Moniepoint launches new POS gadget after seven months in stealth 

On August 7, I watched a cobalt-blue Moniepoint point-of-sale (POS) gadget do one thing it had by no means finished earlier than. With a couple of faucets on the touchscreen, it logged the sale of a bottle of water, processed the cost, up to date the inventory depend, and printed an bill and a cost receipt — multi functional go.

This seamless reconciliation of cost and stock is a significant problem for Nigeria’s retail economic system. The hole between a “sale” and a “cost” is a typical supply of human error, cooked books, and fraud. Startups like Orda, Mira, and OmniRetail, in addition to Paga’s new software program Doroki, have tried to resolve this.  Seven months after TechCabal completely reported that Moniepoint was quietly engaged on a POS system to resolve this downside, the fintech unicorn has launched Moniebook, a software program that makes stock reconciliation as instantaneous as cost itself.

For many retailers in Nigeria, POS machines—near 9 million—don’t report gross sales in any respect; as an alternative, they’re cost terminals, little greater than ATMs for card transactions. Employees log orders individually—in notebooks, on a desktop, or in an app—after which course of cost on the POS. On the finish of the day, managers should painstakingly match card receipts to gross sales information.

Options to this downside fall into two essential classes. Horizontal SaaS platforms, like Moniebook, are designed for all kinds of retailers. Their power is broad applicability and fast onboarding, however they could lack the deep customisation wanted for advanced companies. In distinction, vertical SaaS platforms, resembling Orda and Mira, are purpose-built for particular sectors. They provide advanced, distinctive options that cater on to their specialised customers, offering a stage of depth {that a} horizontal resolution can’t match.

Moniepoint believes its Moniebook platform can remedy this in a manner that present fashionable gamers haven’t. “You may suppose a bookkeeping instrument solves the issue, however with out built-in funds, you’re nonetheless crunching numbers manually,” mentioned Babatunde Olofin, the managing director of Moniepoint’s microfinance financial institution. 

Moniebook is already seeing in‑market validation. Throughout a tightly managed beta part, over 4,000 companies put the software program to work. The variety of customers pleasantly stunned the product group, Oluwole Adebiyi, Moniebook’s head of product, shared. Eating places ran a whole lot of day by day orders via it; roadside outlets relied on it for primary inventory management; supermarkets examined it on lengthy checkout traces; gas stations used it to log each litre pumped. There was additionally a toll gate someplace within the combine.

Adebiyi, Moniebook’s head of product, says the toll gate was probably the most stunning consumer. The operator handled every car sort as an “stock merchandise”: SUVs, vehicles, buses. As motorists paid their tolls, these “objects” have been scanned and logged like grocery store merchandise.

“It [gave them] management,” Adebiyi recalled. “No manner for cashiers to bypass funds. And the proprietor all of a sudden had studies they’d by no means had earlier than,  like realizing solely two vehicles handed this month. That type of information didn’t exist for them earlier than.”

How the POS works 

There are two core parts: the again workplace dashboard, the place house owners and managers management stock, pricing, and reporting; and the POS register interface, utilized by entrance‑line workers to course of gross sales and gather funds.

On the dashboard, a service provider can add an merchandise in seconds: identify, class, unit of measurement, barcode, value worth, promoting worth, and opening inventory. Objects will be normal (like bottled water), variants (clothes in a number of sizes and hues), or bundled merchandise (a Christmas hamper containing separate items). Gas stations get a unique interface that calculates litres from a naira quantity, eradicating guesswork for attendants.

Barcodes will be scanned immediately with the POS digicam or an exterior scanner. If a service provider units low inventory thresholds, Moniebook sends an automated alert when portions fall under that quantity. Each stock change and the workers who made it are recorded earlier than‑and‑after counts.

From the register facet, cashier logins are tied to particular person PINs and roles — administrator, accountant, auditor, or cashier — controlling entry and creating an audit path for each motion. As soon as objects are scanned or chosen, the overall quantity is locked into the transaction.

“A lot of the issues companies have are both the cashier varieties ₦3,000 as an alternative of ₦300, or they carry their very own POS and take cash on behalf of the enterprise,” Adebiyi mentioned. “Right here, the sale is simply accomplished as soon as cost is obtained, and it’s for the precise quantity.”

The ultimate contact is the printer; the POS produces a single paper slip combining the gross sales report and the cost receipt. On the again workplace dashboard, the transaction seems immediately with full element: merchandise breakdown, workers identify, department, cost methodology, and transaction reference.

