Billing for your sweet and bakery shop in Odisha
Rasagola by the kilo, pithas by the piece and a cake from the shelf, all on one bill from your phone.
From the first tray of the morning to the puja box order
The syrup tin from the shelf, the pieces from the tray
The rasagola in the tin sits in its syrup and is packed to go, while the ones on the tray are lifted out one by one. A customer who wants six pieces is served from the tray at once, and one who wants a tin takes it from the shelf, so the packing of the two never meets.
The cake and the rasagola, read apart
Each item on a bill has its own name and rate, so the bills of a day list the cakes in one place and the sweets in another. After a month you can read which of the two sold more and decide which shelf gets the next sack of flour.
The Raja week box order stays on the customer's page
When an office or a family orders boxes, make each box's bill under their name. Their page shows how many boxes went and on which day. When they come to pay, you show the page and the total, and nobody has to remember ten boxes.
Why an Odisha sweet counter reprices every time the milk does
The milk bill moves, the price board does not
Your sweets are mostly milk and chhena, so when the milk rate goes up, every tray costs a little more than it did last month. The board still shows the old rate for a kilo of rasagola. At the end of the month you have sold a great deal and cannot say whether the shop earned on the chhena sweets or only turned the money over.
The oven and the kadai share one counter
A birthday cake from the oven and a box of rasagola from the kadai go out on the same bill, and the two kitchens have different costs. By the month's end you have one total and cannot see which side paid for itself, the bakery shelf or the sweet counter.
Boxes for Raja week and the puja, paid for later
Before Raja or the puja an office or a family orders ten or twenty boxes and says it will pay when the money comes. Some come back to collect, some send a boy. The count sits in a notebook beside the cash book, and by the time they pay, nobody agrees on how many boxes went.
Tools for a counter that sells by the kilo, the piece and the plate
Bills on your phone
One bill, three units: a mixed box, a half kilo cake and a plate of poda pitha, with the total at the foot.
Credit book (khata)
A page in the family's name for the poda pitha and rasagola boxes of Raja week, the payment noted when the puja month's money comes.
Daily reports
Each day's cake and rasagola sales, so Raja and the puja show which one the festival lifted.
Orders to suppliers
An order for chhena, milk and jaggery before Raja, noted when they arrive, so the poda pitha is not planned against an empty store.
Low stock warnings
A sign that the jaggery or the coconut for poda pitha is running low in Raja week, not in the middle of the baking.
Cuttack puja crowds and the leaf plate towns, where Odisha sweets are sold
Sweets travel in Odisha: to the puja pandal, to the weekly haat and to the leaf plate. Here are a few districts and what the people there do.
- Cuttack is home to silver filigree, and its craftsmen get business from the city's Durga Puja, which had 165 puja committees in 2019.
- Sal and siali leaf plates are a main trade in Mayurbhanj, and Betanati in the district is one of Odisha's two main leaf plate trade centres (2008 report).
- Rupsa in Balasore is the other main leaf plate trade centre of Odisha, where traders collect plates made from sal and siali leaves (2008 report).
- Berhampur in Ganjam is often called the silk city of India, and its Phoda Kumbha saree and Joda craft got a GI tag in 2012.
Questions Odisha sweet and bakery owners ask
My chhena poda is sold by the slice in the shop and whole to an office. Are those one item?
No. An office takes the whole poda, so a big office order eats into the morning bake before the first slice is sold. Keep the whole one and the slice as two items, and bake the whole ones for the office first, then the rest for the counter.
I buy milk and chhena every morning and they are sweets by evening. Can the stock show both?
Yes. Milk in litres and chhena in kilos are items like the sweets. Note what arrives each morning, and the sweets you make are counted on their own lines, so you see what came and what was made.
Before Raja, families order poda pitha days ahead. Should I bill it when I take the order or when it is baked and collected?
When it is collected. The poda is baked on the morning it is wanted, so it leaves the shop that day. Write the order and the advance on the family's page today, and on the collection day make the bill, so the poda comes off the stock when it was really baked and sold.
Pahala sweets and the pithas of Odisha homes
Pahala, the sweet hub on NH-16 between Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, reopened with revised prices that traders blamed on higher milk costs. A sweet maker anywhere in the state buys the same milk, so the rate on the counter board moves when the milk does.
Kakara pitha is commonly made during pujas, fasts and festivals in Odisha, and poda pitha is made from rice flour, jaggery and coconut. A shop that sells these beside its mithai counts them by the piece or the plate, while the mithai goes by the kilo.