Govind and Ravi's Feed Cost Split

Ravi and I buy chicken feed by turns but never the same number of bags, so we log every bag and settle up at the end of the month.

Who this is for

Govind Reddy runs one broiler shed on the Malur road in Kolar district, about 1,800 birds, along with his wife's cousin Ravi, who lives four kilometres away and comes on alternate evenings. Feed goes at roughly eleven bags a week. This lands on the last Sunday of the month, when Govind sits on the plastic chair outside the shed with his phone and tries to work out whether he is owed money or owes it.

How the job is done today

There is a long notebook hanging on a nail by the shed door. Govind writes the bags down when he remembers. Ravi mostly does not, and instead sends a photo of the dealer's bill into their WhatsApp chat. At month end Govind scrolls back through months of chat, adds the bills on the phone calculator, and compares that with the notebook. Last month the notebook said fourteen bags in the second week and the dealer's bill said sixteen. They stood in the feed room arguing about it for twenty minutes, then split the difference, and both of them walked away feeling a little cheated.

The screens, in order

1. The two of us — Set the two names once, so every bag afterwards belongs to a person and not to a guess.
2. Add a bag — Put in who paid, how many bags, the rate per bag and the date, in the thirty seconds after the dealer's tempo leaves.
3. This month so far — Show every bag entered this month in date order, with one line at the bottom saying who owes whom how much right now.
4. Settle up — Close the month with one number and one direction of payment, and mark it done so nobody has to add it again.
5. Everything that happened — Show every addition, change, undo and settlement in one plain list, with the name of who did it and the time, so Govind can always see where a number came from.

What it keeps track of

• The two of us — the two names, and which of the two is using the page right now
• Feed bags — who paid, how many bags, price per bag, which day, which month it belongs to, and whether it is still counting
• Settlements — which month, who paid whom, how much, when it was settled, and whether it has been taken back
• Everything that happened — what was done, who did it, and at what time

The one decision that matters

Either every entry stays editable forever, or settling a month locks the bags in it. Leaving everything open sounds kinder to a man afraid of breaking things, but it is the opposite: Ravi could quietly correct a March bag in July and March's settled amount would silently stop matching the money that actually moved on UPI. So lock it. Once a month is settled, its bags cannot be touched. The one thing that stays reversible is the settlement itself, so if they closed the month too early, Govind taps to undo the settlement, the month opens again, he adds the missing four bags and settles a second time. Undo protects the person; the lock protects the number.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out chicks, medicines, electricity, labour and the money from selling birds. Feed is the one cost they buy in turns and the one they argue about. The moment you add the others you need categories, and shares, and rules for who pays what, and Govind stops trusting a page he no longer understands. Also leave out paying inside the site. They have UPI on the same phone and it takes eight seconds.

How you would know it worked

The month ends and nobody opens the notebook. Ravi looks at the page on his own phone, sees 4,300 rupees against his name, and sends it on UPI before Govind has to ask him for it.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

Ravi and I share one broiler shed near Malur and we take turns buying chicken feed, but never the same number of bags, so make me a small website where either of us can enter a bag purchase with who paid, how many bags, the rate per bag and the date, and see the whole month's list with one line at the bottom saying who owes whom how much. I get nervous about pressing things, so let me take back anything I typed wrong, and keep a plain list of every change showing who made it and at what time so nothing feels lost. When we settle for the month, one tap should close it, and after that neither of us should be able to change a bag from that month unless we first undo the settlement. Only feed bags, nothing else for now.