Ramesh's Mandi Account

A commission shop keeps one running account for every farmer it sells for, showing what came in, what was deducted, and what is still owed.

Who this is for

Ramesh Kadam, 44, runs shop number 62 in the Gultekdi market yard in Pune. About ninety farmers from Junnar and Khed send him vegetables, and two boys weigh and stack for him. At ten past four in the morning a tempo backs in with forty crates of tomatoes from Sakharam Bhoir. Ramesh has to write those crates down, sell them by seven, and be able to tell Sakharam by evening what is left after commission and hamali.

How the job is done today

Ramesh writes crates in a long patti book with a rubber band around it. The carbon slips go on a nail behind the weighing scale. When a farmer rings at nine at night to ask about his tomatoes, Ramesh puts the phone on the counter, turns pages, and reads out numbers over the noise. Some farmers get a photo of the patti on WhatsApp around ten, if his son remembers. The rest come in person a week later and stand at the counter arguing about the hamali on the third lot, and nobody can prove anything because the slip on the nail has tomato water on it.

The screens, in order

1. Arrivals — Records each farmer's crates the moment the tempo is unloaded, before anyone forgets whose lot is whose.
2. Patti entry — Puts down what a lot sold for and every rupee cut from it, so the deductions are written once and never re-argued.
3. Farmer's account — Shows one farmer their own lines and one big number at the top: what is owed to them right now.
4. Payments — Notes the cash or UPI handed over against a farmer's balance so the running total drops as it should.
5. This line looks wrong — Lets a farmer point at a single entry they are unhappy with, so Ramesh can check it before the evening rather than after.
6. Who is owed most — Gives Ramesh the list he needs on a Saturday when he has to decide which farmers get paid out first.

What it keeps track of

• Farmers — name, village, phone number, who introduced them, what commission rate was agreed
• Arrivals — which farmer, which day, what goods, how many crates, total weight, which boy took it in
• Sales and deductions — which arrival, rate it went for, total amount, commission taken, hamali and cartage, anything else cut
• Payments — which farmer, how much, cash or UPI, which day, who handed it over
• Questions raised — which line, what the farmer says is wrong, settled or still open

The one decision that matters

The real choice is whether the farmer is told or whether the farmer can look. Option one: the shop sends a message for every arrival, every sale, every deduction. Option two: no messages at all, and each farmer has a standing link that is always current. Go with the second. Inside the shed at six in the morning there are four hundred people shouting, a hydra tempo reversing, and a loudspeaker calling lot numbers. A phone buzzing in a wet shirt pocket is not read. A message that was missed becomes an argument at nine at night. A link that is always right can be opened at any quiet moment, and the numbers on it should be large enough to read at arm's length while the other hand is holding a crate.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out the buyer's side completely. Do not track which trader bought the lot or whether that trader has paid Ramesh yet. That is a second ledger with its own credit and its own quarrels, and it will double the entry work at exactly the hour when there is no time to type. The fight worth ending first is the one with the farmer over commission and hamali. Buyer credit can come once the farmer side is trusted.

How you would know it worked

A farmer walks up to shop number 62 with his phone already open at his own lines, and instead of Ramesh turning pages, the two of them look at the same screen and settle it in half a minute. The nine o'clock phone calls stop coming.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I have a commission shop in the Gultekdi market yard in Pune and around ninety farmers send me vegetables. I want a website where I can enter each farmer's crates when the tempo comes in at four in the morning, then enter what each lot sold for along with my commission and the hamali, and it should keep a running account of what I owe each farmer and what I have already paid them in cash or UPI. Every farmer should have their own link they can open on their phone at any time and see only their own lines, with the amount owed in big letters at the top, because nobody can hear a phone in the mandi. Let them tap one line to say it looks wrong so I can check it before the evening. And give me a list of which farmers are owed the most.