Billing for your sweet shop and bakery, from the first batch to the festival box
Mithai by the kilo, bread by the piece and the big order for a wedding, all on one phone.
Tools for a counter of trays, scales and boxes
Bills on your phone
One bill for half a kilo of barfi, six samosas, a dozen pav and a gift box, each in the unit it is sold.
Orders to suppliers
The order to the box printer goes out first in the festival month, because the boxes are wanted on the same day as the laddus, and the ghee dealer's and the besan wholesaler's follow. Each arrival is noted, so the first batch is not left waiting for a box.
Online orders
Orders for festival boxes and wedding laddus from your own online shop, so the order is in front of you and not in a notebook.
GST bills
A bill with the tax worked out for the caterer or the hotel that buys laddu and samosas in bulk, shared or printed.
Low stock warnings
A warning when ghee tins, besan or sugar are nearly done, so the next batch is not stopped half way.
From the batch before dawn to the box tied with a ribbon
One rate for each sweet, changed when the ghee changes
Each sweet is an item with its own rate per kilo. When ghee or besan moves, change the rate of the sweets that use it, in one place on your phone. Every bill from that moment takes the new rate, and the bills already made keep the old one. The helper at the counter never needs to ask what a kilo of jalebi costs today.
The morning batch of pav is baked to the day's count
In Goa the All Goa Association of Bakers co-organised the Poderanchem Fest at Socorro to showcase Goan bread and the foods eaten with it, such as choris-pao and sorpotel-poie. A bakery whose bread goes with the meal sells pav by the dozen every day. Keep each day's pav in the report, and the next morning's batch is baked to that count.
The sweet that sits on the tray all month shows in the bills
A festival crowd hides the slow sweets. Open the sales of an ordinary week and each sweet has its own count, kilo by kilo. The ones that sold least come off the tray, and the ghee and the sugar go to the ones people ask for.
Oil, ghee and gas move, and the laddu on the tray keeps its old rate
The cost of every sweet moves, and the rate card does not
A sweet shop fixes a rate per kilo for each sweet, and each sweet is made from a different mix of sugar, milk, ghee, besan and gas. In Ahmedabad the Sweets and Farsan Association president said higher oil, ghee, besan and gas costs raised jalebi-fafda prices 15 to 20 percent over the previous year. Every owner knows the rate card should move with the kitchen, but changing every label on the tray is a job for a quiet Sunday that never comes. A shop in a small town may have six sweets on the tray and a shop in a big city sixty, but the card on the glass is out of date in both.
A bakery side with puffs, cutlets and cake slices beside the sweets
Many shops have a glass counter of mithai on one side and a bakery rack on the other: puffs, cutlets, pastries, slices of cake. The bakery side sells by the piece and sells fastest at tea time, while the mithai side sells by the kilo and sells before festivals. One cash box serves both, and at night nobody can say which side earned what.
Every sweet has its own supplier
Ghee comes from one dealer, besan from another, sugar from the wholesaler, boxes and ribbon from a printer. The owner keeps the list of who sends what in his head. When the sugar runs out in the middle of a festival week, nobody has written down who to call or how much was last asked for.
Questions a halwai and a baker ask across the counter
I bake bread every morning. Can I add the batch to stock and have each bill take from it?
Yes. Put the number of dozens in when the batch comes out of the oven. Every bill takes its count off, and at night the stock shows how many dozens are left.
The tea stall next door takes samosas and puffs every morning and pays at the week's end. Do I keep that apart from the walk-in sales?
Yes. The stall's samosas go on its page, and the walk-in sales stay in the day's report, so the two never mix. The page gives one figure at the week's end.
The oil tin, the ghee tin and the besan bag are bought in one unit and used in another. Can they be items too?
Yes. Add each as an item in the unit you buy it, and note every delivery. You can see what came in and what is still on the shelf.
At night I sell the leftover barfi and puffs at a lower rate. How do I keep that apart from the day's sales?
Put the evening rate in as its own item, such as barfi in the evening, with its own rate. The day's sales then show how many kilos went at the full rate and how many at less.
I put up a stall at the village fair for three days. Can I read the stall apart from the shop?
Yes. Add the stall as a second shop in the same account, with the trays you take there as its stock. Its bills and count are its own. After the fair read it alone, or both together.
Two sweet-making corners: a rice sheet in Konaseema and a kitchen inspection in Guwahati
A maker in Atreyapuram, in Konaseema district of Andhra Pradesh, makes about 200 rice sheets a day, which local sweet shops pick up; the sticky local rice is used only for these sheets.
In Guwahati, Assam, food safety officers served improvement notices on inspected sweetmeat shops, bakeries and dhabas with poor kitchen hygiene, and told some owners to renovate within seven days.