The corner shop tab, without the notebook

Three in the afternoon at Corner Stop (a sample shop). Tom, a builder working on the houses round the corner, comes in for milk, a loaf and a box of tea for the site. Same as every week, he says he will settle up on Friday. For years Fathima wrote that in a spiral notebook by the till: "Tom, £12.50, Tues". Some weeks the notebook held a dozen names. Some Fridays nobody could agree on the total.

This tour shows the same tab kept in the credit book, just as quick at a busy counter, except that it totals itself, knows each regular's limit and hands the customer a receipt.

What does a corner shop tab look like in the credit book?

It looks like the notebook, only it adds itself up. Here is Fathima's tab list on a Tuesday afternoon:

Step by step

1. Open the credit book and pick Tom. At 15:00 Fathima goes to the credit book and taps Tom (builder). His card shows at the top.
2. Check the credit he has left. Under his name: Credit left £50.00 of £50.00. He cleared his tab last Friday, so the full limit is available. Fathima set £50 when she first added him, about a week's shopping for the site.
3. Choose Gave on credit. The switch below his card offers two choices, Gave on credit and Got paid. He is taking goods, so she leaves it on Gave on credit.
4. Type the amount. £12.50. No scanning, no basket. The way she has always done it, just without the pen.
5. Write what it was for. What for? (optional) gets "milk, bread, tea". On Friday, when Tom asks what the £12.50 was, the answer is right there.
6. Let the limit check run. The amount is checked against his credit left before the entry saves. £12.50 is comfortably inside £50. If the site crew had bought lunch for six on Tom's tab, the check would show it before the goods leave the counter.
7. Send the receipt. At 15:01 the tick box reads Send Tom a receipt on WhatsApp. Ticked, he gets a message with the entry on his phone, so he has his own record of the tab as it grows through the week.
8. Save. Tom's tab now stands at £12.50, with £37.50 of credit left. He is on the who owes you list, marked as given today and not due.

Why is a receipt not a reminder?

Because they do different jobs, and mixing them up annoys customers. A receipt is sent once, at the moment the tab is added to, to confirm what was taken. A reminder is sent later, when money is late, to ask for it. EasyTaskr keeps a gap between reminders so nobody is chased too often. If receipts counted towards that gap, a regular who buys something every day would never be reminded at all, or would get a reminder the same afternoon they bought milk. Keeping them separate means Tom can get a receipt every day and still only gets a reminder if Friday comes and goes.

How should a corner shop set tab limits?

Base them on pay day. Most regulars on a tab pay weekly or fortnightly, so the limit should cover what they normally spend between pay days with a little to spare. A few practical rules:

• Weekly payers: about one and a quarter times a normal week's shopping.
• New customers: start low, perhaps £20, and raise it after a few weeks of paying on time.
• Anyone who missed a pay day: leave the limit where it is until the tab is cleared.

The same thinking, applied to businesses that sell on invoice, is in customer credit for wholesalers.

Book or till: where should a tab sale go?

Both routes end on the same tab. If Tom brings a basket to the counter and Fathima scans or taps each item, she finishes that sale on the till with On credit, so stock goes down line by line. If he just grabs a few things and she only needs the figure, Gave on credit in the book is quicker. Fathima tells her Saturday helper to think of it like this: if the goods went through the till, the tab is finished on the till too. Either way the limit is checked and the balance updates, so the who owes you list is always right.

Tips

• Add the tab while they are at the counter. Writing it down after they leave is when amounts go wrong.
• Offer the receipt by default. Most regulars like the record; a few say no, and that is fine.
• Look at the list weekly. On Friday morning, check who is due. Mr Hussain at 21 days needs a friendly word before he slips further.
• Thank people for paying. A tab is a favour both ways. Keep it friendly.

Common mistakes

• Taking cash for the tab and not recording it. Use Got paid, or the customer's balance stays high and the drawer looks over at night.
• Raising the limit to fit a big shop. Decide on purpose, not because there is a queue.
• Reminding someone who said STOP. Dave replied STOP, so the list will not remind him. Talk to him in person instead.
• Letting family or staff keep a tab without a limit. Everyone on the book gets a limit, including people you trust.

What to do next

When Tom pays on Friday, it goes through Got paid, and the cash shows up in that night's cash up under money collected. For the way tab money and paid outs come together in the evening count, the end-of-day cash up guide explains the sum, and paying the bread man from the till shows the other side of the drawer.

If chasing older tabs is the harder part, how to get invoices paid faster covers polite wording and timing that apply to a shop tab just as well.