Cobalt Retail Management System

Cobalt Sales: the flagship product

Cobalt Sales is the ultimate solution to drive your retail growth. Whether you have a single store or a chain of outlets, Cobalt Sales lets you track your inventory, sales, and customers with ease. You can also generate reports to analyse trends and optimise your operations with powerful insights. Cobalt Sales is designed to work seamlessly as the bedrock of the Cobalt Retail Management System.

With Cobalt Sales, you can take your retail business to the next level of success.

Cobalt Sales logo

The Cobalt Sales module of Cobalt RMS by Merlin Software offers a comprehensive solution for your retail selling needs. It makes, among other things, managing your sales, inventory, and point of sale (POS) behaviours effortless, even on the go. Whether you’re in-store or on the road, Cobalt RMS gives you real-time access to your sales data on any device.

 

Take advantage of over 20 years of trusted software, today.
Sales
Special Orders
Till
Stock
Orders
Customers
Products
Miscellaneous
    General Sales Screen
  • Code based point of sale system
  • Manage different types of sales: Cash, Account, Layby, Cash on Delivery
  • Split tender payments
  • Capture signatures on sales
  • Integrated EFTPOS
  • Integrated cash drawer
  • Easily convert between quotes, suspends, picking slips
  • Create special orders & track backorders
  • Process online sales separately from in-store sales
  • Email invoices automatically
  • Sell into negative (optional)
  • Sell consignment stock separately from merchandise stock
  • Discount by product or by deal
  • Automatically credit transactions
  • Reprint & resend transactions, or save as PDF
  • Reprint EFTPOS receipts
  • Clone quotes
  • Merge suspended transactions & picking slips
  • Print packing slips
  • Mark transactions as paid in full or partially paid
  • Use common codes for a range of products
  • Add warranty tracking to sale
  • Print serial numbers, batch IDs, and expiry dates on invoices
  • Use colour codes to identify types of transactions (e.g. credits, consignment stock)
  • Insert comments
  • Delete items from sale
  • Add new lines in between existing items
  • Use multiple reference fields
  • See stock & margin figures at a glance
  • Access the sales screen on every workstation, including remote access
    Customer/Debtor Management within Sales Screen
  • Create new customer accounts while making a sale
  • Update existing customer details during a sale
  • Process deferred payments
  • View debtor balances
  • Use prompts to prevent debtor going over credit limit
  • Use prompts to ensure customers have correct licence for dangerous goods
  • Automatically apply customer specific pricing
  • Update delivery addresses & set fee per address
  • Change customer codes mid-way through sale
  • See loyalty points at a glance
    Product Management within Sales Screen
  • Substitute similar products
  • View customer’s recent purchases of each product
  • Add subtotals for products (e.g. sell custom mixes on the go)
  • See lead times from supplier(s)
  • Print dangerous goods information on invoices
  • Quick product lookup
  • Integrated catalogue feature
  • Create new products while making a sale
  • See full product history
  • Import items from secondary product file (i.e. supplier’s database)
  • Quickly change product cost
  • Serial number reverse lookup
    Additional Sales Tools
  • Unique sales person codes to track activity
  • Comprehensive search engines for products, transactions, & customers
  • Sales graphs
  • User permissions (i.e. restrict certain features/facilities from some staff)
  • Import transactions from Excel
  • Export margin master data to CSV
    Customer Order Management
  • Create a special order from the Sales Screen
  • Order stock specifically for a particular customer
  • Process backorders for stock already on order
  • Allocate ordered stock to customers
  • Take deposit at the point of order
  • Mark orders as high priority
  • Allow orders to be split
  • Book out stock items as they arrive
  • Customer’s price level automatically applies to special order
  • Generate a “special order” document for customers
  • Convert special orders to tax invoices after fulfillment
  • Post order value to BAS only when the tax invoice is issued
    Special Order Processing
  • Create multiple purchase orders simultaneously for a special order
  • Order from multiple suppliers simultaneously
  • Modify existing special orders with additional items
  • Receipt ordered stock as usual
  • Fulfil multiple special orders simultaneously
  • Reserve the customer’s stock at point of fulfillment
  • Include delivery instructions on orders
  • Apply discounts on orders
  • Track the status of special orders, including cancelled orders
  • Add notes to orders throughout the process
    Customisable Settings
  • User definable name
  • User definable order terms
  • Set your own deposit percentage
  • Restrict special order processing to authorised staff members
    Tender Management
  • Unlimited tender types
