Billing for your stationery and book shop in Chandigarh
The covering table in April, Diwali diaries ordered by offices and the month of newspapers at the door.
From a pencil list to books and covers on one bill, a gift order read once and a month of newspapers on a page
A week at the covering table, read day by day
At night the report says how many sets the boy covered, and the week's nights read in a row show which day the table was busiest. The covering has its own small rate on the parent's bill beside the books, so the next April you know which day to expect the crowd.
An office's gift order billed once, each box and diary on its own line
Put each kind of diary and each kind of gift pen on the bill as its own line, with the number of boxes. The office gets the bill on WhatsApp with the order laid out, and the boxes that leave the shop come off their own counts. The pad and the handwritten slip are not needed.
A reader's month on one page, with the week he was away left off
Open a page for each house that takes the paper. Each day's delivery is a line on it, and the days the reader was away are simply not there. At the month's end you send the page on WhatsApp, and the reader pays for the days he really had. A reader who stops the paper for a month is left off the cards altogether, and the page shows the gap.
Why April's covering table goes unbilled, the Diwali diaries are ordered by the dozen and the morning newspapers are a month of days
The covering table in April, where every book gets brown paper and a name label
In the first week of the session parents ask the shop to cover the new books in plastic and stick on a name label. A boy sits at the back with a roll of plastic and a pair of scissors and covers a set of books in a few minutes. The covering is charged by the set, and it is never written, so April's busiest table earns the shop a few coins at a time that nobody counts. While he does it two more parents have joined the queue behind her, each holding a list of their own. The covering boy works for the whole first week, and by the Friday the plastic roll is nearly gone.
Diaries and pens for an office's staff, packed in the evening from a pencilled pad
In the weeks before the festival offices ring up for leather diaries, boxed pens and desk sets to give to their staff and visitors, each office wanting a different mix. The owner pencils the list on a pad, packs the boxes in the evening with ribbon and a card, and sends them next day with a handwritten slip. When an office asks for the same order a year later, there is only the pad's torn page.
The morning newspapers, a month of days on a customer's page
Before the shop opens a bundle of newspapers and magazines arrives, and a boy takes them to the houses of the regular readers. The readers pay at the end of the month for the days they got, and a few are away for a week and want those days off. The owner reckons each house from a card, and every month some of the cards have a wrong count. Each house has its own paper, and some take two, one in each language.
Tools for a counter with a book shelf, a covering table and a newspaper round
Bills on your phone
The set of books, the covering and a few photocopied pages on the same bill, each with its own rate.
Credit book (khata)
The family's driver, the elder son or the neighbour's child may come for the books. Every bill still lands on the parent's page, so who stood at the counter does not matter.
Low stock warnings
Leather diaries and boxed gift pens shown as they run low in the weeks before Diwali, before the next office rings.
What a Chandigarh stationery and book shop owner asks before starting
Diaries come by the dozen, but an office takes seven and a student takes one. Can both be billed?
Yes. Make the diary one item with its own rate. Enter seven for the office or one for the student, and the count comes down by that number.
A reader pays by the quarter, not the month. Can his page hold three months?
Yes. His page keeps every day's paper as a line, and three months of lines sit on the one page. At the quarter's end you read him the whole page and he pays once.
A department wants the gift boxes counted and the GST shown on the same bill. Can one bill do both?
Yes. List each kind of box with its number and GST worked out, so the department's accounts read the boxes and the tax together.
The book-list scramble of 2022 and the notice boards of 2023
In early April 2022 The Tribune reported a scramble for the books listed by private schools in Chandigarh. A shop that stocks the titles on those lists has its busiest days in the first weeks of April, and a parent waiting at the counter for a missing title is a parent who may go to another shop.
In March 2023 private schools in Chandigarh were told to display on their notice boards the list of books and other articles that students must buy. A shop that keeps its titles and its rates on a phone can answer a parent holding that list in a few minutes.