Billing for your beauty parlour and cosmetics shop in Kerala
A threading, a facial and a cream, and a bride's booking, all on one page on your phone.
Why a Kerala parlour writes the service, the cream and the bride on three slips
The service slip and the cream slip, and one of them is lost
A woman has her eyebrows threaded and her hair trimmed and buys a face cream on her way out. The threading goes on the parlour's slip and the cream on the shop's, and the second slip is the one that gets lost. At night the money in the drawer does not match the day's customers.
Weddings come in the weeks the relatives are home from abroad
Many Kerala families fix a wedding for the weeks when the relatives who work abroad are in town, so the bookings pile into a few weekends. The trial, the wedding morning and the mehendi evening are three jobs for one family, and the three fees are written wherever there is paper. The family also asks for one page that shows what it has paid, and the three slips cannot give it.
The man with a carton of creams and no bill
A seller turns up with a carton of creams at a rate lower than the wholesaler's and offers no bill. You are tempted, and you know a customer's skin is not something you want to be wrong about. A shop that cannot show where each carton came from has nothing to say when a customer asks. A customer with a rash is not an argument you want to lose.
Tools for a parlour counter and a shelf of creams
Your own online shop
A page of your bridal package with the fee for each job in it, so a family can read them at home before it books a chair.
Daily reports
The chair's money and the counter's money kept apart each day, so a quiet week of weddings far away shows up as it is.
Many shops, one owner
Your parlour in the town and a second chair at the village market, each with its own stock of creams and threads, seen from one account.
From the threading and the cream on one bill to the carton with a supplier's name
A quiet week of far-off weddings read beside a week of local ones
The weeks the relatives are home from abroad are the wedding weeks. The daily report keeps every day, so you can read those weeks beside a quiet week when the town is empty and see how many chairs they took. Plan the staff for the next home-from-abroad weeks by them.
The rep's carton checked shade by shade before he leaves
The order you gave the distributor's rep lists the shades you asked for. When his carton is opened at the counter, tick each shade against that order: the ones that came join the shelf count, and a shade that did not come is plain on the order before he walks out of the shop.
An Onam gift set of soap, cream and hair oil sold as one item
Put a soap, a cream and a bottle of hair oil in a box and make the box an item with its own rate. A family buying gifts for the whole house is billed in one line, and the count of each product comes down together.
Thrissur gold, Kozhikode lanes and Kannur looms: the districts a Kerala bride shops in
A bride in Kerala shops across several districts before she reaches your chair.
- Thrissur is counted the hub of jewellery and textile business in South India and makes 70 percent of Kerala's plain gold jewellery.
- S.M. Street in Kozhikode is one of the busiest streets for sweets, textiles, electronics and spices.
- Kerala depends mainly on Kannur for its handloom exports. The district has 73 weaver societies and 13,667 weavers.
- Chalai in Thiruvananthapuram is called Kerala's oldest market, believed to go back to the 14th century, and a one-stop place for shopping.
Questions Kerala parlour and cosmetics shop owners ask
The wedding is fixed from abroad by phone, and an uncle in the Gulf pays the advance. Can I write the advance before the bride comes?
Yes. Open the bride's page when the booking is made and write the advance on it with its date, whoever pays it. When the family comes in the wedding week, the page already shows what was paid.
A woman asks for the shade of the face cream she bought last month. Can I look it up?
Yes, if the shade is in the item's name. Name each cream with its shade, as the rep's carton lists them, and the name she asks for is the name on your shelf.
Jasmine is sold by the string for the bride's hair. Can a string be an item?
Yes. Make the string an item by the piece with its own rate, and put it on the bride's bill beside the draping and the trim. The count of strings goes down as they are used.
The rep comes once a month with a carton of creams. How do I write the next order before he comes?
Open the list of what is low and write the order on his supplier page, item by item. When the carton comes, note what arrived.
Fake creams seized in Kerala: Operation Soundarya and the mercury creams
Kerala's Drugs Control Department seized fake cosmetics worth Rs 9.64 lakh in four phases of Operation Soundarya. They included products without valid manufacturing licences or failing the Cosmetics Rules, 2020. A shop that can show where its stock came from sits easier on such a day.
Pakistan-made Faiza and Goree face creams seized from Kerala markets had up to 20,000 ppm mercury against a limit of 1 ppm, and were allegedly sold without bills for what the shops bought. A shop that keeps a note of each carton and its supplier has a record to show.