How I Engineered an Inventory Management Feature That Auto-Bookkeeps for SMB Retailers

Hi everyone 👋 — It's David Oduse here again, Co-founder and senior backend engineer at Monesize, a simplified bookkeeping solution for SMBs.

I want to share how I recently built and integrated a new inventory management feature that not only helps retailers track stock but also automates their bookkeeping in the process. This came directly from market feedback, and I thought it would be valuable to break down how I approached it from both a product and engineering angle.

The market signal

Monesize originally focused on smart bookkeeping — helping small businesses track income, expenses, and automate financial analytics real-time.

But as we pushed to onboard retailers, our CMO kept getting a recurring comment:

👉 “The bookkeeping app is cool, but what we really need is something to help us manage inventory — that’s our biggest headache.”

Retailers are stressed about tracking what’s in stock, what’s selling, and tying that into their records. We knew we had to act fast to stay relevant.

🎯 The goal

- Build a flexible inventory management feature

- Make sure it’s integrated with bookkeeping to avoid redundant UX

- Keep it dead simple for SMB users

⚙️ Engineering the feature

I started engineering the feature this morning as early, after drafting a 3-week sprint plan with the product and marketing team. Today alone, I wrote code from 5 AM to 5 PM and completed 13 out of 25 planned API endpoints for the inventory feature.

Some key elements I focused on:

- Inventory records auto-generate bookkeeping entries:

When a retailer adds stock, records a sale, or updates quantities, the system automatically updates their income/expense records in the bookkeeping module.

- Smart defaults:

Since users already have a base currency and business profile set up, I made sure inventory actions don’t ask for the same info repeatedly — the system just knows.

- Seamless integration:

The inventory module isn’t a separate tool, it’s baked right into the core Monesize app, so users don’t feel like they’re managing two different things.

What I’ve learned so far

👉 Listen to the market. This feature wasn’t on my original roadmap, but real user feedback shaped it.

👉 Build with scalability in mind from day one. Because I designed bookkeeping and inventory to work together at the data level, the APIs naturally link up.

👉 Keep the user experience simple. Most of our SMB users aren’t techies — they want something that “just works.

🚀 What’s next?

My laptop battery gave up on me at 5 PM today, so I’m finishing up the remaining API endpoints tomorrow. After that, it’s testing, deployment, documentation and gathering more feedback from the frontend engineers to refine it further.

Final thoughts

This build reinforced something for me:

👉 Engineering isn’t just about writing code — it’s about solving real problems that users care about.

I’m excited to see how this helps Monesize users, and I’ll share updates as we roll it out! Stay tuned.

And don't forget to #GoGreenWithMonesize by joining the smart bookkeeping app for SMBs today via https://monesize.com