Billing for your hardware and paint shop in Goa
A contractor's three sites on three pages, paint by the litre and cement waiting out the rains in the godown.
From three days of tins to one page, and a drum counted in litres
The house's tins on one page, with the colour in the item's name
Make blue and yellow two items, named by the colour, and open a page for the painter's house. Each day's tins go on it as a bill with its day. When the owner asks what the paint came to, you read the three days off the page and send the total on WhatsApp. The three totals become one, and the painter and the owner of the house are shown the same page.
Plain and stainless hinges as two items, so the bill says which one was sold
Make the plain hinge and the stainless hinge two items with their own rates and their own counts. The boy picks by the item's name and the bill carries it. If a customer comes back with a rusted hinge, the bill she shows says what she was sold. The stainless one costs a little more, and the bill shows that the customer chose it.
The drum counted in litres, each pour taken off it as it is billed
Make the thinner and the varnish items sold by the litre. A bill for half a litre takes half a litre off the drum's count. At the week's end the drum and the phone can be read against each other, and a difference is traced to its day.
Tools for a shop with a cement godown, a paint counter and contractors
Bills on your phone
The thinner and the varnish poured from the drum into the painter's can, by the litre, on a bill sent to the house owner on WhatsApp.
Credit book (khata)
Sand by the truckload and cement by the bag go on the contractor's page at the rate of the day they leave, so at month's end every line still reads true.
Low stock warnings
The drum of thinner shown as running low before the painter arrives with an empty bottle.
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Why a Goa hardware shop cannot say what a blue-and-yellow house cost, which hinge rusted or how much thinner is left in the drum
A house painted in blue and yellow, bought a tin at a time over three days
A painter takes on a house with blue walls and yellow trim before the rains. He does not know how much he will need, so he comes for two tins of blue on the first day, one of yellow on the second and a third of blue on the third. Each day he is told a rate, a roller or a brush is added, and when the owner of the house asks what the paint came to, nobody has the three days in one place. By the third day the owner of the house has heard three totals from three people, and the painter blames the shop.
Hinges, bolts and padlocks that rust in the salt air
Near the sea the iron in a door or a gate rusts in a season. Customers ask for the stainless hinge, not the plain one, and the two look almost the same on the shelf. The owner keeps both in the same drawer, the boy picks the wrong one, and the customer comes back a few months later with a rusted hinge and a bill that does not say which kind it was. A hinge that rusted in a year is remembered by the customer far better than the owner remembers the sale. Nobody at the counter can say which kind the customer was sold, and the owner is left explaining it with the old hinge in his hand.
Thinner and varnish poured from a drum into the customer's own bottle
Paint thinner, kerosene and varnish are kept in drums and poured into whatever bottle the customer brings. The measure is a steel jug, the rate is for the litre, and the customer asks for half a litre or a little more. At the end of the week the drum is lower than the book says, and no one can tell whether it was spilled, given as a favour or sold and not written.
What a Goa hardware shop owner asks before starting
A painter brings back a half-used tin of yellow. How do I show that on his account?
Put the tin back as an opened item with its own rate, and note on the painter's page that it came back, so the house's page shows what he took and what returned. Count the opened tin as an item of its own, marked as opened, so the next buyer is not sold it as a full one.
A hinge rusted in the salt air. Which hinges should I stock in stainless?
Plain hinges rust first in the salt air. Stock the ones that face the sea in stainless, the plain ones for inside doors.
A house is repainted before the rains and the second coat must match the first. How do I be sure?
Salt air and humidity attack the first coat before the second goes on, so the first coat suffers most. Open the house's page: the tin of the first coat is there with its name and day. Sell the second coat from the same name, and tell the owner how many weeks have passed.
Sand that cost more every year and the price of a bag of cement
A Ponda contractor told Herald that sand from Kudal cost Rs 23,000 a truckload, up from Rs 15,000 two years earlier, as the ban on sand extraction in Goa's rivers continued. A shop that sells sand by the load can change that item's rate in one place, and each bill keeps the rate it was made at.
In 2022 the average wholesale price of a 50 kg cement bag was Rs 392.57 in Panaji, Rs 390.00 in Margao and Rs 387.48 in Mapusa. The three prices lie within about Rs 5 of one another. A bag billed in any of the three towns carries the rate of its day.