Clinics, labs and optical shops

The trade

How this trade really works

From the factory to the customer, each person in the chain wants something different. Most of what goes wrong comes from the gaps between them.

The suppliers

Frame wholesalers, lens makers and their dealers, companies that sell test kits and lab material, and dealers in dental and surgical goods. They want regular orders and payment on time, and they push new frame ranges and new kits every season.

The owner and the central store

The doctor or businessman who owns the branches. Some buy everything centrally and send it out. Others let each branch order. He wants every branch ready for its patients without filling every cupboard.

The branch in charge

The optometrist at the optical counter, the lab technician at the collection centre, the senior assistant at the clinic. He knows his patients and his doctor. He wants never to be caught short in front of a patient, so he orders a little extra.

The doctor

Examines the patient and writes the glasses number, the test or the treatment. What he writes, and how busy his days are, decides what the branch uses.

The patient

Wants the frame he liked on the board, his glasses on the day promised, his test report on time, and treatment without waiting while someone runs to fetch material from another branch.

Frames sit far longer than anyone admits

An optical shop needs a full wall of frames to look serious. Customers try many and buy few. A design that was in fashion last year is now stuck on the board. Frame wholesalers will take back a little, rarely all. Most optical owners have more money in old frames than in anything else, and they know it only roughly.

Kept lenses and ordered lenses behave differently

Common lenses are kept in stock and fitted the same day. Special lenses, for high numbers, for reading and distance in one glass, or with coatings, are ordered from the lens maker for each patient. The kept stock grows quietly in every number nobody needed. The ordered lenses earn well but tie the shop to the lens maker's delivery days.

Seasons come to clinics too

When schools reopen, children's eye checks rise and with them simple frames and lenses. Summer brings sunglasses. The rains bring eye infections, and eye drops run short. In the rains, labs see a rush of fever, dengue and malaria tests, and the kits for them run out in some centres while others have spare.

Test kits and consumables carry a date

A lab buys kits in packs that must be used within their life. Contact lens solutions, eye drops, dental filling material, injections and some dressings all have dates. The busy centre finishes its kits. The quiet centre finds an unopened pack past its date in the fridge. The supplier rarely takes it back.

Every branch keeps its own little store

Each branch in charge keeps extra gloves, syringes, cotton, frames, kits and drops, because he does not want to run out in front of a patient. Across all the branches, that extra adds up to a lot of money lying in cupboards, and nobody ever sees the whole of it.

What earns and what only fills the board

In an optical shop, the frame brings the customer in, but the lens often earns more. Some cheap frames and cheap lenses barely cover their cost after the discount the counter gives to close the sale. Many owners believe the frames pay the rent. Often it is the lenses and the solutions that do.

Where the money quietly goes

What you cannot see today, and what it costs you

How much money hangs on the frame boards

You know what you paid for frames this year. You do not know, branch by branch, which frames have been on the board for many months and what they are worth. That money could have bought the designs that sell.

Which branch is short and which has spare

The busy branch runs out of dengue test kits in the rains while a quieter centre has spare packs in its fridge. Without seeing both together, you buy more from the supplier and the spare packs pass their date.

Which items you sell at a loss

After the discount at the counter, some frames and some lens types leave almost nothing. Without profit item by item, the counter keeps pushing them, because they are easy to sell.

Why one branch earns less

Your branches can see a similar number of patients and earn very differently. Often the weak branch is short of the frames and lenses its patients want, or has its money stuck in the wrong ones. Without comparing them item by item, it looks like a branch without patients.

What will pass its date unused

A kit or a solution that has sat untouched for months in a quiet branch will not be used in time there. You only find out when someone checks the date. How long it has been lying was the earlier warning, and nobody was looking at it.

A season, the way it usually goes

The story you already know

An eye doctor in Coimbatore runs an eye clinic with an optical counter, and has opened optical shops with a small testing room in Tiruppur, Erode and Pollachi. He also has a small lab at the main clinic. Each branch has an optometrist in charge who orders frames from wholesalers and lenses from the lens maker's dealer.

When schools reopen, the Tiruppur shop runs out of simple children's frames in the first weeks, and parents are told to come back. The Erode shop has a box of the same frames under the counter. Then the rains bring eye infections, and the main clinic runs short of eye drops while the Pollachi shop has a shelf of them. The optometrists call each other when they remember. Mostly, each one orders from his own supplier.

At the year end, the doctor walks through every branch with his accountant. The frame boards are full, but many frames are the same ones he saw last year. A pack of lab kits in the clinic fridge has passed its date. The accountant shows good sales. The doctor asks how much money is sitting on the boards and in the cupboards. Nobody can tell him.

