Billing and udhaar for every shop in Delhi
The shop in a colony market and the cartons in a room upstairs are counted together, on one phone.
Where a Delhi counter loses its evening: the flat's list, the Diwali boxes and the room upstairs
The boy with the list from the flats
In a Delhi colony half your customers live in flats above and behind the shop. They do not walk in. A child or a helper comes down with a list, you pack it, and the bill goes on a slip that is lost by the evening. Whether that family paid, or told you to write it down, is something you carry in your head until the end of the month.
The office that sends a peon for its Diwali boxes on the last evening
Offices give gifts at Diwali and order boxes of dry fruit and sweets in dozens, to be collected late on a day they name. The peon wants a bill his accounts section will accept, and he is in a hurry. A bill written by hand in the dark of the evening rush, with the tax added up in the margin, is what comes back to you a week later with a question.
A shop a few feet wide, and the stock in a room upstairs
Rent is high in the city, so the counter is small and most of the stock sits in a basement or on a floor above another shop. When a customer asks for the big pack, someone has to climb up and look. You order more because you think it is low, and find two weeks later that it was there all along, behind the cartons.
From the Monday after Diwali to the household that changes its helper
When the new helper says the oil was never bought, the page answers
Households change their helper often, and the new one does not know what was taken last week. Keep one page in the household's name. When a doubt comes, open it and show the bill with its date and what was on it. The talk at the door is short, and the household keeps buying from you.
The caterer is told yes or no before he arrives
A wedding caterer, a canteen or a smaller shop may want a lot of oil, flour or sugar and pay after the event. They can apply to buy from you on credit, and you decide who is given it. What they owe sits apart from the udhaar of the families next door, so one kind of credit never hides the other.
The Monday after Diwali starts with two counts
On the Monday after Diwali the count of the shop and the count of the room upstairs sit side by side. The sizes sold out at the counter but still stacked upstairs are carried down, not bought again. Only what both counts show as gone goes on the list for the wholesale lanes, and that trip is made once.
What helps when the shop is a few feet wide and the wholesaler is across the city
Credit book (khata)
Two families with the same surname in one block of flats each get a page with the flat written in the name, so the first floor's bill is never put on the second floor's page.
Godown stock
The basement or the room upstairs counted as its own place, so nobody climbs the stairs to check a carton before an order.
Bills on your phone
A bill for the flat's list made while you pack it, and sent on WhatsApp to the number the family gives, not to the boy.
GST bills
A GST bill with the tax worked out for the office that orders its Diwali boxes, made while the peon waits, so no tax is added up in the margin.
Sell to other businesses
An office that orders Diwali boxes by the dozen applies as a business buyer, and once accepted, its GST bill is made at the counter.
What Delhi shop owners ask about the helper, the caterer and the Diwali box
The office sends a peon to collect its Diwali boxes, but its accounts need the bill in the office's name. What do I do?
Make the bill on a page in the office's name, and send it to the number of the person who looks after its accounts. The peon only carries the boxes.
A caterer wants a lot of oil and flour for a wedding on credit, and I have never met him. Can I say no?
Yes. A wedding caterer's lot is large, and a stranger's is the one to hold back. Say no to credit and sell it for cash at the counter. It is your decision.
My Diwali gift box has a different mix of nuts every year. Can each year's box be its own item?
Yes, and the two years then read side by side. At Diwali you see how many of last year's box went against this year's, and which year's mix of nuts the offices ordered by the dozen.
The old market behind many Delhi counters
Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi has been a market for over three centuries: Khari Baoli for spices, Dariba Kalan for gold, silver and pearl jewellery, Katra Neel for fabrics. A colony shop that sells spices, cloth or jewellery may buy its stock from these lanes, and the rate on the wholesaler's bill is the one your own rate is made from.
Bhagirath Palace in Old Delhi is described as Asia's largest market for electrical goods, and Nai Sarak sells school and college textbooks, wholesale and retail. A shop that sells switches, wires or school books buys its stock in these lanes, then sells it on in its own colony at its own rate.