How to Run a Shop Counter: Billing, Stock and Credit Sales (Udhaar)

Set up your items properly once

The time you spend setting up the item list is repaid every day at the counter. Each item needs a clear name, the unit it is sold in, its selling price and its current stock. A good name is one the cashier will recognise at a glance and that cannot be confused with a similar item, such as “Rice basmati, per kg” and “Rice sella, per kg”.

• Choose the selling unit that matches how customers buy: piece, kilogram, gram, litre or millilitre.
• Enter the stock you actually have, counted, not an estimate.
• Set a low-stock level for items you must never run out of, so the till warns you in time.
• Add a barcode or short code for fast items if you use a scanner.
• Where relevant, record the expiry date so near-expiry goods are spotted.

Selling loose goods by weight

Many shops sell rice, sugar, spices, oil and cloth loose. The price is per kilogram or per litre and the quantity is a decimal. If a customer wants goods worth a certain amount instead of a certain weight, the quantity is the amount divided by the rate. A till that supports kilograms and litres does this for you, and takes exactly the quantity sold from stock, which matters because a few grams per sale add up across a month.

A worked bill

A customer buys 2.5 kg of rice at PKR 320 a kilogram and one packet of tea at PKR 450. The lines come to PKR 800.00 and PKR 450.00, so the subtotal is PKR 1,250.00. A 10% discount takes off PKR 125.00, and 17% tax on what remains adds PKR 191.25, so the total is PKR 1,316.25.

The order matters: the discount comes off first and tax is charged on the reduced amount. If the customer pays PKR 1,500, the change is PKR 183.75. The sale also takes 2.5 kg of rice and one packet of tea off stock, so the shelf and the records stay in step.

Keep stock honest

Stock records are only useful if they match the shelf. Every sale should reduce stock automatically, and every delivery should increase it, with a note of the supplier and the date. Once a month, count a few fast-moving items and compare them with the records. A difference means a sale that was not recorded, a delivery that was not entered, or goods that have gone missing, and finding it early is cheap.

• Restock through the till so the quantity and the date are recorded.
• Watch the low-stock list each morning and order before an item runs out.
• Check expiry dates regularly and move short-dated goods to the front.
• Void a sale through the till if it was entered by mistake, so stock is put back and the history shows what happened.

Credit sales (udhaar)

Credit is how many neighbourhood shops keep their customers, and it is also how many of them lose their working capital. The difference is discipline. Record every credit sale against a named customer, never an anonymous one, and decide in advance how much credit each customer may carry.

1. Record the sale as credit with the customer’s name and phone number.
2. Check the customer’s existing balance before you add more.
3. Send a polite reminder message when a balance is old, using the customer’s phone number.
4. When the customer pays, mark the credit as settled so the record stays accurate.
5. Review the list of who owes what each week.

Tally the till every evening

At the end of the day, add up the cash sales from the till’s record, add the opening cash, subtract any cash taken out for expenses, and compare the result with the cash in the drawer. Credit sales do not bring in cash, so they are left out of the cash count, and money received against old credit is added in.

If the figures differ, check for a sale entered wrongly, an expense not recorded or a credit payment not entered, before assuming a mistake in change. A daily tally takes minutes and removes most of the argument about missing money. The daily closing book is the natural place to carry the result forward.

Receipts and records

Give the customer a receipt for every sale, printed on a 58 mm or 80 mm roll printer or shared by message. A receipt lists the items, quantities, prices, discount, tax and total, and the change given. If you are registered for sales tax, a till receipt is not by itself a tax invoice in an FBR-integrated system, so follow the format you are required to use.

Back up the whole shop

The shop billing tool keeps your items, stock and bills on your own device and does not send them to a server. That is good for privacy, but a lost or reset device would lose the lot. Download a backup file regularly, keep a copy somewhere else, and restore it on any computer when you need to.

Common questions

How this guide was prepared

This guide is based on common retail practice and on how the shop billing tool on this site works. The worked bill is calculated by the same code the tool uses. It is general guidance, not tax or accounting advice.

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