Meena's Payment Reminder

Reminds a shopkeeper to ask for payment from khata customers who are behind, and lets her put back anything she did by mistake.

Who this is for

Meena Shirke runs a kirana store in Kolhapur with about seventy khata customers and one boy on a cycle. Every Sunday night she copies the udhaari names into a fresh page, and by Wednesday she has forgotten four of them. Two other shopkeepers on her lane heard about her notebook and asked her to keep their names as well. She said yes before she thought about how she would do it.

How the job is done today

The khata is a long notebook with a rubber band around it, kept near the weighing scale. When someone takes goods without paying, Meena writes the name, the item and the amount in Marathi, and she writes fast because there is a queue. Payments get a tick, sometimes. Once a month she sits after closing and calls whoever she can read. Some numbers are old. If a customer says he paid on the twelfth and there is no tick, the argument goes on until one of them gives up, and it is usually Meena, for eighty rupees. Her son once opened a spreadsheet on her phone and she has not touched it since, because she pressed something and a whole column went blank.

The screens, in order

1. Who owes you — Opens straight to the names of people who are behind, oldest first, with the amount and how many days it has been sitting.
2. One person's page — Shows every item that person took and every rupee they paid, in date order, so an argument at the counter ends in ten seconds.
3. Write the reminder — Puts together a short polite message for that person with their amount in it, which Meena reads and changes before it goes anywhere.
4. Going out in ten minutes — Holds every message she has approved for ten minutes so she can pull any of them back before the customer ever sees it.
5. What happened today — Lists everything that was added, changed, marked paid or sent, with a put-it-back button sitting next to each line.
6. Shops on the plan — Keeps the other shopkeepers who use this, their shop name, and which month they have paid Meena up to.

What it keeps track of

• Customers — name, phone number, which lane or building, how much is standing, when they last paid something
• Khata entries — who took it, what they took, which day, how much, and whether that entry has been settled
• Payments received — who paid, how much, which day, cash or UPI, and which entries it covered
• Reminders — who it was meant for, what it said, whether it actually went, when it went, and whether money came in after
• Things done and undone — what was changed, what it looked like before, when, and whether it was put back
• Shops paying for this — shop name, owner name, phone, month they have paid up to, and whether they are still using it

The one decision that matters

The real choice is how the fear gets handled. One way is to ask before everything: are you sure you want to mark this paid, are you sure you want to send. The other way is to let every tap go through at once and make every single one reversible, including messages, which sit for ten minutes before they actually leave. Go with the second. A shop counter is a fast place and a person who is asked are-you-sure fifteen times a morning starts tapping yes without reading, so the question stops protecting anything. And no confirmation box helps once the message has already reached the customer. What removes fear is a put-it-back button that Meena has seen work, not a warning she has learnt to ignore.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out reminders that send by themselves on a fixed day. It is the first thing anyone asks for and it is the thing that will make Meena stop using this. She has to see every message and press send on it herself for a few weeks before she will trust the thing to speak to her customers in her name. Also leave out interest, late fees and any monthly summary. She is not chasing numbers, she is chasing eleven people.

How you would know it worked

The notebook stays under the counter for a full week and the rubber band does not come off. And on a Thursday, Salim from the corner building pays one thousand two hundred rupees on UPI without Meena sending the boy on the cycle to stand outside his door.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I have a kirana store and about seventy people buy on khata and pay later. Make me a website where I can write down who took what and for how much, and it shows me a list of who is behind, oldest first, so I can send them a short WhatsApp message asking for the money. Let me read and change every message before it goes, and hold it for ten minutes after I press send so I can stop it if I change my mind. The most important thing is that I can undo anything I do, because I am scared of pressing the wrong thing and losing my khata. So keep a page of everything I did today with a button next to each line to put it back the way it was. Also let me add two other shopkeepers from my lane with their own khata kept separate from mine, and let me note which month they have paid me for.