A pharmacy POS has one job a general retail POS does not: know the batch and expiry date of every strip on the shelf, sell the soonest-expiring batch first, and refuse to sell one that has passed its date. The regulator expects the same. The DGDA's model pharmacy accreditation guideline (authorised 2 June 2024) says a model pharmacy must run pharmacy management software, and its inspection checklist asks whether the shop has "the right management system for expired medicines". The market is large and mostly unrecorded: Bangladesh has around 191,512 registered retail pharmacies and about as many unregistered, and a 2017 survey found only 9 percent of shops kept a stock register. Off-the-shelf pharmacy packages are published at around ≈ $150 one-time for either of two packages (Sunshine IT, read 4 September 2026, converted at about 120 BDT to the US dollar and rounded). BengalTech's custom tiers start at $2,200 for a single pharmacy, $3,400 for a high-volume medicine corner and $5,900 for a pharmacy chain, according to its 2026 price list. The six features below are the difference between those two price levels.
Updated 4 September 2026. Every outside figure links to where it was read; BengalTech figures come from its published 2026 price list.
The uncounted loss: no published figure exists for what a Bangladeshi pharmacy loses to expiry each year, and this guide no longer invents one. What is published is that in 2017 only 9 percent of shops kept a stock register and 10 percent a sales record. A shop that does not record stock by batch cannot know what it throws away.
The six features, and the proof to ask for
Batch-level receiving, not quantity-level
Every purchase line is stored with its batch number and expiry date, so one product can sit in stock as three batches with three dates. A POS that stores "Napa 500 mg: 400 strips" cannot tell you which 40 of them expire next month.
Proof: Receive one supplier invoice with two batches of the same item in the demo, then open the stock report. It should show two lines with two dates, not one total.
First-expiry-first-out at the counter
General retail sells first-in-first-out. A pharmacy must sell the batch that expires soonest, whichever arrived first, and the till should choose it without the cashier reading dates off the box.
Proof: Sell that item on the demo till. The bill should pick the earlier-expiring batch by itself; if the cashier had to choose, it is not FEFO.
Near-expiry alerts with a return list per supplier
Model pharmacy pharmacists are responsible for tracking expiry and returning expired medicines to the companies, according to the 2025 study by Chakma and colleagues. The alert is only useful if it produces the list the distributor's representative will accept: item, batch, quantity, supplier, days to expiry.
Proof: Set the alert window to 90 days and ask for next month's return list grouped by supplier. If the answer is a dashboard colour and no list, the work is still manual.
A hard block on expired batches
A warning can be clicked through on a busy evening. The till should refuse to add a batch that has passed its date, and the override, if one exists, should be a manager action that is logged.
Proof: Back-date a batch to last month in the demo and try to sell it. The sale should fail, not warn.
Prescription reference and an antibiotic register
The DGDA's accreditation checklist asks whether the shop maintains a register of sold antibiotics and whether antibiotics are sold without a valid prescription. Only 39 medicines are on the DGDA's over-the-counter list; everything else should carry a prescription reference on the sale.
Proof: Sell an antibiotic on the demo. The till should ask for the prescription reference and the sale should appear in an antibiotic register you can print for an inspector.
A counter that keeps dispensing offline
Load shedding reached seven to eleven hours a day in parts of the country in April 2026, according to Dhaka Tribune. A cloud-only pharmacy POS stops selling, and the batch logic above stops with it, for part of the trading day.
Proof: Unplug the router mid-sale. The bill should print, FEFO should still pick the batch, and the sale should appear in the cloud report after reconnection.
What the DGDA guideline expects of the software
The Directorate General of Drug Administration has accredited retail medicine shops as Model Pharmacies and Model Medicine Shops since 2016; Chakma and colleagues count 274 model pharmacies inaugurated between 2016 and 2020. The National Guideline on Accreditation (document NRA-RS-G-004, authorised 2 June 2024) sets the bar for each. A Model Pharmacy needs at least 300 square feet, air conditioning, a pharmacy-grade refrigerator and a Grade A graduate pharmacist, and "must maintain computer(s) and use DGDA-provided PMS or commercially available software for running its day-to-day operations". A Model Medicine Shop needs at least 120 square feet and a Grade C pharmacy technician; a computer is "better to have" but not mandatory, and the shop may run the Android version of the DGDA software on a smartphone for "purchase, sales, profit, stock-in, stock-out, expired medicine(s) alert etc."
