The office customer who wants one bill a month

An office that sends a boy down four times a day and wants one bill a month is the best customer a small shop can get, and the one that sinks it fastest. The amount is not the danger. The danger is that the person who orders, the one who signs and the one who pays are three different people.

Why an office account is the best customer on your street

It is eleven in the morning at Rafiq's general store, and Sajid is at the counter for the second time since the shutter went up. He works for the accounts firm on the second floor across the road. Two packets of tea, three kilos of sugar, a tin of powdered milk and a dishwashing bar go into the bag. He does not ask the price of anything. "Put it on the office," he says, and is gone.

Multiply Sajid by four trips a day and twenty-six days and you have the account. Tea, sugar, milk, biscuits, tissue, soap. Goods that move fast, that you stock anyway, that never sit long enough to expire. A buyer who does not haggle over Rs 5 on a packet, because it is not his Rs 5. Volume you can plan your own buying around.

And there is the name. Once one office in a building buys from you, you are the shop that building uses. The clinic downstairs asks who supplies the tea. Whether one account like this beats twenty small daily customers is a separate question with its own article. This one is about what to do once you have said yes.

The person who orders is not the person who pays

Sajid ordered the tea. Sajid did not agree to buy it, cannot approve the bill and will never pay it. That single fact is the whole risk of an office account, whatever the size of the number.

In a normal khata, the credit ledger of your shop, the man who takes the goods is the man who owes you. With an office there are three people.

The boy who collects has no authority. He carries what he is told to, and an extra packet for the drawer lands on your bill. The officer who signs has no memory. He signs your statement on the 2nd because Sajid says the goods came, and he was in a meeting for half of those deliveries. The person who releases the money has seen neither. He sees Rs 34,500 and a signature, and asks the only question he can: "What is all this?"

Every delivery you cannot prove falls into the gap between those three. Not because anyone is a thief. Because nobody wrote it down when it happened, and a month later the only person who remembers is you. When a single customer says he already paid, it is one man against another. With an office it is you against a building, and the building has a stamp.

Agree six things before the first delivery

Agree these before the first bag goes up

• Who may order on the account, by name. Everyone else pays cash.
• Who signs the slip at the counter, every delivery, before the bag leaves.
• Every delivery goes with a slip. No slip, no delivery.
• The date the statement goes in, with every day listed on it.
• The date it is paid, tied to the day the office actually releases money.
• The ceiling, said out loud now, and what happens the day it is reached.

The account is decided in the first conversation, not in the twelfth month. Sit with the person who will sign, not with the boy, and settle these six things out loud, on one sheet that both of you keep.

Who may order. "Only Sajid and Naveed can take goods on the account. Anyone else pays cash."

Who signs on receipt. "Whoever takes the goods signs my slip at the counter, every time." Before the bag leaves.

What goes with every delivery. "Every bag goes with a slip. No slip, no delivery, even for one packet of biscuits."

The day the bill goes in. "My statement reaches you on the 1st, with every day listed." A date, not "month end". Month end moves.

The day it is paid. "The 7th. If the 7th is a holiday, the day before." Ask when the office actually releases money and tie your date to that.

The ceiling. "The account stays under Rs 40,000. If it gets there before the 7th, I call Naveed the same day." Say the number now, while everyone is smiling. It is an insult in the fourth month and a rule in the first week.

The slip that goes with every delivery

A slip is a small piece of paper and it carries the whole month.

Every slip carries the date and time, each item with its quantity, rate and line total, the slip total, the name of the person collecting in your hand, and his signature in his, at the counter, before the bag leaves. Under the total, write the running balance of the account. Rs 12,350 so far. That last line makes an argument impossible, because every slip re-states the balance and every signature accepts it.

Why sign there and then? Because at the counter, Sajid knows exactly what is in the bag. At five in the evening he does not. At month end, nobody does.

Why keep your own copy? Because the office's copy belongs to the office. When the statement is questioned, the office will look for its copies and find eleven of twenty-six. Your carbon copy, in your shop, in your order, is the only complete record that exists.

Some offices hand you a printed requisition form. Staple it to your slip and still fill in your slip. Their form proves they asked. Your slip proves they received.

The month-end statement lists the days

Two ways to send the same Rs 34,500

One numberThe days listed

What the accountant seesOne numberGoods for the month: Rs 34,500The days listed26 lines, each with a slip number and an amount

What he checks it againstOne numberHis feeling that it is a lot of teaThe days listed26 slips signed by his own staff

When he doubts one dayOne numberThe whole bill is in doubtThe days listedYou show that one slip and the rest stand

What happens on the 7thOne numberA meetingThe days listedA cheque

On the 1st, the statement goes up. What it looks like decides whether you are paid on the 7th or invited to a meeting.

A statement that says "Goods supplied for the month, Rs 34,500" is an invitation to argue. The accountant has nothing to check it against, so he checks it against his feeling, and his feeling is that it is a lot of tea.