  • Apply merchant/surcharge fees manually or automatically
  • Shortcut keys for fast processing at point of sale
  • Integrated EFTPOS
  • Split payments
  • Offer cash out at point of sale
    Cash Drawer Management
  • Integrated cash drawer
  • Record details for money placed into, or taken out of, the cash drawer
  • Integrated with Cobalt Accounting
  • Cheque exchange facility
    Close of Shift Wizard
  • Individual or combined shifts
  • Process close of shift at each till, or combine all till totals into one
  • Step-by-step process for balancing tills
  • Balance tills over any time period, not necessarily daily
  • Generate bank deposit slip
    Stock Management
  • Adjust stock levels easily
  • Integrated with secondary product file (i.e., supplier parts database)
  • Track stock movement across all Cobalt modules
  • Integrated with Cobalt Accounting
  • Schedule reports on dead stock, overstocked items, and more
    Bill of Materials Assembly
  • Plan for master product assembly
  • Create blueprints to show which stock parts and components are required for master product assembly
  • Sell master products to customers
  • Streamline operating costs of production
  • Ideal for construction, engineering, and manufacturing industries
  • Ensure availability and readiness of parts and components
  • Allocate built-to-order products to customers
  • View hierarchical representation of master product composition
  • Perform reverse lookup to identify parts used in master products (e.g., if there’s a recall on parts)
  • Filter build states by completion, suspension, progress, or cancellation
  • Update stock figures of used parts and components after each build
  • Report on status and financial outcome of build jobs
    Component Builder
  • Build components from parts stocked in store
  • Use components in bill of materials assembly or sell as standalone units
  • Organise the process of creating complex components
  • Include a fee for labour or assembly in the cost of builds
  • Build highly complex components with unlimited tiers and nodes
  • Allow for partial completion of builds
  • Return components as whole units or break them down into parts
  • Integrate with Cobalt Accounting for accurate stock valuation
  • Schedule reports on builds-in-progress and component usage
    Labels
  • Design your own labels for products, shelves, and promotions
  • Print using dedicated label printers or standard A4 printers
  • Automatically generate labels on stock receipt, price changes, sale commencement, and sale completion
  • Automatically email label queues to the responsible staff member
    Stocktake
  • Create batches to work through stocktake as a team
  • Exclude products with zero stock or no activity
  • Count on worksheets or via Cobalt Touch
  • Stocktake merchandise stock and consignment stock separately
  • Record date and time of count
  • Cobalt will back calculate sales to adjust stock figures
  • Perform stocktake while you trade
  • Pause and resume counts as necessary
  • Follow the Cobalt Stocktake Wizard to count methodically
  • Print and save variance reports
  • View batch status reports
    Purchase Orders
  • Order from multiple suppliers simultaneously
  • Add to existing orders as needed
  • View stock levels at a glance
  • Separate freight costs from stock costs
  • Load new products from secondary file or create them on the fly
  • Suspend orders for later processing
  • Add notes for each order
  • Track order history in full
  • Send orders by email, print, or secure file transfer
  • Sent order confirmation
    Consignment & Credit Requests
  • Request consignment stock or credits from suppliers
  • Option to request replacement stock on credit
    Suppliers
  • Store supplier’s ABN
  • Use alternative order codes
  • Set order number prefixes
  • Link to supplier’s website or portal
  • Set minimum order amount
  • Print/email additional order copies
  • Show costs with or without GST
  • Hide pricing if needed
  • Set default delivery instructions
  • Save notes for each supplier
  • Integrated with Cobalt Accounting
    Receivals
  • Receipt goods inward
  • Track over or under receipted stock
  • Record serial numbers at receipt
  • Receipt with or without GST
  • Handle foreign stock imports
  • Include import costs, fees, and charges
  • Update costs and prices on receipt
  • Enter invoice on receipt & it will transfer to Cobalt Accounting automatically
    System Calculated Reordering
  • Reorder based on minimum and maximum stock levels
  • Reorder based on sales over any time period
  • Reorder by active ingredients or key features
  • Schedule reordering tasks
    Import/Export
  • Import orders from portals
  • Export orders by supplier
    Customer Management
  • Manage customer accounts: Cash, Layby, COD
  • Set price levels per customer (retail, trade, staff, etc)
  • Manage loyalty and club membership system
  • Set contract pricing per customer
  • Record customer licences
  • Use 2-tiered customer categories
  • Optional to set customers as GST exempt (e.g., exports)
