Billing for your medical store in Kerala
A strip, four tablets from a strip and the old man's monthly list, billed in seconds on your phone.
Why a Kerala medical store keeps Ayurvedic bottles, allopathic strips and the clinic's account on one shelf
Ayurvedic bottles and allopathic strips on the same shelf
A Kerala medical store often sells both: the kashayam in a bottle, the lehyam in a jar by the weight, and the strips of tablets from the other shelf. A customer asks for one of each, and you work out one sum by the bottle, one by the weight and one by the strip. The notebook has a single column called "medicine".
The clinic next door sends a nurse every afternoon
A nurse from the clinic next door comes at three with a list of dressings, gloves and one bottle of the doctor's kashayam, and the doctor settles at the end of the week. The lists are written on half pages tied with a rubber band. When the doctor asks what the week came to, there is no one page to read.
Ayurvedic bottles that look alike, and a customer who asks by colour
On the Ayurvedic shelf many bottles and jars look alike. A customer asks for the one with the green label that the vaidyan gave her last time, and you pick from three. The notebook has no name for it and the customer has no bill to show.
Malappuram's Ayurveda, Chalai and Thrissur: the trades around a Kerala medical store
A medical store in Kerala sits in a district with medicine and trades of its own.
- Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala in Malappuram district makes over 550 Ayurvedic medicines and sells through more than 1,600 authorised dealers.
- Chalai in Thiruvananthapuram is called Kerala's oldest market, believed to go back to the 14th century, and a one-stop place for shopping.
- Thrissur is counted the hub of jewellery and textile business in South India and makes 70 percent of Kerala's plain gold jewellery.
Tools for a counter of strips and monthly lists
Bills on your phone
A bill with a bottle of kashayam, a jar of lehyam by the weight and a strip of tablets, each at its own rate and unit.
Daily reports
The antibiotic lines of the month the rule began, beside the month before, to see how far they fell and what took their place.
Your own online shop
A page with the shop's night hours and the way in from the main road, so a son who rings from far away for his father's tablets knows when to send someone.
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From the kashayam bottle to the clinic next door and the discount that stays with the regulars
The bottle, the jar by weight and the strip on one bill
At the day's end the report has one line for the kashayam by the bottle, one for the lehyam by the weight and one for the tablets by the strip. Read the three lines and you know how much of each the day took.
The Gulf son reads his mother's medicine bill on his own phone
The mother's kashayam is on a monthly pattern, and her son abroad pays on the day he sends money home, not on hers. Keep her page with each month's bottles and strips dated, so when he asks what the money went on, the lines name the bottles and the strips he paid for, each with its day.
The vaidyan's weekly kashayam and the bottle that runs out
The vaidyan prescribes the kashayam a week at a time. Make the kashayam an item, so each week's bottles are a line you can count and you see when the bottle a patient needs will run out before his next week. The bill names the one he took.
Questions Kerala medical store owners ask
A customer asks for lehyam by the spoon, not the gram. How do I bill a spoon?
Make the spoon the item's unit with its rate, or weigh one spoon once and bill the grams. Either way each sale takes its amount off the jar's count, and the count tells you when the jar is nearly done.
A regular asks for the Kottakkal-made oil and not another maker's. Can I keep the two on the shelf count?
She means the maker she trusts, not only the oil. Keep it as an item under that name, so the bill and the shelf both read Kottakkal and the other oil is never given for it.
In the monsoon, do fever medicines or Ayurvedic cough remedies go first?
Open the monsoon weeks and read the two kinds of items side by side. The fever strips and the cough kashayam each have their own line, so you see which one the rain moved and order that one first.
An officer asks for all the antibiotic bills of one week. Can I find them?
The antibiotic lines of that week are the ones the rule touched, and the slip for each sale is in your own file. Read the week's lines and take the slips for the same days beside them, so each strip has its slip.
The maker asks me to pull one lot of a kashayam from the shelf. How do I find who took it?
Bharatrath does not keep lot numbers. Open the bills of the weeks when that bottle came in, and the dated bills show who took the kashayam in those weeks, so you know whom to call.
Operation Amrit and the discount chains: what Kerala's medical stores say
The president of the All Kerala Chemists and Druggists Association says the ban on selling antibiotics without a prescription, called Operation Amrit, cut medical-shop turnover by Rs 500 to 700 crore. He adds that discount chains and online sellers put more pressure on the shops.
S.M. Street, also called Mittayitheruvu, is one of Kozhikode's busiest streets for sweets, textiles, electronics and spices, and the place for Kozhikode halwa. A medical store on a street like that serves a crowd that came for something else, and the counter is busy in the hours when the other shops are.