Your supplier's total and yours do not match

When your supplier's balance and yours disagree, stop discussing the total. Two honest records almost never differ by one big amount; they differ by four or five small ones. Pick a date range, lay the deliveries and the payments side by side, and find the lines. The total will settle itself.

The Rs 12,000 that neither of you can find

The salesman comes on his usual round with a printed statement. It says you owe Rs 52,400. Your own page says Rs 40,150.

You go through it standing at the counter, both of you slightly irritated, and after ten minutes you have got nowhere, because you are both arguing about a single number that neither of you built in one piece. He did not add up Rs 52,400 at once and neither did you. Each figure is the sum of dozens of small events across three or four months.

So the conversation goes where these conversations always go. He says the office computer does not make mistakes. You say you have never missed a payment in six years. Both statements are probably true and neither of them finds a single rupee.

Then one of two things happens. You pay something to keep the supply running and feel cheated, or you hold payment and your next delivery is short. There is a third path, and it takes about forty minutes.

Why two honest records drift apart

Nobody has to cheat for a gap to appear. Two records of the same relationship, kept by two different systems, drift for ordinary reasons.

Why two honest records stop agreeing

• Goods delivered at month end, entered in different months
• Cash handed to a salesman on a Thursday, banked on Monday
• Damaged stock taken back, credit note never issued
• A verbal discount promised and never applied
• A payment applied to the newest bill, not the oldest
• A short delivery nobody counted at the gate

Look at that list and notice that most of the causes are timing, not money. Goods delivered on the last day of a month land in different months in the two records. A payment handed over on a Thursday evening reaches his office on Monday. A return picked up by the driver becomes a credit note two weeks later, or never.

The rest are handover problems. Something was given to a person rather than to a company, and the person was busy. That is not the same as dishonesty, and treating it as dishonesty is the fastest way to make an easy problem into a hard one.

This is exactly the shape of the customer-side argument in when a customer says he already paid you, with one important difference: your supplier keeps a written record too, so the truth is actually recoverable. You just have to look in the right place.

Argue about lines, never about the total

Say this out loud early, because it changes the whole conversation: "Let us not discuss the total. Give me the statement for these three months and I will match it line by line."

That sentence does three things. It removes the accusation, because you are no longer saying his number is wrong. It gives both of you a task instead of a position. And it moves the meeting off the counter, where you are being watched by customers and have four minutes, into a quiet half hour where the work can actually be done.

Ask for the statement in writing, covering a fixed period with an opening balance. A statement with no opening balance is not a statement, it is a list, and you cannot reconcile against it. If his system cannot produce one, ask for the bill numbers and the payment dates for that period, which is the same information in a rougher form.

Then set a date. Not now, at the counter, with a queue behind you. There is no version of this that goes well while you are also selling.

Match the two records by date, not by memory

The work itself is simple, and it is the same work whether your record is a register or an app.

Matching two records in about forty minutes

1. 1Ask for a written statement with an opening balanceA list with no opening balance cannot be reconciled.
2. 2Fix a date and a quiet half hour, away from the counterNothing about this goes well while you are selling.
3. 3Start from the last date both of you agreedEverything before it stays closed, however tempting.
4. 4Two columns: his deliveries and yours, in date orderTick every pair that agrees and forget them.
5. 5Two columns again: his payments received and yours madePayment date, amount, and which bill it was for.
6. 6Whatever is left unticked is the entire disputeUsually three to six lines, each one findable.

Start from a date when both of you agreed. There almost always is one: the day you cleared the account fully, or a month end when the two numbers matched. Everything before that is closed and does not get reopened, however tempting it looks.

From that date forward, write two columns. His deliveries against your deliveries. His payments received against your payments made. Do them in date order and tick the pairs that agree, which will be the great majority.

What is left unticked after twenty minutes is the entire dispute. In most cases it will be three to six lines, and each one has an explanation that somebody can actually go and find. That is a completely different conversation from "you owe Rs 12,000 more than you think", and it is why keeping your own record properly, as in keeping your khata safe, is worth the ten seconds it costs each time.

Where the difference usually hides

After enough of these, the same five hiding places come up again and again.

