Billing for your fruit and vegetable shop in Uttarakhand
The mandi rate, the weight and the udhaar, all on one bill on your phone.
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Litchi gardens, jute fruit baskets and farm districts: where the stock comes from
A vegetable shop hears about the district's farms and fairs from the people who come in. Here are a few.
- The Dehradun district site says the area is known for special Basmati rice, tea and litchi gardens. The litchi weeks put another fruit on the cart.
- Udham Singh Nagar is an agro-industrial district: agriculture-based industry is found in every block and tehsil, and SIDCUL estates at Pantnagar and Sitarganj host other industries.
- Tehri Garhwal's district handicraft page lists jute products made by women's self-help groups, such as braided shopping bags, door mats, fruit baskets and yoga slippers.
- Jauljibi and Thal fairs in Pithoragarh district are mainly trade fairs, and woollen goods and Doka baskets are local crafts.
Why the pea season fills the mandi, and your head, with rates
The tomato crate that wilts on the carry up the slope
On the slope the truck unloads at the roadside, well below the stall, and the boys carry the crates up in several trips. The tomatoes wilt in the sun on the carry, and the crate that reaches the top is not the crate that left the road. Nobody counts them at the top, and the loss is argued with the driver.
Hill vegetables come in a rush and leave in a rush
When peas and cabbage from the hill farms arrive, the mandi is full and the rate drops. A few weeks later they are scarce and dear. The shop that bought too much in the rush throws away what it could have sold, and the shop that bought too little sends customers to the next cart.
The hotel's crate that must be carried back down
The hotel takes crates and pays after a week. On the slope every crate is carried up and later carried down again, and a crate not remembered is a crate lost. The family in the next lane pays at the month's end on a slip in a shirt on a nail. The hotel's crate is remembered only if the driver is.
From the Haldwani mandi buy to the last cabbage on the cart
The mandi that is shut, and the lot bought from whoever is open
When the mandi you always go to is shut for days, you buy from whoever is open, at a price that is not your usual. Put that lot in at its own rate. Each bill takes kilos off, and the new rate is on the line, so the dear lot is not mixed with the cheap one.
The fern shoots that come only when the hill gives them
A few women walk down with baskets of fern shoots and other greens from the hill. Fern shoots are scarce and come only when the hill gives them, so a customer who asks for them is asking for something you may not have next week. You pay each woman on the spot, and know how many bunches are left.
The crates that went and the crates that came back
The hotel takes crates, and every crate has to be carried up the slope and, later, down again. The crate is an item as well, so the crates that went to the hotel can be read against the crates that came back. A crate that did not come back is a number, not a quarrel.
Tools for a counter where hill vegetables arrive in a rush
Low stock warnings
A warning on tomatoes and cabbage early enough to cover the truck's slow climb up the hill road, before the shelf is bare.
Sell to other businesses
The canteen of a works nearby applies to buy cabbage and potato from you on credit for its kitchen. You decide whether to serve it, and its week's lots sit on a page of their own.
The whole shop in one place
The baskets of wild greens, the crates from the mandi and the hotel's order, seen together as stock, suppliers and orders on one phone.
A farmers' group whose stall bills and online orders share one book
Questions Uttarakhand vegetable shops ask about the mandi and the season
The mandi quotes a quintal but I sell by the kilo. What do I enter?
Set the item's unit to the kilo and enter the rate you charge per kilo. Work it out from the mandi's rate before you enter it, and the bills come out by the kilo.
The woman who brings wild greens takes her pay in rice and not in cash. How is that written?
Her page shows the basket she brought, with its day, and the rice she took on the same page as a sale. The two lines sit together, and what is still owing either way is the last line.
A hotel wants a mixed crate of tomatoes, onions and cabbage. Can the crate be one bill?
Yes. Put each vegetable on the bill as its own line with its weight, and the hotel gets one bill for the crate. Each count comes down by its own weight, so the stock stays true.
Haldwani mandi, and the days Niranjanpur mandi was shut
In Nainital's Dhari block, Haldwani mandi is the one major sales channel; about 90 percent of farmers growing pea, cabbage and tomato sell through it. For a shop that buys at that mandi, the morning's rate on those three is set where almost all of those farmers sell.
Dehradun Mandi Samiti planned to propose small fruit and vegetable wholesale markets across the city after Niranjanpur Mandi was closed for several days. When the one big mandi shuts, shops buy from whoever is open and the price they pay changes with the seller, so the rate on your bill has to change with it.