Billing for your beauty parlour or cosmetics shop in Rajasthan
Threading and a bridal pack, bangles by colour and mehendi cones by the dozen, all on one bill.
The service and the product on one bill, the cones counted, the festival read
The cones the festival-day artists take are counted off the shelf
On festival days the artists take cones from the shelf for the hands they paint. Put the painted hand and the cone it used on that customer's bill, each at its own rate, and the shelf count falls with the cone. At night the shop can say how many cones it sold across the counter and how many went into painted hands.
Mehendi cones and red bangles counted before Teej
Keep the cones as an item and each bangle colour and size as its own item. When red bangles of one size are down to a few dozen, the phone says so, and you order them the same day, not on the morning of the festival.
The festival week's takings, service by service
The daily report shows what each day earned and from what. After Teej you can see how much came from the bridal packs, how much from mehendi, and how much from bangles, and you make next year's plan from those lines.
Tools for a parlour chair and a shelf of bangles and bindi
Bills on your phone
The hand and the cone on one bill, each with its own price.
Credit book (khata)
A page for a woman who books her Teej mehendi with an advance, showing what is still owed.
Low stock warnings
A warning when a bangle colour or a box of mehendi cones is nearly out, before Teej.
Daily reports
Each day's takings split by service and product, kept for the next festival.
UPI payments
A QR on the counter so the advance for a Teej mehendi booking is paid from the girl's own phone when she books, and her page shows it.
Rajasthan's districts and the women who come from them
Women come to a parlour or a bangle shop from every part of the state, in the colours and jewellery of their own district.
- Tripolia Bazaar in Jaipur is known for lac bangles and textiles, and Johari Bazaar is the hub for gemstone jewellery.
- Jodhpur is a major hub for carved wooden furniture, wrought iron and handicrafts, with a handicraft special economic zone at Boranada.
- Udaipur is renowned for miniature paintings and marble carvings, and Shilpgram is its craft village.
- Nagaur has a huge trade in dried red chillies, and its cattle fair is held every November.
- The Rajasthan Foundation lists dal, edible oil, cattle feed, granite tiles and PVC pipes among Sikar's local industry opportunities.
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A chair, a tray of cones and a festival week that eats the stock
A cone sold, and a hand painted from another cone
A mehendi artist charges for the hand she paints, and the shop also sells cones across the counter. The same cone is a product at one price and a part of a service at another. When the festival rush comes, the artists use cones from the shelf without a note, and the shop cannot say what it sold and what it used.
Teej and the wedding months empty the bangle and mehendi shelves
Before Teej and in the wedding months, women come for bangles in every colour and for mehendi cones. Red and green go first and sizes run out, and the cones sell by the dozen. A shop that opens on the morning of the festival with last month's count finds its best colours gone before noon.
The regular who pays at the month's end
A woman comes every month for threading and a facial and says she will pay when the month closes. The parlour writes it down on a card in the drawer. By the end of the month the card has six entries in two hands, and the amount that she thinks she owes is not the amount the card says.
What Rajasthan parlour and cosmetics owners ask
Kumkum and bindi go first at Teej, with the red bangles. Which do I count before the festival?
Count the kumkum packs and the bindi packs as items, beside the red bangles. Before Teej open the list: the one nearest empty is the one to order first.
The bride's mehendi is drawn the evening before and her father pays the next morning. Where does the bill wait?
Make the bill that evening in the father's name and leave it on his page. The next morning he pays against it.
A woman brings her own cone and asks me to draw. What do I bill?
Bill the sitting alone, as the item for the hand or the design, with no cone taken off the count. The cones you sell stay on the shelf count, so the Teej shelf stays true.
A customer asks for the Sojat cone by name for her bride's hands. How do I show her which cone is which?
Write Sojat in the cone's name, and keep the ordinary cone under its own name. She is shown the cone she asked for, and the bill says which one went into her hand.
Sojat, the town of mehndi
Sojat mehndi from Rajasthan was granted a geographical indication label by the Indian government, Asia IP reported on 12 November 2021. A label of this kind is attached to a place's goods, so a shop that sells Sojat mehndi can say where it comes from.
Sojat is said to be the largest mehndi-producing area in India, and its mehndi is known for a deep burnt red colour. A customer who asks for the deep red is asking for a particular kind of cone, so it is one item of its own on the shelf, with its own count.