With Vyavora

What you see, once every shop bills on Vyavora

Every branch's frames, lenses, drops, kits and consumables on their own, and all branches together, with one switch between them.
Frames that have hung on a board for months, branch by branch, and the money in them.
Kits, solutions and drops that have not moved in a branch, and how long they have been lying.
Fast items in each branch, such as children's frames when schools reopen or eye drops in the rains, before they run out.
Branches side by side, item by item, so you see where a frame sells and where it only hangs.
Profit on each item after the counter discount, and the frames and lenses that lose money.
Every movement of stock between branches, recorded on both sides.
Frame size and colour picked at the billing counter, so the stock stays right.

What you can now decide

Decisions you could not make before

Move frames to where they sell

A frame that has hung on the Erode board for months may sell in a week in Tiruppur, where customers are different. Move it, record the move, and both boards look fresh without buying anything new.

Buy designs from what sold, not what was shown

When you can see which frames actually left each branch, you buy more of those and fewer of the designs that only looked good at the wholesaler's. The board fills with frames that move.

Share kits and drops before their date

A pack of test kits lying in a quiet centre can go to the busy lab while there is still time to use it. The same goes for drops and solutions. You stop buying a kit only to throw it away.

Set what each branch keeps

Each branch sees different patients. A shop near schools needs more children's frames. The main clinic needs more drops and kits. Once you see what each branch uses, you can tell every branch in charge what to keep plenty of and what to keep little of.

Fix the frames and lenses that lose money

When profit item by item shows that a cheap frame with a cheap lens leaves nothing after discount, you can change the discount, change the supplier, or stop pushing it.

Free the money stuck on the boards

Old frames on the board are a discount you have not given yet. Once you see them with their value, you can clear them deliberately, through a sale or by moving them, and put the money into frames that sell.

Where you get ahead

Where your competitor keeps losing

Your boards look new in every branch

By moving frames between branches and buying from what sold, every board keeps changing. Customers notice a shop that always has something fresh, while competitors show the same tired designs year after year.

Your patients are never told to come back

When fast items are watched across branches and moved in time, the patient gets his frame, his drops and his test on the day. A patient who is never sent away stays with you, and so does his family.

You open the next branch with less risk

You know what each kind of branch actually uses. When you open another, you stock it from that knowledge, not from the wholesaler's suggestion, and your money is not stuck on its board from the first day.

The same season, with Vyavora

The story, told again

Same eye clinic and same branches, next year. Every branch now bills on Vyavora. Each optometrist sees only his own branch. The doctor sees all of them, one at a time or together. Billing carries on even when the internet at the Pollachi shop drops, and catches up when it returns.

Before schools reopen, the doctor opens the screen and sees that Tiruppur sold most of its children's frames last time while Erode sold few. He moves frames from Erode to Tiruppur and records the move. When the rains come and eye drops start moving fast at the main clinic, he sees the Pollachi shop's shelf of drops lying untouched, and has them sent across.

Every month he looks at the frames that have hung longest in each branch, with their value beside them. Some move to another branch. Some go into a clearance sale. When the wholesaler comes with his new range, the doctor buys from what sold, not from the catalogue. At the year end, the boards are lighter, the fridge has no packs past their date, and he can finally answer the question of how much money is sitting in his cupboards.

Why the others agree to it

Everyone in the chain is better off

For the optometrist in charge

He sees his own branch's stock, his slow frames and his fast items, and can ask for stock from another branch instead of waiting for a supplier. Billing keeps going when the internet goes.

For the lab in charge

He sees which kits and consumables are lying in his centre and for how long, so a pack can go to a busier centre before its date instead of into the bin.

For the owner's accountant

Every sale and purchase already carries its branch. GST is kept per branch and added up for filing. Profit item by item is there without building it by hand.

What this does not do

Vyavora does not keep batch numbers or expiry dates for kits, drops or solutions. It shows how long each item has been lying in each branch, which tells you long before the date that it will not be used in time. It does not keep patient records or glasses numbers, book appointments, connect to lab machines or produce test reports. It does not track lens orders with the lens maker. It is the stock, billing, accounts and branch picture of your business, not the medical side of it.

Straight answers

Questions people in this trade ask

Can I see frames by size and colour?

Yes. Size and colour can be picked at the billing counter, so you know exactly which frame left and which are still on the board.

Will it tell me when a test kit expires?

No. It does not keep expiry dates. It shows how long a kit has been lying unused in each branch, which warns you early enough to move it to a busier branch.

Can a branch see another branch's sales?

No. Staff are tied to their own branch and see only that branch.

Does it keep patient records or eye test results?

No. Vyavora handles stock, billing, accounts and the comparison between branches. Patient records stay in the system you use for them.

Can we remind patients to collect their glasses?

Yes. Customers can be reached on WhatsApp, for example to tell a patient his glasses are ready.

Our frame list is in Excel. Do we type it again?

No. Vyavora reads the Excel and PDF files you already keep, so your item list comes in without retyping.

A slow branch is usually not short of patients. It is short of the right stock.