Anjali's Booth Ledger

Two partners sharing one salon each log what they paid, and the app works out who owes who before the month ends.

Who this is for

Anjali Bhoir rents a two-chair salon off Jalna Road in Aurangabad. Rukhsana took the second booth in March. Rent is eighteen thousand, split down the middle. Anjali buys the colour and the towels, Rukhsana pays the light bill and the girl who sweeps. On the thirty-first, both of them stand near the dryer holding different numbers in their heads, and the last client of the day is still under the steamer.

How the job is done today

There is a long notebook behind the mirror where Anjali writes what she spent. Rukhsana does not write in it. She sends photos of bills into a WhatsApp group with two members, and by the twenty-eighth those photos have been pushed far up by voice notes and a forwarded video. At month end Anjali adds up her page, Rukhsana scrolls back through chat, and the two totals never agree. Last month they gave up and split everything half-half, which suited neither of them and left Rukhsana quietly short by about nine hundred rupees.

The screens, in order

1. Add a spend — Lets one of them put down what she just paid for in the ten seconds before the next client sits in the chair.
2. This month — Shows both women's entries in one running list so nothing appears out of nowhere on the last day.
3. Who owes who — Says in one line, by name, how much has to move and in which direction as of right now.
4. Settle up — Records that the money actually changed hands, so the month closes and the next one starts clean.
5. Old months — Holds closed months untouched, for the evening when one of them remembers June differently.

What it keeps track of

• Spends — who paid, what it was for, how much, which day, a photo of the bill, and whether it is shared or only hers
• The two of them — name, phone number, which booth, the date she joined the shop
• Settlements — who paid whom, how much, which day, and which month it closes
• Corrections — which entry it corrects, what the right amount is, who wrote the correction, and when

The one decision that matters

Can a spend be changed after it is entered. One way is to let each person edit or delete her own lines, because fingers slip and a ninety becomes a nine hundred. The other way is that a saved line is fixed forever, and a mistake is handled by adding a correction that names the original entry and shows both numbers to both women. Go with fixed. The only reason this app exists is that neither of them fully believes the other's arithmetic, and an editable line invites that doubt straight back in. A visible correction costs one extra tap and removes the sentence 'but it said something else yesterday' from the shop for good.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out earnings. Each of them keeps what her own clients pay, and the moment the app starts asking for those numbers, one of them will begin entering them carefully rather than honestly, and the whole thing dies in three weeks. Leave out paying each other inside the app as well. They stand two feet apart all day. Let the money go over UPI the way it already does, and let the app only record that it went.

How you would know it worked

On the first of next month nobody scrolls back through the WhatsApp group. Rukhsana reads one line, sends the amount over UPI while still standing at the basin, taps settle, and the notebook behind the mirror stays shut for the whole of the following month.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I run a small salon with a partner and we both spend money on the shop, rent, colour, the light bill, the girl who sweeps, and at month end we cannot agree on who owes who. I want a phone app where each of us signs in with her own number and adds what she paid, with the amount, what it was for and a photo of the bill, and marks whether it is shared or only hers. I want to see her entries and she sees mine the same day. Once something is added nobody can quietly change it, she can only add a correction that we both see next to the original. At the top it should say one line, who owes who and how much this month, and a button to say we have settled so the month closes and the next one starts from zero. Old months must stay exactly as they were.