When a qist plan has to change halfway through

Reshape the calendar, never the amount. Work out what is still owed, agree an instalment he can actually manage, spread the same balance over more months, and write it down as a fresh plan that replaces the old one. Nothing is added because the plan changed. Nothing is hidden either.

The month he cannot manage the qist

Four months in, a customer who has paid on time turns up with half the instalment and an explanation. His work has slowed, or somebody was ill, or a job he was counting on did not come.

He is not avoiding you. He came to the shop, he brought something, and he told you before you had to ask. That is the behaviour of a man who intends to pay, and it is worth noticing, because it is completely different from the customer who stops answering his phone.

But the plan you both agreed no longer fits his life, and pretending it does will fail slowly for six months and then fail completely. Every month he will bring a part payment, every month the arrears will grow, and by the end neither of you will know what is owed.

The honest answer here is to change the plan. Not as a favour and not as a punishment: as a piece of ordinary shop arithmetic that puts a workable number in front of both of you.

Done properly it takes ten minutes, costs you nothing, and turns a plan that was going to collapse into one that finishes.

What is actually on the table

Before deciding anything, get the real numbers out, because the figure people argue about is usually not the figure that matters.

Say a plan is reshaped after the fourth month

Agreed total when the plan was madeRs 48,000

Received in the first four monthsRs 13,500

Balance still owedRs 34,500

New instalment he can actually manageRs 2,500

Months the balance now needs14 months, same Rs 34,500

The row to look at is the balance. That is the only number in the conversation, and it is the same before and after the reshape. Everything else, the instalment size and the number of months, is just how that balance is carried.

Add up what has actually come in, including part payments, and say the total out loud so he hears that his early months counted. People who have been paying badly for two months often assume they have lost everything they put in, and hearing it credited changes the whole tone of the conversation.

Then ask him for a number, before you offer one. "What can you manage every month without fail?" The figure he chooses himself is the one he keeps, and it is usually more honest than the one you would have proposed, because he knows his week and you do not.

If his number finishes the balance in a length of time you can live with, you have a plan. If it does not, you have a different problem, and that is covered further down.

The one rule that must not bend

This is the part that decides whether you are running a shop or building a grievance, so it deserves to be said plainly.

Nothing is added because the plan changed. No charge for the delay, no penalty, no extra for the extra months. There is no late fee in a fair qist arrangement and there never should be, because a person who is already short does not become able to pay by being asked for more.

The markup in a qist plan, where a shop uses one, is decided once at the start and built into the agreed total. It is a one-time price for selling on instalments, set when the plan is made and never touched again, and that is the whole of it. Reshaping the calendar does not create a second one, and a shop that adds one has quietly changed the price of goods that were sold long ago.

There is a practical reason as well as a fair one. The moment you add anything, the customer stops trusting the number, and a customer who does not trust the number stops paying it. You will lose more to that than you would ever have collected.

So say it out loud when you sit down: the total does not move, only the months. It is the sentence that makes the rest of the conversation easy, and it is exactly the principle a qist plan is built on in the first place.

Four ways to reshape, and when each fits

Not every difficulty needs the same answer. Match the change to what actually changed in his life.

Four ways to reshape, and what each one suits

The changeFits when

Smaller, longerThe changeCut the instalment, add months, keep the balance the sameFits whenHis income dropped and looks likely to stay lower for a while

A pause of one or twoThe changeSkip a month, move every later date forward by that muchFits whenA one-off shock: illness, a repair, a season with no work

Weekly instead of monthlyThe changeSame monthly total, split into four smaller paymentsFits whenHe earns daily and cannot hold a large sum until month end

Take goods backThe changeReturn the item, credit its fair value, settle the differenceFits whenThe plan is barely started and he cannot manage any version of it

Smaller and longer is the workhorse and it fits most situations, because most income problems are not sudden shocks but a level that has dropped. The instalment falls, the months extend, and the payment becomes something he can hit every time instead of something he misses half the time.

A pause of one or two months fits the one-off shock, and it works because it is specific and it ends. Two months skipped, every later date pushed back by two, nothing else changed. What does not work is an open-ended "pay when you can", which is not a plan and quietly becomes a bad debt.

Weekly instead of monthly is underused and it is the best answer for anybody who earns daily. A man who takes home money every evening cannot hold four thousand rupees for thirty days, but he can hand you a thousand every Friday without noticing it. Same total, completely different difficulty.