  • Optional to show customer signatures on statements
  • Save multiple email addresses for each document type (e.g., quote, statement, etc)
  • Store multiple contacts for each customer account
  • Save delivery addresses for each customer and set default address
  • Set default delivery fee per address for each customer
  • Optional to add notes on customer to appear at point of sale
  • View full transaction history for auditing customer activity
  • View suspended transaction breakdown
  • Customise printing options per customer
  • Generate labels to scan customer codes
  • Record Property Identification Code (PIC)
  • Store comments
    Debtor Management
  • Manage debtor accounts: Credit accounts on 30/60/90 or Current/Overdue terms
  • Use account journal facility
  • Set unique credit limits per debtor
  • Use debtor payments facility
  • Charge accounting fees
  • Blacklist bad debtors
  • Charge overdue fees
  • Set unique payment terms per debtor (x number of days from end of month or transaction date)
  • Consolidate debtors (chargeback to master account)
  • Schedule transactions
    Co-op Management
  • Allocate member shares
  • Chargeback rebates
  • Calculate dividends
  • Integrated with Cobalt Accounting
    Statements
  • Generate statements by period or by date range
  • Set custom email body text per statement run
  • Add attachments to statements
  • Send emails using your business’s domain name
    Import/Export
  • Process BPAY payments
  • Create electronic invoice batches
  • Export full customer data and unpaid invoices for CRM
  • Perform customer mail merge
    POS Behaviour
  • Manage discountable products
  • Track stocked/non-stocked items
  • Use quantity calculator for length, area, volume
  • Handle built-to-order & kit products
  • Create custom label formats
  • Sell into negative
  • Track serial number & warranty
  • Offer alternative products
    Product Details
  • 3-tiered tagging system
  • Feature-based product management
  • Manage buy-in products
  • Track expiry date
  • Assign Batch ID
  • Separate merchandise and consignment stock
  • Edit existing product codes
  • Associate products: multiple items that share one code
  • Manage loyalty club & membership
  • Reserve stock breakdown
  • Unlimited suppliers per product
  • Store notes & comments
    Pricing Structure
  • Use unlimited price levels (trade, club, staff, etc)
  • Up to 3 decimal pricing
  • Use quantity bulk pricing
    Dangerous Goods Compliance
  • Australian Dangerous Goods Code
  • Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals
    Secondary Product File
  • Import all products from a supplier into Cobalt Sales, but only use those you sell
  • Keep those you use in the primary product file and the rest in the secondary
  • Quickly import from the supplier’s whole catalogue when ordering new items
    ID Parameters
  • Use multiple barcodes
  • Record product location
  • Use Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) or Cobalt Codes
    Product Searching
  • Custom search fields
  • Sophisticated search engine
  • Reverse lookups
    Bulk Updates
  • Suppliers
  • Rebates
  • Landed cost factors
  • Pricing
  • Price templates
  • Product details
    System Settings
  • Customise Cobalt Sales across your business
  • Set user definable names
  • Adjust parts of the system to suit your business operations
  • Choose from Last In unit cost or Average cost
  • Apply some policies to determine system behaviour
  • Write your own disclaimers for sales and quotes
  • Write your own ownership clauses for layby, cash on delivery, and account invoices
  • Write your own body text to appear in emails sending quotes, sales, payments, statements
  • Format appearance of statements
  • Create additional search fields for use in product search engines
  • Define deposit percentage for special orders
    User Maintenance
  • Setup user profiles for each staff member
  • Provide unique permissions per profile (e.g. allow discounting)
  • Customise profiles to modify behaviour in each section of Cobalt Sales (i.e. Sales, Special Orders, Till, Stock, etc.)
  • Automatically log users out if inactive for some time
  • Lock sales person code to user profiles for accurate tracking
  • Set email address per user profile so emails are sent from the right address
  • Restrict certain profiles from accessing particular features, functions, and facilities throughout Cobalt Sales
    Terminal Maintenance
  • Customise system behaviour per workstation
  • Hide tender types per workstation
  • Open in sales mode, quote mode, or picking slip mode
  • Adjust line item printing per terminal
  • Use integrated EFTPOS per terminal
    General
  • Change trading date
  • Format product barcode labels that are specific to your business
  • Format customer barcode labels for membership cards
  • Set specific paper types for each document, allowing for multiple copies
  • Map documents to specific printers
  • Apply custom header and footer images to documents
  • Open multiple Cobalt windows at once
  • Setup SFTP connections for EDIs