Say the two records differ by Rs 12,250. Where it was found

Cash paid to the salesman, receipted, entered lateRs 6,000

Damaged cartons returned, credit note never issuedRs 2,400

Scheme discount promised in person, never appliedRs 1,850

Two sacks short in one delivery, nobody countedRs 1,600

One bill you had entered twice, in your own recordRs 400

Lines with proof on neither side, split between youRs 1,600

Five small explanations, not one big disagreementRs 12,250

Made-up figures, chosen to show the shape. The point is the shape: a gap is nearly always several small lines, and each one can be found.

The payment handed to a salesman is the most common by a distance. You paid Rs 15,000 in cash on a Thursday, he wrote it in his own notebook, and it reached the office late or under a different bill number. Your receipt is the proof, which is why a payment without a receipt is the one habit worth breaking today.

The second is a return that was never credited. Damaged stock went back on the van, everybody nodded, and no credit note was issued. Goods leaving your shop with nothing in writing is a loss with a delivery slip attached.

Third is the rate. A delivery was billed at the new rate although it was ordered at the old one, or a scheme discount was promised verbally and never applied. Fourth is a bill for goods you genuinely did not receive, usually part of a load that was short and nobody counted at the time. And fifth is allocation: you paid Rs 20,000 meaning it for the oldest bill, his office applied it to the newest, and the account now shows an overdue balance that is really just a labelling problem.

Closing out what remains

Some lines will not resolve, and you need a rule for those, decided before you are in the room.

Anything you can prove with a receipt, a slip or a signature, you hold. Anything he can prove the same way, you accept without argument and without sulking, because the goodwill is worth more than the amount. What is left over, with proof on neither side, is where the relationship gets decided.

The practical answer is to split it and close it, in writing, with a line that says so. Both of you sign or initial the agreed closing balance and the date. That single signed number is worth more than winning the argument, because it becomes the new starting point that neither side can reopen later.

Then fix the cause, not just the amount. If the gap came from payments to a salesman, change how you pay. If it came from returns, change how returns leave your shop. A reconciliation that ends with an agreed number and no change in habit will produce the same meeting next quarter.

Making the next quarter impossible to dispute

Everything above is a repair. The prevention is smaller than the repair and takes about a minute a week.

✓One minute a week

• One page per supplier, bills and payments both on it
• The bill entered the day the goods arrive
• A receipt for every rupee, from everybody
• Returns written on a slip before the van leaves
• A statement asked for every quarter, even when calm

✕One argument a year

• Bills filed in a bag and entered at month end
• Cash handed over because you have known him for years
• Damaged goods sent back on a nod
• "He will adjust it in the next bill."
• Asking for the statement only when the number looks wrong

Keep one page per supplier with both directions on it, the same way you would for any account you both give to and take from. Enter the bill the day the goods arrive, not the day you file the paper. Enter the payment the day it leaves your hand, with what it was for.

Get a receipt for every rupee, including the ones handed to a man you have known for ten years. A receipt is not a statement about him; it is what protects him too, on the day his own office asks where the money went.

And ask for a statement every quarter even when nothing is wrong. A quarterly check finds three small differences; a two-year check finds forty and an argument. That habit is also what makes it safe to run a supplier account at all, which is the whole subject of buying stock on credit, and it is one more quiet advantage of dealing with fewer suppliers rather than many.

Common questions

He says his computer cannot be wrong. How do I answer that?

Agree with him and move on: "Then the lines will match and we will find it quickly." A computer records what a person entered, so the argument is never about the machine. Keeping the tone flat is what gets you the statement.

How far back should I go?

To the last date both records agreed on, and no further. Reopening a settled period turns a forty-minute job into a project, and old lines almost never resolve.

What if I have no receipts for older payments?

Then those lines are weak and you should say so plainly rather than fight for them. Take the loss on the ones you cannot support, and start issuing yourself a receipt discipline from today, because the same gap will otherwise open again.

Should I stop payments until it is sorted?

Usually not. Pay the part that both records agree on, in writing, and hold only the disputed lines. That keeps your supply running and shows you are dealing in good faith.

The salesman took cash and left the company. Now what?

Your receipt decides it. With a receipt, it is his employer's problem. Without one, it is yours, and that single sentence is the whole reason for the receipt habit.

How do I keep a supplier account in an app?

The same way as a customer account: one party, bills as what you owe, payments as what you paid, and a running balance. Wasoolo keeps supplier balances on their own page alongside customers, so the statement you compare against is already built.