convenience store back office software
Convenience store back office software for independent operators.
Tobacco shrink, lottery accountability, vendor invoice automation, manager closeout, and multi-location reporting in one workspace, built for c-store density, not enterprise ERP.
Who this is for
Independent convenience-store owner-operators, single store through multi-location portfolios, managing tobacco, lottery, beverages, snacks, and prepared food alongside fuel.
Why the current workflow breaks.
C-store SKU density breaks generic retail back-office tools.
A typical c-store carries 3,000–6,000 active SKUs across tobacco, beverages, snacks, candy, beer/wine, lottery, food service, and general merchandise. Generic retail tools assume the operator can manage SKU-level data manually. C-store volume is too high, by the time the bookkeeper finishes one vendor invoice, the next delivery is already on the dock.
Tobacco is where the leakage usually lives.
Tobacco is typically 40-50% of inside-store revenue and the highest-shrink category. Without SKU-level invoice ingestion, vendor cost increases get absorbed without notice. Without serial-gap-style accountability on tobacco voids and refunds, soft-pack pocketing goes undetected. The shrink is real; the visibility is what's missing.
Lottery and alcohol have compliance overhead nobody planned for.
Scratcher serials need reconciliation against the state-commission report. Alcohol sales need ABC reporting. CDTFA filings need fuel and inside-store sales separated correctly. Generic POS reports do not produce filing-ready exports. The back office spends a weekend per quarter rebuilding a spreadsheet that should be a single tap.
The workflow
How it actually runs.
The same sequence on every store, every shift: pre-populated where possible, with attribution baked in.
- 01
Tobacco invoices scanned daily.
Altria, RJR, ITG, and regional tobacco distributor invoices have 40–60 line items each. StationPro OCR extracts every line, compares unit costs against the previous invoice, and flags any cost increase above your threshold for owner review before approval.
- 02
Lottery serials tracked per pack.
Barcode-scan packs in and out. Every scratcher serial number is tracked. Missing tickets surface immediately with the on-shift clerk attached. Daily reconciliation against state-commission settlement reports.
- 03
Manager closeout becomes three taps.
EOD pre-populates from POS tender, lottery from the day's scans, fuel from the dispenser totalizer. Variance, tax allocation, and tolerance status compute live. Out-of-band variances block submission and require a reason code.
- 04
Multi-location rollup at the owner level.
KPIs across every store, sales by category, EOD status, cash position, lottery velocity, manager performance, roll up to one view. Drill into any single store with one tap.
- 05
Compliance packs generate ready to file.
CDTFA sales tax (CA), ABC alcohol reporting, and state-specific lottery commission reports format and populate from the underlying transactions. The bookkeeper reviews and submits, no weekend spreadsheet rebuild.
Who uses this, and how.
Single-store c-store owner.
Replace the bookkeeper's spreadsheet entirely. Invoice OCR, EOD, lottery, and tobacco shrink tracking all in one tenant. Most operators see their first surfaced shrink event in week one.
Multi-location c-store operator (5+ stores).
Portfolio rollup with per-store drill-down. Regional managers scoped to their stores only. New-store onboarding takes minutes, no per-location IT project.
C-store with attached fuel (gas station + c-store).
The c-store and forecourt run as one back office. Fuel margin, inside-store margin, and pump-to-store conversion data sit alongside each other. See also our gas-station back-office page.
C-store accountant / bookkeeper.
Read-only accountant seat, included free. Audit trail with before/after on every change. CDTFA / ABC packs generate filing-ready. Year-end vendor 1099 source data exports clean.
Side by side
StationPro vs. manual workflow + spreadsheets.
| Dimension | StationPro | Manual workflow + spreadsheets |
|---|---|---|
| Tobacco invoice processing | 30 seconds per invoice | 15–25 minutes hand-typed |
| Cost-increase detection | Auto-flag against prior invoice | Manual review, usually skipped |
| Lottery serial tracking | Barcode scan, gap detection | Manual count, monthly reconcile |
| CDTFA / ABC filing prep | Pack generated, one tap | Weekend spreadsheet rebuild per quarter |
| Multi-location reporting | Real-time portfolio rollup | Cross-store spreadsheet, weekly update |
| Tobacco shrink visibility | Per-SKU, per-shift attribution | Caught at quarterly inventory, if at all |
| Vendor cost history | Tracked per SKU per invoice | Manual review of past invoices |
Questions, answered.
Do you handle tobacco invoices from Altria, RJR, and ITG?
Yes. The OCR layer is trained on the major tobacco vendors' invoice formats including Altria, R.J. Reynolds, and ITG. Regional tobacco distributors are added as we encounter their formats, the first invoice trains the format and accuracy hits typical levels by invoice three.
What if my POS doesn't separate tobacco from general merchandise?
Most c-store POSes (Verifone, Gilbarco, NCR Voyix, Toshiba) have category-level tagging in the item file. We map your existing item-file categories to ours at onboarding, no re-categorization required on your side.
Does this handle CDTFA filings for California operators?
Yes. Sales tax is computed at the store's effective rate; the CDTFA filing pack generates with every supporting transaction reconciled and ready to submit. Quarterly filing drops from a weekend exercise to a 20-minute review.
Can I get a read-only seat for my CPA?
Yes. Read-only "accountant" seats are free on every plan. Your CPA gets scoped access (no operational settings) and can export anything they need for tax prep.
How does this compare to Petrosoft?
Petrosoft is an enterprise platform with strong reporting depth but a multi-week implementation cycle. StationPro deploys in days for independents who need shift-level attribution and a workflow clerks can finish without training. See /vs-petrosoft for the detailed line-item comparison.
Keep reading.
Related features
Daily Close (EOD)
5-minute close with tax-rate-aware reconciliation.
Invoice OCR & vendor management
Drop a PDF. Line items, prices, vendors. Done.
Lottery accountability
Serial-gap detection with shift attribution.
Multi-store portfolio
One owner pane of glass, with per-store drill-down.
Inventory & shrinkage detection
Receipts in, sales out, every SKU reconciled.
Compliance & reporting
Audit-ready packs for CDTFA, ABC, CARB, and your CPA.
Tools and templates
Gas Station Daily Close Checklist
12-step checklist for closing a gas station or c-store the right way, every shift.
Cash Variance Calculator
Compute expected cash for a shift and identify variance in 30 seconds.
Convenience Store Manager Daily Checklist
What a c-store manager should review every morning before opening.
From the blog
The lottery shrinkage playbook.
How to instrument scratcher accountability across barcode scanning, serial-gap detection, and shift attribution. The four-week sprint that closes the leak.
CDTFA filing without the spreadsheet.
A walk-through of California sales-tax filing for independent stations, what to track, how to format the pack, and the most common errors auditors flag.
Invoice OCR vs. manual entry, in dollars.
A working calculation for the labor savings, error reduction, and price-leak capture when you stop typing vendor invoices and start scanning them.
See where your station is leaking money.
A 30-minute call. We build the demo around your stations, not a generic deck.