A statement that lists twenty-six days, each with its slip number, items and amount, and a running total ending at Rs 34,500, is not an argument. It is twenty-six small facts with twenty-six signatures behind them. If he doubts day 14, you show him the slip for day 14, signed by his own man.

Address it to the person who signs, with a copy for the person who pays. Hand it over yourself, never through Sajid. Have it stamped received and keep that copy too. Then wait for the 7th, and only the 7th. Make the 7th a habit.

A ceiling, even for an office

Rs 34,500 a month is a large part of a small shop. If your counter takes Rs 8,000 a day, that account is four full days of sales standing outside the shop. "They are an office, they will pay" is the sentence that comes before every bad month.

Size the ceiling from your side. Ask one question: if this money never came, could I still pay my own supplier on his date? Whatever amount keeps the honest answer at yes is the ceiling. For most small shops it lands between one and one-and-a-half months of the account's normal takings. If the office wants more, it can pay twice a month.

When they cross it mid-month, do not stop quietly. A bag that fails to arrive with no phone call is an insult, and the man insulted signs your cheque. Call Naveed the same afternoon. "We are at Rs 40,000, the line we agreed. Can you release part of it?" Most offices can release a part-payment against a signed statement in a day or two. The ceiling is not distrust. It is the reason you can say yes at all.

What the account is really worth

Say the office takes Rs 34,500 in a month

Goods supplied in the monthRs 34,500

What those goods cost you to buyRs 30,300

Your helper's time: 104 trips, about 26 hoursRs 1,300

Slip book, carbon, one statementRs 200

The account nets youRs 2,700

Example arithmetic, not a rule. Put in the office's real monthly figure, your real buying cost and your helper's real wage.

Say the office takes Rs 34,500 in a month. Tea, sugar, milk and cleaning goods carry thin margins, so say those goods cost you Rs 30,300. That leaves Rs 4,200 before the running around.

The running around is real. Four trips a day is 104 bags a month. A quarter of an hour each is twenty-six hours of a helper you pay, near enough Rs 1,300 of his month. Add the slip book, the carbon and a statement, say Rs 200. The account nets about Rs 2,700. Worth having, but it is Rs 2,700, not Rs 34,500.

Now say the 7th comes and goes. Your supplier's date is the 10th and his bill is Rs 90,000, of which the office's Rs 34,500 was the last third. You either pay him short, and he remembers, or you take goods on credit and start owing your supplier the way the office owes you. One late month costs your standing with the man whose rate decides your whole shop.

So the rate has one rule: never the month and the best rate together. An office may fairly ask for one bill, delivery upstairs, and a small cut on the two or three items it buys most. If it wants your wholesale rate, it pays weekly or cash on delivery, because the wholesale rate is for people who take your cash risk away. If it wants the month, it pays the counter rate. A discount asked for every month is a habit, so set the rate once, in writing, and let it stand.

When the man who set it up leaves

Four in the afternoon on a Tuesday, and the phone rings. It is not Naveed. "This is Farhan, the new admin officer. I have a bill here for Rs 34,500 from your shop. Who agreed this? What is this rate? Who is Sajid?"

This is the most common way an office account dies. A transfer. The man who agreed the terms and signed your slips has gone to another branch, and the man in his chair inherited a drawer of paper and no memory of you.

The first week of a new person is the account starting again. Go up yourself, that day or the next, with three things: the sheet of terms with Naveed's signature on it, the last three statements stamped received, and the slip book. Then agree the six things again, get his name on the sheet under Naveed's, and ask who orders now and whether the 7th still holds. Keep the ceiling where it is, or lower it for two months.

If the account has lived in one customer's khata all along, this meeting is short. In Wasoolo an office is one customer with every day's entries under it, so the statement Farhan is holding was not rebuilt from slips at month end. It was printed from the entries written at the counter day by day, and any day he doubts, you open on the phone in front of him. The office does not need your memory. It needs to see its own month.

The office wants to pay after 30 days, not on the 7th. Should I agree?

Only if your money can stand outside the shop that long. Thirty days after the bill means goods from the 1st are paid for sixty days later. Offer the 7th, or a smaller ceiling if it must be thirty.

They refuse to sign a slip for small things like one packet of biscuits.

Then the small things are cash. Say it kindly and hold it. The forgotten packets are exactly what becomes "we never took that" at month end.

The boy who collects keeps asking for extra items for himself, on the office.

Say no, and tell the person who signs the same day, without drama. Let one item through and you have made the boy an account holder, and the office will not pay for his items.

Should I send the statement on WhatsApp or on paper?

Both. Paper, stamped received, survives a change of staff. A photo sent to the signer the same day cannot be lost in a drawer. Wasoolo makes the PDF statement with your shop's name from the account's own entries.

The office has crossed the ceiling and the signer says keep sending, we will settle at month end.

Ask for a part-payment against the signed statement so far and deliver against that. If nothing can be released, the following bags go against cash until the 7th.

Is it worth giving a rate to keep the account?

A small one, on the two or three items they buy most, yes. A rate on everything plus a monthly bill is giving the month away twice. Never hand back more than half of what the account nets.