Billing for your hardware and paint shop, bag by bag and tin by tin
Thousands of small and big items, the contractor's udhaar and rates that move every week, in one place.
Where the count goes wrong at a hardware and paint counter
Thousands of items, and each in many sizes
One pipe comes in four thicknesses. One paint comes in twenty shades and three tin sizes. Nuts, bolts, hinges and screws each have a box of their own. Which size has run out is often found only when the customer is standing at the counter. He takes it from the next shop, and goes there next time too.
Cement and sand rates move every few weeks
In September 2022 Punjab builders said cement had risen from Rs 275 to Rs 350 per bag and bricks from Rs 5,200 to Rs 7,000 per 1,000. In September 2024 Raipur MP Brijmohan Agrawal said Chhattisgarh makes about 30 lakh tonnes (6 crore sacks) of cement every month and that cement rose from about Rs 260 to nearly Rs 310 a sack from 3 September. In August 2026 Malabar Cement in Kerala sold at Rs 300 a bag wholesale and about Rs 350 retail, while Ultratech, Shankar and Ramco cost Rs 380 to 480. A bill made on an old slip loses on every bag, and the same bag at such different prices is hard to keep in the head.
Sand, stone and bricks arrive by the lorry, and a late lorry stops a site
Cement goes by the bag, but sand, stone and bricks arrive by the lorry-load and the thousand. When the lorry is late, the mason waits and the site stands still, and the customer's first call is to the shop that promised the delivery. The shopkeeper has the supplier's word and nothing else to show for it. A dry spell brings the lorries on time and a flooded road stops them for days, and the shop sees both in the same notebook.
Sizes, building sites and the weeks before a festival paint job
Every size has its own stock
A hardware counter holds a thousand small things. Bolts and washers sit in bins, and each size of each bin is an item with its own count. The new boy reads the size on the phone and goes to the right bin, not through all of them. A bin that is nearly empty shows before a customer finds it bare. Pipe is kept by thickness and length, and paint by shade and tin, in the same way.
Bags, lorry-loads and thousands are three units on one shop's list
Cement is an item counted in bags, sand an item counted in lorry-loads, and bricks an item counted in thousands. One contractor's bill carries all three, each in its own unit. A bag of Malabar and a bag of Ultratech are two items, so the gap between their rates is on the bill and not in your head. Bills made earlier keep their own rates, even when a price moves in between.
The right stock before the festival painting weeks
Before Christmas, Goan families begin preparations by painting their houses and compounds and preparing the Christmas crib. Before such painting weeks, keep the wall colours, the big tins, the brushes and the rollers in full, so that no customer goes home empty-handed in the weeks the walls are done.
Tools for a shop of bins, bags and paint tins
Bills on your phone
A contractor's bill that runs to many lines because the site took everything from tiles to a bucket, each line in its own unit.
GST bills
A GST bill for the construction company that takes cement and rods together, with the tax worked out on each.
Orders to suppliers
The order sent to the dealer and the goods off the truck set side by side, so a shortfall is caught the same day.
Questions hardware and paint dealers ask
Can I keep a mason's credit apart from a contractor's?
Yes, and they work differently. A mason may send money by UPI from the site, and you note it against his page. A contractor pays when the job is done, so his page runs for months, each site's material dated.
A customer's sand comes to his site in two trips on two days. How do I bill it?
Make a bill for each trip under the customer's name, a second bill under the same name for the second day. Each bill takes its sand off the stock on its own day, and the customer's page shows both trips with their dates.
Waterproofing and tarpaulins sell in the rains and paint and putty in the dry months. How do I know how much of each to hold?
Open last year's rainy weeks and dry weeks side by side and see how many tins of waterproofing, sheets of tarpaulin, lengths of pipe and tins of paint went out in each. Stock the rain goods before the first shower and the paint before the dry weeks, in the numbers that moved.
The sand lorry I promised for Monday is still on the road. What can I show the customer?
Tell him plainly which day you expect the lorry, and what you hold today. If it is late, say so the same day, with the next day you expect it.
The building materials market across India
Morbi in Gujarat accounts for nearly 90 per cent of India's total ceramic production and exports; its major shift came in the 1970s and 1980s with roof tiles and glazed tiles.
In 2024-25 Morbi's ceramic exports were estimated at around Rs 15,000 crore.
In Jharkhand sand lifting from all sand ghats is banned from 10 June to 15 October during the monsoon, which can leave builders short of sand.
In January 2020 builders said sand depots in Tamil Nadu could supply only 2,500 lorry loads a day against demand of about 35,000, pushing many to M-Sand.
Rajasthan accounts for 70 per cent of India's stone production, the RIICO chairman said at India Stonemart-2022 in November 2022.
Freight charges for cement and steel to Manipur rose from around Rs 1,350 to nearly Rs 2,000 per tonne, and transporters often demand extra for delays.
In November 2020 a bag of Star or Dalmia cement in Assam rose from Rs 390 to Rs 420 in 15 days, and rods rose Rs 5,000 a ton.
Bihar's government banned sand mining statewide until 15 October for the monsoon and created a buffer stock to keep construction supplied, Patna Press reported in June 2026.