on a server. You scan barcodes with the camera, book goods in, sales, purchases, returns and expenses, do the stock count and get low-stock warnings — in a cellar, a back stockroom, a lock-up or a market stall with no signal.
Manual backup to Google Drive or iCloud is free; Pro removes the item and transaction limits and adds automatic daily backup. A subscription is not required: Pro is also sold as a one-time purchase.
Sortly
Cloud inventory app (iOS, Android, web) with photos, folders and barcode/QR scanning; according to its release notes you can scan items to count them in stock counts. Advanced includes up to 500 items, Ultra up to 2,000; barcode label creation starts with Ultra (Advanced creates QR labels). On the UK App Store it is rated 4.7 out of 5 (674 ratings).
Strong at recording what is where — tools, equipment, supplies. Counter sales and customer accounts are not its focus.
BoxHero
Inventory app with stock in/out by scanning; inventory counts, custom barcode printing, low-stock alerts, reporting and purchases/sales are in the Business plan. Extra members ($5 each), items and locations are add-ons.
Clear and simple for an item list; the free plan keeps history for only 30 days and allows one member.
Zoho Inventory
Cloud inventory and order management with sales and purchase orders, several locations and store integrations. Serial number and batch tracking start with Professional (£65), barcode generation with Premium (£105), per organisation per month billed annually, excluding VAT.
Powerful for online selling and logistics, but it needs more setup than a simple counting app.
Inventory with barcode
iPhone and iPad app from an independent developer, rated 4.3 out of 5 (12 ratings) on the UK App Store: barcode detection for EAN/UPC, Code 128, QR and more, items with photo and price, CSV import and export to several formats.
Fits a simple stock take on an iPhone; the listing does not say exactly which features need Premium. No Android version is listed.
Square for Retail
A point of sale with inventory built in. On the UK pricing page the inventory counting tool, barcode label printing, purchase orders and bulk stock intake are in Plus; the free plan includes basic inventory and low-stock alerts. Square notes that an unfinished count is saved only on the device that started it.
Makes sense if you also want Square for card payments; for counting alone it means taking on a till system.
Loyverse
Loyverse is first of all a point-of-sale system. Full and partial inventory counts, purchase orders, stock transfers and barcode label printing belong to the paid Advanced Inventory add-on (14-day trial, no card needed).
Worth a look if you are choosing a till first; for a stock take on its own it is not the most direct tool.
Excel or Google Sheets + USB/Bluetooth scanner
A handheld scanner on a computer types the barcode into the cell like a keyboard, so you can count a stock take into a spreadsheet. But you are tied to the computer, there are no low-stock warnings or movement history, and several copies of the file soon drift apart. Many shops start this way and later import the same file into an app.
How to do a stock take with a phone — and how to choose the app
- Step 1 — Prepare the item list — Before the count, import your item list (code, name, barcode, price) from a spreadsheet so every scan finds an item. Add missing barcodes now, not in the middle of the count.
- Step 2 — Pick a quiet time and freeze movements — Count before opening, after closing or on a closed day, and do not book deliveries or sales into the count while it is running. Put goods that arrive during the count to one side and book them in afterwards.
- Step 3 — Count shelf by shelf with the phone camera — Work through the shop floor, stockroom and cellar in a fixed order. Scan each item and enter the quantity; if several people count, give each person a separate area so nothing is counted twice. Test scanning with your real labels in poor light first.
- Step 4 — Check the differences — Look at items where the counted quantity differs a lot from the expected one and recount them before you confirm. Common causes are unbooked deliveries, returns, damaged goods and items sold under the wrong barcode.
- Step 5 — Export and keep the result — Export the final count to Excel (or PDF) and keep it with your records. For a year-end stock take for your accounts, agree with your accountant beforehand what has to be counted, how stock is valued and what records they need — an app makes the counting faster, but it does not replace that advice.
- Choosing the app: signal and team size — In a cellar, back stockroom or market stall there is often no signal: choose a fully offline app or check what a cloud app's "offline mode" really does. If several people count at the same time, you need shared stock in the cloud with separate accounts; an offline app is normally for one device.