The pre-assessment checklist in the same guideline is the list your software should be able to answer for an inspector: does the shop preserve and monitor temperature-sensitive medicines, does it have the right management system for expired medicines, does it keep the DGDA's list of 39 over-the-counter medicines, does it maintain a register of sold antibiotics, and are antibiotics sold without a valid prescription. Accreditation lasts 2 years and is then renewed. The drug licence itself now runs through the DGDA's Automated Drug Licensing and Renewal System, launched in November 2021, which cut the time to a new licence from 45 days to 5 and the cost from about $375 to about $30, according to Management Sciences for Health, which helped build it.
Two things follow for a buyer. The batch, expiry and antibiotic records are not a nice-to-have; they are the checklist. And the DGDA's own free software sets the floor: a paid product has to do what the Android app does and then do the things it does not, which are the six above.
The 2023 Act made the counter auditable
Parliament passed the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 2023 on 6 September 2023 and it was gazetted on 18 September, replacing the Drugs (Control) Ordinance of 1982. The Daily Star reported that it contains 30 types of offence where the ordinance had six, that the DGDA will establish a Department of Drug Prosecution to enforce it, that a pharmacy is fined Tk 20,000 for selling a non-OTC medicine without a prescription, and that selling medicines without a licence carries up to ten years or a fine of Tk 10 lakh. The Business Standard reported that the sale, storage, distribution or display of adulterated drugs is punishable with life imprisonment or up to 14 years, or a fine of up to Tk 10 lakh, and that selling physician samples carries a Tk 10,000 fine.
None of the reports we read names expired stock as a separate offence, and this guide does not claim one. What the Act does is make the licence, the prescription and the sales record things an inspector can ask for. A POS that records every sale by batch, with a prescription reference where the medicine is not on the OTC list, is the cheapest way to have those answers ready. If you are also weighing the wider six-question test that applies to any Bangladesh POS, run each vendor against the POS buyer's checklist first.
What a pharmacy POS costs
Software only, one-time. Hardware (barcode scanner, receipt printer, drawer, terminal) is covered with Star Tech list prices in the POS price guide.
| Option | Price | What you get | Of the six features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunshine IT Basic | ≈ $150 | Single company, single warehouse, 1–3 users. Stock and expiry-date tracking, billing, supplier records. No backup or SMS. (published package, read 4 September 2026) | Batch numbers and expiry dates are listed. FEFO at the till, a hard block, a supplier return list, an antibiotic register and offline billing are not listed. |
| Sunshine IT Professional | ≈ $150 | Single company, multi-warehouse, unlimited users, monthly backup and SMS included. (same page) | As above with more users and warehouses. The other five are not listed. |
| BengalTech Local Pharmacy | Starts at $2,200 | Single-branch pharmacy. Barcode scanning, expiry alerts, supplier accounts. Source code yours, no per-counter fee. | Batch receiving, FEFO, alerts with return list, hard block, offline counter. |
| BengalTech Pharma Super-Shop | Starts at $3,400 | High-volume medicine corner. Batch tracking, multi-user authorisation, prescription logging. | All six. |
| BengalTech Pharmacy Chain | Starts at $5,900 | Cloud-synced branches, central warehouse, cross-branch transfers, analytics. | All six, across branches. |
The tiers are the same ones on the pharmacy POS service page. Honest reading: one small medicine shop with one counter and a Grade C technician should buy the package or run the DGDA's free Android app. The custom tiers pay for themselves where the package stops: FEFO the cashier cannot skip, a return list the distributor accepts, an antibiotic register an inspector can read, and a counter that sells through load shedding. For how a one-time build compares with subscription platforms over three years, see the custom POS development cost guide.