Past primary gross sales, Moniebook contains expiry monitoring for perishables, stock valuation exhibiting complete inventory worth and potential revenue, buyer teams with focused mounted or proportion reductions, multi‑department reporting, and offline functionality that syncs as quickly because the web returns.

Making “monie” from Moniebook

Moniebook will likely be offered on a subscription foundation. The Core plan is ₦6,000/month for one gadget and one department, with further branches at ₦4,500 and further POS units at ₦2,500 every. The Professional plan begins at ₦8,500/month, with additional branches at ₦5,500. 

Importantly, Moniepoint leases its touchscreen POS terminals reasonably than promoting them outright. This retains the barrier to entry low for small retailers and makes {hardware} upgrades easy. An present Moniepoint service provider can swap an ordinary terminal for a totally Moniebook‑enabled model with out paying for a brand new gadget. That’s a stark distinction to opponents like Mira, whose {hardware} can value a whole lot of 1000’s upfront, plus subscription and transaction charges.

“It turns into reasonably priced for everybody on the market… from the one‑store proprietor to multi‑department retailers,” Adebiyi mentioned.

A imaginative and prescient past the terminal

For Moniepoint, the ambition is larger than POS subscriptions. Whereas the corporate targets 100,000 lively retailers by 12 months‑finish, it sees Moniebook as an engine for its quick‑rising lending enterprise, which already represents about 20% of income.

Till now, the creditworthiness of retailers has been primarily based on transaction volumes and occasional web site visits. A pre‑qualification instrument flagged candidates for mortgage presents, however danger modelling was restricted. Moniebook achieves this by sending real-time operational information to the credit score group, together with transaction counts tied to particular merchandise, stock turnover charges, margin well being, and peak gross sales hours.

Olofin illustrated this with an anecdote a couple of restaurant that obtained a mortgage and noticed fast progress, attracting scrutiny from a regulation enforcement company. Moniepoint’s transaction information validated the enterprise’s legitimacy, however with Moniebook, she says, such validation could be much more seamless. 

“With Moniebook, we most likely don’t even have to enter the shop bodily to examine. You even have the info.”

The identical integration is a boon for fraud prevention and compliance.  For compliance officers, Moniebook offers a type of line‑by‑line, regulator‑prepared report that banks typically pay third events to compile.

“They might have paid different individuals for this type of entry,” Olofin mentioned. “Now they get it from inside our system.”

Constructing inside-out

Since its beta launch, the Moniebook group has grown from 12 to 60 individuals —product managers, engineers, designers, information specialists, progress entrepreneurs, and help workers. The group operates like a small startup contained in the fintech large, with its roadmap and targets.

“A technique to consider how we construct merchandise at Moniepoint is that every product is sort of a tiny firm inside the firm,” Olofin mentioned. “It has all of the assets it wants to maneuver quick, with out getting slowed down by the paperwork of a a lot larger organisation.”

For Adebiyi, whose startup, Grocel, was acquired to construct Moniebook, that autonomy made working on the unicorn fintech worthwhile.

“To win with stock methods in Nigeria, funds have to be solved. Moniepoint had solved funds. I don’t see some other firm I may have finished this with.”

Moniebook operates in a aggressive market, however it plans to leverage its present nationwide POS community. This technique, much like Paga and OmniRetail’s acquisition of Traction Apps, permits Moniepoint to rapidly onboard customers. Whereas opponents like Paga even have their networks of POS terminals, Moniepoint holds a big benefit in distribution and buyer relationships.

Consequently, the deeper a service provider integrates with Moniebook—utilizing it for funds, stock, reporting, and credit score—the “stickier” the service turns into. It’s because the associated fee and danger of switching to a unique supplier sooner or later change into a lot increased.

Regardless of the case, there’s a clear winner: the merchant-users. The rising push to develop and scale the service provider stack —funds, operations, information, and credit score—is nice for SMEs. Bemigho Awala, the corporate’s media relations supervisor, insists that that is the philosophy guiding Moniepoint’s strikes.

“It’s about progress for the model, but additionally for the mom-and-pop outlets, supermarkets, and different companies that run on our rails,” mentioned Awala.

If this new POS turns into as widespread as Moniepoint’s cost terminals, the hiss of printed receipts will change into the brand new sound of enterprise as normal.

Editor’s notice: This text has been up to date with further particulars about Moniebook’s opponents.

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