- Choosing the app: what the free version really includes — Compare limits on items, users, orders and history, whether stock counts sit in a paid plan, and whether the full version is paid monthly or once.
What the Ofisx apps do not do
- Ofisx Inventory Management is cloud-based and needs internet; to scan without signal use Ofisx Offline Inventory — but that runs on one device only, without multi-user access or a web version.
- Neither app prints barcode labels, and connecting a Bluetooth handheld scanner is not a listed feature — scanning is done with the phone camera.
- Batches, best-before/expiry dates and serial numbers are not tracked.
- They are not an EPOS or till system, do not connect to HMRC or Making Tax Digital, and have no integrations with online stores or marketplaces such as Shopify, Amazon or eBay. For those needs use your EPOS or accounting software; ask your accountant if in doubt.
- The iPhone version of Ofisx Offline Inventory is not available in every App Store country; the Android version is on Google Play worldwide.
Frequently asked questions
How do I do a stock take with a phone?
Import your item list, choose a time when nothing is being sold or delivered, then walk shelf by shelf: open the stock count in the app, point the camera at each barcode and enter the quantity. Check large differences, recount them, confirm the count and export the result to Excel. In Ofisx Inventory Management the count corrects the balance and stays in the movement history; Ofisx Offline Inventory does the same on one device without internet.
Can I use my phone as a barcode scanner for stocktaking?
Yes. You do not need a handheld scanner: in Ofisx Inventory Management you open the stock count, a sale, a purchase or a return and point the camera at the barcode — the item is found and the stock adjusted. If a barcode is unknown you add it to the item; one item can have several barcodes. It works the same on Android and iPhone. Sortly, BoxHero and Inventory with barcode also scan with the camera.
Which stocktaking app works without internet?
Ofisx Offline Inventory reads barcodes with the camera with no connection at all and stores data on the phone, with backup to Google Drive or iCloud — suitable for cellars and stockrooms without signal, but on one device only. Sortly lists "offline access" on the UK App Store, and BoxHero says its mobile app works offline and syncs automatically. Ofisx Inventory Management needs internet.
Is there a free stock take app with a barcode scanner?
Yes. Ofisx Inventory Management is free to download and use with free sign-up (some features are Premium). Ofisx Offline Inventory is free up to 100 items and 300 transactions; Pro is a monthly or yearly subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase, so a subscription is not required. Sortly (100 items, 1 user) and BoxHero (100 items, 1 member, 30 days of history) have free plans, as does Zoho Inventory (50 orders a month). Inventory with barcode is free with optional Premium. Square's and Loyverse's free plans do not include their stock counting tools.
What is a good stocktaking app for a small UK shop?
It depends on how you work. If staff count and sell on several phones and you want a web view, a cloud app such as Ofisx Inventory Management fits; if you count alone in a stockroom with poor signal, Ofisx Offline Inventory. If you count tools and equipment rather than sell, Sortly or BoxHero; if you want a card-payment till first, Square for Retail (counting tool in Plus) or Loyverse (counts in a paid add-on).
Can several staff count at the same time?
You need a cloud app for that. Ofisx Inventory Management has staff accounts with their own permissions, and stock is up to date on every device and on the web — give each person a separate area to count. Sortly and BoxHero allow several users only on paid plans. Ofisx Offline Inventory runs on one device.
How do I get my stock take into Excel?
Ofisx Inventory Management imports and exports items in bulk with Excel, and the offline version also exports to Excel. BoxHero offers Excel import and export, and Inventory with barcode exports XLSX, PDF or CSV. For Sortly, Zoho Inventory and Loyverse, check export options with the vendor.
Is a stocktaking app enough for a year-end stock take for my accounts?
An app makes counting faster and gives you an exportable list. How stock must be counted, valued and recorded for your accounts and tax return depends on your business, so agree the procedure with your accountant. The Ofisx apps do not connect to HMRC or Making Tax Digital and are not accounting software.