Signs your pharmacy has outgrown quantity-only stock
These are the operational cracks that show up once a medicine shop is counting products instead of batches:
- Expired strips are found during a shelf check, not before it.
- Returns to the distributor are worked out from memory and the box dates, and some are missed.
- Stock is counted by product, so nobody can say how many strips expire in the next 90 days.
- Antibiotic sales are not written anywhere a DGDA inspector could read.
- Fast movers run out because the reorder is triggered by an empty shelf, not a minimum level.
- The counter stops selling when the internet or power drops.
Stop losing money on dead stock
The 2017 survey that found 9 percent of shops with a stock register also counted 1,06,919 licensed retail drug shops at the time; the 2025 estimate is 191,512. Most of that growth is shops that still count strips by hand. Moving to batch-level stock is the change that makes every other number, expiry, returns, antibiotic sales, reorder points, visible for the first time. Load shedding of seven to eleven hours a day in April 2026 is why the offline test is on the list. If your shop is also a general store, the super shop POS guide covers the multi-counter side.
Ready to digitise your pharmacy? BengalTech Solutions builds pharmacy POS software with batch-level stock, FEFO dispensing, expiry alerts and prescription logging for pharmacies in Bangladesh. Tell us about your shop.
Sources
External references behind the figures and claims on this page. Rate bands and vendor pricing move — check the source before quoting a number.
- National Guideline on Accreditation of Model Pharmacy and Model Medicine Shop in Bangladesh (NRA-RS-G-004, authorised 2 June 2024)
Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA)
A Model Pharmacy (at least 300 sq ft, air-conditioned, pharmacy-grade refrigerator, Grade A pharmacist) "must maintain computer(s) and use DGDA-provided PMS or commercially available software"; a Model Medicine Shop (at least 120 sq ft, Grade C technician) may use the Android version of the DGDA software for "purchase, sales, profit, stock-in, stock-out, expired medicine(s) alert"; the pre-assessment checklist asks about temperature-sensitive medicines, "the right management system for expired medicines", the 39-item OTC list, the antibiotic register and prescription-only sales; accreditation is valid for two years.
- Chakma et al., Exploration of Challenges and Opportunities for Good Pharmacy Practices in Bangladesh: A Qualitative Study (Pharmacy, 2025)
PubMed Central
Around 191,512 registered retail pharmacies in Bangladesh with an estimated equal number unregistered; 274 model pharmacies inaugurated by the DGDA between 2016 and 2020; model pharmacy pharmacists are responsible for tracking expiry dates and returning expired medicines to the companies.
- Ahmed et al., Exploring the status of retail private drug shops in Bangladesh (Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice, 2017)
PubMed Central
1,06,919 licensed retail drug shops at the time; of 111 shops surveyed across seven divisions, only 9 percent maintained a stock register and 10 percent a drug sales record, and about a third had a functioning refrigerator.
- Bangladesh's Pharmacy Registration System Goes Digital
Management Sciences for Health
The DGDA's Automated Drug Licensing and Renewal System launched in November 2021; the average time to a new licence fell from 45 days to 5 and the average cost from about $375 to about $30; roughly 300,000 small drug sellers, half estimated to be unlicensed.
- New drug act to take pharma sector to greater heights (5 October 2023)
The Daily Star
The Drugs and Cosmetics Act 2023, passed on 6 September 2023, contains 30 types of offence against six in the 1982 ordinance; the DGDA will establish a Department of Drug Prosecution; a Tk 20,000 fine for selling medicines without a prescription; up to ten years or Tk 10 lakh for selling medicines without a licence.
- Drugs and Cosmetics Bill passed with provision for life term (7 September 2023)
The Business Standard
Manufacture, sale, storage, distribution and display of adulterated drugs punishable with life imprisonment or up to 14 years' rigorous imprisonment or a fine of up to Tk 10 lakh; pharmacies fined Tk 20,000 for selling non-OTC drugs without a prescription; Tk 10,000 for selling physician samples.