Taking goods back is the last one and it belongs at the front of your mind only when the plan has barely started. If two instalments have been paid on a plan of twelve, returning the item and settling the difference is far kinder than dragging both of you through a year of failure. Value it fairly, credit what he has paid, and close it.

Write the new plan as a new agreement

Whatever you agree, the reshape has to leave paper behind, because a plan that lives in two memories is two different plans.

Writing the reshaped plan

✓Put this in writing

• "Balance today: 34,500. Nothing has been added."
• "New instalment 2,500, on the 5th, for 14 months."
• "First 4 payments totalling 13,500 are already counted."
• "Signed by both, one copy each, old plan closed."

✕Never do this

• Adding any amount because the plan changed
• Leaving the old schedule alive beside the new one
• Agreeing it verbally and writing nothing
• Reshaping without telling the guarantor

The first line is the one to write most carefully. Stating the balance on the day of the change, and stating that nothing has been added to it, ends in advance the argument that would otherwise arrive in the ninth month.

Closing the old schedule matters just as much. An old plan left sitting beside a new one produces two sets of dates and two ideas about what is late, and somebody will eventually read the wrong one. Mark it closed, note that it is replaced, keep it, and work only from the new one.

And if there is a guarantor, tell him. Somebody who agreed to answer for a twelve month plan has a right to know it is now a twenty month plan, and a guarantor who finds out late will rightly feel he was moved without being asked, which is the whole reason taking a guarantor has to be done properly the first time.

When reshaping is the wrong answer

Reshaping is generous and it is right most of the time, but there are situations where it just postpones a harder conversation.

If the instalment he can manage will not finish the balance in a reasonable time, do not stretch it to thirty months to make the arithmetic work. A plan that long stops feeling real to the person paying it, and it ties up your money for years. Take goods back, or agree a settlement figure, or accept a smaller total and close it cleanly.

If this is the second reshape and the first one already failed, stop and look at what is really happening. Reshaping twice is usually a sign that the original purchase was beyond his means, and the right move is to end the plan rather than to shrink it again.

And if he has stopped communicating, reshaping is not on the table at all, because you cannot rebuild a plan with somebody who is not in the room. That is a different situation with its own approach, set out in when a qist payment is missed.

Keep the reshape for the customer who turns up, tells you early, and brings what he has. That customer is worth the ten minutes, and he almost always finishes.

Common questions

He wants to pay less for one month only, and then go back to the full instalment. Is that a reshape?

No, and treating it as one over-complicates a simple thing. Take what he brings, write it as a part payment against the month, and note what remains outstanding for that instalment. Only reshape the plan when the change is going to last, because rewriting a whole schedule for one difficult month creates paperwork and confusion for no benefit.

Can I ask for a bit more each month once his situation improves?

You can ask him to increase it, and many customers will, but treat it as his choice rather than a new obligation. Say plainly that the balance is fixed and paying faster only means finishing sooner, which is an honest offer that costs him nothing to refuse. What you should never do is quietly raise the instalment because you think he can afford it now.

Should the reshaped plan have a new down payment?

Usually not, because a person who cannot manage the instalment does not have a lump sum available either, and asking for one turns a workable conversation into a dead end. If he offers something at the time of the change, take it and reduce the balance by exactly that amount. What matters is that the money reduces what is owed rather than buying him the right to a longer plan.

What if he wants a much smaller instalment than I think he can pay?

Agree it if it finishes the balance in a period you can live with, because a smaller payment that arrives every month is worth more than a larger one that arrives half the time. If it stretches the plan too far, say what the longest period you can accept is and work back from there, and let him choose between that and returning the goods. Presented as two real options rather than as a refusal, most people pick one and stick to it.

He is a good customer. Should I just forgive the balance?

Only if you genuinely intend it as a gift, and if you do, say so clearly and close the account so it never comes back. What causes harm is the half-forgiveness that stays in the book, because it leaves him unsure whether he owes anything and leaves you quietly resentful. A written-off amount, decided on purpose and recorded once, is far healthier than an open balance nobody mentions.

Do I need to tell the reshape to anybody else in my family who works in the shop?

Yes, and on the same day, because the commonest way a reshaped plan falls apart is that somebody else in the shop is still working from the old dates. Show them the new schedule, mark the old one closed where they can see it, and make sure the customer will hear the same figures from whoever happens to be at the counter. A customer told two different numbers stops believing both.