Billing for your bakery and sweet shop in Silvassa, Daman and Diu
The dawn bake, the coconut sweets in the damp and the box for the visitor, all on one phone.
The dawn bake that is gone by eight, and the coconut sweets that sweat by four
The pav is gone by eight and nobody wrote down how many
You light the oven before the first shift starts. Workers on their way to the factory buy pav, bun and tea biscuits in a rush, and by eight the trays are empty. At noon you remember it was a good morning, but not whether the tray went out four times or six, so tomorrow's flour is a guess. Last Monday's tray is a memory, and last Monday's flour is a bill.
Coconut sweets sweat in the sea air
Coconut burfi and coconut balls are the counter's pride, and they are the first to go soft in a humid afternoon. A tray that looked fresh at ten has a damp shine by four. You mark it down by eye, and at the end of the day you cannot say how much was sold dear and how much was sold cheap.
Boxes for the visitor, kilos for the neighbour
The same counter sells coconut sweets and laddus by the kilo to the family next door, and by the box to the visitor who is taking something home. The box has its own size and price, and when a weekend crowd arrives you stop weighing and start guessing. A box that is packed in a hurry and weighed by eye is a box that loses you money.
Tools for an oven that starts before the shift does
From the Diwali ghee order to the slice sold with a cup of chai
Coconut is ordered for Nariyal Poornima, not for the week
Ghee, grated coconut and sugar are the three big buys of a sweet shop. The coconut order follows the Nariyal Poornima in August and not the week, because the coconut sweets sell most in the festival days. Order the festival's coconut in one lot a few days before, with the ghee and sugar beside it, and no extra tin of ghee sits until February.
A slice with a cup of chai, billed at the counter all afternoon
In the afternoon the counter sells a slice of cake or a coconut bun with a cup of tea, many times over, to factory staff on a break. Each is a small bill, and the QR code on the counter means the person is paid and gone before the tea cools. A cup of tea and a slice for a worker on a break is a sale that pays more by the hundred than the festival box does by the dozen.
The kilo for the lane, the box for the road
At the weekend the crowd by the sea does not wait for a weighing. The box is already at its fixed rate, so the helper picks it from the shelf and ties it, and the family is out before the queue has grown. The neighbour's kilo is weighed at the other end.
Questions bakeries and sweet shops in Silvassa, Daman and Diu ask
The first tray of pav goes out more than once before eight. Can I see how many trays a morning took?
Yes. Make pav an item counted by the piece and put in each tray as it comes from the oven. The day's list shows the pieces sold, so you see how many trays the morning needed and bake the first one to match.
I tie Diwali boxes of two sizes and a few go to the factories as gifts. Can the boxes for a factory go on its page?
Yes. Open a page in the factory's name and bill the boxes as items by size. The factory pays when its accounts clear, and the count of each size falls with every bill.
The oven makes pav at dawn and cake in the afternoon. Can I see which of the two earned more?
Yes. Pav and the cake slice are items with their own rates, and the daily report puts each on its own line with its own money, so the dawn bake and the afternoon cake are read apart.
Bebinca in Diu and the coconut feast of Daman
Incredible India lists bebinca, a layered dessert of coconut, sugar and ghee, among Diu's sweet treats, best enjoyed with a cup of chai. A bakery that carries it sells a sweet that is cut by the slice and weighed by the piece, never by the tray. A layered sweet like this is sold by the slice or the piece, so it is an item with its own rate and not a line in the kilo list.
Daman's Nariyal Poornima, typically held in August, has a Coconut Food Festival as a highlight, says Incredible India. In those weeks coconut is the main ingredient and coconut sweets the counter's main line, so the order to the supplier should follow the festival date and not the usual weekly one.