- Pharmacy POS Software Bangladesh: packages
Sunshine IT
Two published one-time pharmacy POS packages (Basic: single company, single warehouse, 1–3 users, no backup or SMS; Professional: multi-warehouse, unlimited users, monthly backup and SMS) that list stock and expiry-date tracking and batch numbers, read 4 September 2026.
- Power supply slashed, daytime load shedding surges to 8–9 hours nationwide (17 April 2026)
Dhaka Tribune
Daytime load shedding of seven to eleven hours a day in Chittagong, Khulna and Rangpur in April 2026 — why a pharmacy counter must keep dispensing offline.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does pharmacy POS software do that a general retail POS does not?
Six things. It stores stock by batch and expiry date rather than by quantity, dispenses the soonest-expiring batch first, produces a near-expiry return list per supplier, refuses to sell a batch past its date, records a prescription reference and keeps an antibiotic register as the DGDA accreditation checklist asks, and keeps doing all of that when the power or internet drops. Generic-name search and a minimum-stock reorder sit behind those six.
How much does pharmacy POS software cost in Bangladesh?
Off-the-shelf pharmacy packages are published at around ≈ $150 one-time by Sunshine IT, read 4 September 2026 and converted at about 120 BDT to the US dollar: a basic package (one to three users, one warehouse) and a professional one (unlimited users, multi-warehouse) sit within a few dollars of each other after rounding. A custom build from BengalTech starts at $2,200 for a single pharmacy with batch and expiry alerts, starts at $3,400 for a high-volume medicine corner with batch tracking, multi-user authorisation and prescription logging, and starts at $5,900 for a pharmacy chain with branch syncing and a central warehouse, one-time, with the source code yours and no per-counter fee. Hardware is extra in every case.
Does the DGDA require pharmacy management software?
For an accredited model pharmacy, yes. The DGDA's National Guideline on Accreditation of Model Pharmacy and Model Medicine Shop, authorised 2 June 2024, says a model pharmacy must maintain computers and use the DGDA-provided pharmacy management software or commercially available software for its day-to-day operations. For a model medicine shop a computer is recommended but not mandatory, and the shop may use the Android version of the DGDA software on a smartphone for purchase, sales, profit, stock-in, stock-out and expired-medicine alerts. The inspection checklist also asks whether the shop has the right management system for expired medicines, monitors temperature-sensitive medicines and keeps an antibiotic register. Accreditation is valid for 2 years and then renewed.
What is FEFO and why do pharmacies need it instead of FIFO?
FEFO means first expiry, first out. The till dispenses the batch that expires soonest, whichever was received first, so short-dated stock leaves the shelf before long-dated stock. FIFO, the normal retail rule, sells the oldest purchase first, which is wrong whenever a later delivery carries an earlier expiry date. FEFO only works if the POS stores stock by batch; a quantity-only system cannot do it.
Can the POS stop staff from selling expired medicine?
Yes, if it is built as a block rather than a warning. The till should refuse to add any batch past its date, with a logged manager override at most. The Drugs and Cosmetics Act 2023 made the retail counter auditable: it created 30 types of offence where the old ordinance had six, fines a pharmacy Tk 20,000 for selling a non-OTC medicine without a prescription, and punishes the sale, storage or display of adulterated drugs with up to 14 years or life imprisonment, according to The Daily Star and The Business Standard. A batch-level sales record is the only practical way to show an inspector what was sold from which batch and when.
How much does a pharmacy lose to expired medicine each year?
There is no published Bangladesh figure, and this guide no longer quotes one. What is published is why the loss goes uncounted: a 2017 survey of 111 retail drug shops across seven divisions found only 9 percent kept a stock register and 10 percent a drug sales record, according to Ahmed and colleagues in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice. A shop that does not record stock by batch cannot know what it wrote off. The first month on a batch-level POS produces the number for your own shop.
Does pharmacy POS software also prevent stockouts?
Yes, with a minimum-stock level per item. You set the level for fast movers, and when stock falls below it the item goes onto a draft purchase order for that supplier. The same batch data drives the other direction: because the system knows how many strips expire in the next 90 days, the reorder quantity can allow for what will be returned rather than reordering on top of it.