Billing for your milk booth or dairy shop in Tamil Nadu
Pouches, curd and the monthly card, counted before the booth closes at nine.
The round that ends with a count, a closing count that matches the drawer and a buttermilk summer read from the last one
The round's pouches counted back against what Aavin sent
Aavin's sachets are what your round carries. Note the sachets the dairy sent, and bill each house at the door. When you come back, the pouches left and the money in hand sit beside the number Aavin sent, and what is owed is in front of you.
The nine o'clock close: the drawer, and the families who have not paid yet
At nine the booth shuts. The cash in the drawer is only part of the day: the families on card took pouches that are on their pages, not in the drawer. Before you go, read the day's bills and the unpaid pages together, and the pouches taken on credit are counted too, not missing.
Moru counted at the dawn crate against the afternoon queue
Keep the moru as its own item with its own count. The dawn crate gives the count to start from, and by noon the phone shows how much is left against the afternoon queue of the hot months, while there is still time to make more.
What the phone does for a milk counter and its cycle round
Bills on your phone
On Pongal morning, a bill that adds the extra pouch for each house in the time it takes to count out the change.
Credit book (khata)
The card the family keeps at home and the page the booth keeps are read together on the first, pouch by pouch, until the two agree.
Daily reports
Pouches, curd and buttermilk counted on separate lines each day, so the afternoon's leftovers have a name.
Online orders
A family orders tomorrow's pouches from your own online shop, and you see the count when you load the crate.
Many shops, one owner
A second booth in the next lane, or the cycle round, counted as a counter of its own, so the round's takings are never mixed with the booth's.
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A booth that earns its day between five and nine, a card nobody can add up and a Pongal morning with too few pouches
Three hours that carry the whole day
The pouches arrive before dawn and most of them leave by nine. In those hours the line at the booth does not stop, hands are wet from the crate and the cash box, and no one has time to write. Whatever is not noted in that rush is rebuilt from memory at night.
The monthly card that does not add up
A family takes two pouches every morning, except when a guest comes and it takes three, or when the whole house goes to the village for a week. At the month's end the card has gaps, the family remembers one count and you remember another, and the talk starts on the first of the month, with the money still unpaid.
Pongal morning, when every house wants an extra pouch
On Pongal morning every house boils fresh milk for the pot, and the usual two pouches are not enough. The booth that runs out at seven loses its families to the next booth, and the booth that ordered too many is left with pouches at noon. Nobody knows in advance which one it will be.
Mills, halwa and cane: where a Tamil Nadu dairy shop's customers live
A milk booth lives on its neighbourhood, and a few district facts show who buys the morning pouch.
- Coimbatore has many textile mills, and the families who work in them buy their milk before the early shift.
- Tirunelveli is known for its halwa, which visitors buy to take home, and sweet making there keeps a dairy shop busy with ghee and milk.
- Viluppuram's sugarcane supplies all the cane for 7 sugar mills in the district, and a town that grows cane has tea shops that take milk by the can.
Questions Tamil Nadu milk booths ask about cards, curd and rounds
Guests stay with a family for a week and it takes three pouches a day. How do I show that on its card?
Each morning's bill carries that day's count, three pouches instead of one, with the date on each line. The guest week is on the family's page and the family reads it the same way you do.
The cycle round and the booth both sell my pouches. Can the day show them apart?
Yes. Keep the round as a counter of its own, so its bills are totalled apart from the booth's in the day. The pouches the cycle carries out at dawn come off the count, and the booth's count is left for the booth.
On a hot afternoon, which leaves first, the curd cup or the buttermilk?
Open that afternoon's lines. Each is its own item, and the one that reached zero first tells you which to set more of for the next evening.
A hotel takes a crate of pouches every morning. How do I keep it apart from the pouches I sell one by one?
Make the hotel's crate its own item, with its own count and rate. The pouches you sell one by one keep their own count, so the morning's stock reads as crates and pouches apart.
Aavin's dairies and the village societies behind them
Aavin says its milk sachets are packed at three dairies, Madhavaram, Ambattur and Sholinganallur, and that it holds more than 50% of the Chennai milk market. A booth in the city therefore sells mostly one family of pouches from the same plants, and its day is about the count and the card.
Tamil Nadu has 12,585 milk producers' co-operative societies with 20.30 lakh farmer members, Aavin's federation page says. Behind every pouch on the counter stands one of those societies, and a booth that counts what it received each morning can match the supplier's own figures.