Billing for your hardware and paint shop in Karnataka
Pipes by the inch, nails by the kilo, paint by the shade and every site on its own account.
Tools for a counter of pipes, cement, nails and paint tins
Low stock warnings
A warning on the tile count before the rains, so a leaking roof is not told to wait for the next lorry.
Godown stock
What is in the tile yard and the godown and what came in on the last lorry, apart from the counter's own count.
Sell to other businesses
One lorry's tiles are shared between the village shops that applied, each on its own credit account, so what one village owes is never added to another's.
What a Karnataka hardware counter faces before the rains and after the shade
A farmer's pump and pipe, bought just before the rains
Before the monsoon farmers come for pump sets, delivery pipes, fittings and sprayers, all in the same few weeks. Each wants it that day, and the pipe is cut to length at the counter. The shop that runs out of the half-inch fitting loses the whole sale, and the farmer who walks out to the next shop may not come back for the seed season.
Roof tiles and tin sheets before the rain, and the ones that crack on the lorry
Roofing goes in the weeks before the rain. Tiles arrive by lorry and some crack on the way, and the owner learns how many only when the lorry has been unloaded and the customer is at the door. A cracked tile is not a sale, and the shop that does not note it is carrying a count that is wrong from the first day.
The paint shade that only the tin remembers
A year later the customer comes for a little more of the wall colour, and the tin is long gone. You try to match it by eye, and the wall now shows two shades of cream. A wall painted in two shades of the same cream is a wall the customer remembers, and he points it out to every visitor.
The tiles counted after the lorry, and the shade number on the bill
The roofing stock counted after the lorry, with the cracked ones taken off
When the tile lorry is unloaded, note what came in. When some tiles crack, take them off the count at once. The number on the phone then matches the stack in the yard, and the customer who asks for a large lot is told the truth about how many whole tiles there are.
The pump's delivery-pipe coupling, found on the phone before the farmer asks twice
A farmer's pump line can split on the morning he needs it, and the part he wants is the coupling that joins the delivery pipe. Keep each coupling size as its own item with its own count, apart from the pipe sold by the length. The count of the size he asks for is on the phone before you answer, so you do not walk to the back to look.
The shade number written on the bill
When you mix a colour, put its shade number in the item name. The bill goes to the customer on WhatsApp with the number on it, and a year later she can show you the bill and you can mix the same shade again. The wall is one colour from the first coat to the touch-up.
The foundries, tile roofs and yards that Karnataka's hardware shops serve
A hardware shop supplies the district's builders and workshops, and each district builds in its own way.
- Belagavi has 24 sugar factories and 200 foundries producing over 70,000 tons of automotive and industrial castings, so a hardware shop there serves workshops as well as house builders.
- Dakshina Kannada is famous for red clay roof tiles (Mangalore tiles), cashew nuts and cashew products, and a roof there is a hardware shop's job as well as a mason's.
- Tumakuru district has 9 APMC market yards, at Tumakuru, Tiptur, Gubbi, Sira, Huliyar, Pavagada, Madhugiri, Kunigal and Turuvekere, each with sheds and stalls that need building and repair.
- Silk is mainly grown in Mysuru district, in a state that makes nearly 70% of India's mulberry silk, and Mysuru silk is sold through KSIC.
Questions Karnataka hardware and paint shop owners ask
A painter takes paint for three rooms in three visits. Can the rooms be separate lines?
Yes. Open one page for the job in his name and make a bill for each visit, naming the room in the item. At the end the page reads room by room, and the painter and the owner of the house see the same thing.
The coupling splits on the morning the planter needs his pump. How do I find the size he took?
Open his page. The pump, the pipe and each fitting are there with their sizes and the day he took them. Read the size of the coupling, find the same size on your shelf, and add the new one to the page.
A planter or a farmer asks for a sprayer and the spare parts for it. Can I bill them as separate lines?
A planter's sprayer works in the spraying season, and the spare nozzles go first. Bill the sprayer and the nozzles as lines of their own with the day he took them, so you read which nozzles he has and how many are left.
Limestone and iron ore behind the cement and the rod
Kalaburagi is famous for toor dal (pigeon pea), and the district has large limestone deposits. Limestone is what cement is made from, so the bags that a hardware shop sells begin in districts like this one.
Ballari holds 25% of India's iron ore reserves, JSW's Vijayanagar steel works is at Toranagallu, and 75% of workers depend on farming. The steel in a contractor's rods and sheets begins in this kind of place, and most of its people still farm.