Almost every shop sells on credit. The register works — until a page is lost, two people write in it at once, or a customer disputes a figure from three months ago.
What a khata has to hold
A customer’s account is more than their unpaid bills. It needs:
- Every bill you issued them.
- Every payment — and a bill is often paid in parts, on different days.
- Money that moved outside any bill: goods given on credit before a bill was made, an advance taken, cash returned.
- The balance after every line, so you can point to the moment a dispute started.
“You gave” and “You got”
The paper khata’s two columns are still the clearest way to write it:
- You gave — goods or money went to the customer; they owe you more.
- You got — money came in; they owe you less.
The balance is everything you gave minus everything you got. Positive: they owe you. Negative: you are holding an advance for them.
Habits that prevent disputes
- Record a payment the day it arrives, against the bill it pays.
- Never edit an old line. If one is wrong, remove it and write it again — the history of what happened is the point.
- Look at the list of who owes what once a week, largest first. The customers at the top are the calls to make.
In Billyng
Every customer has a khata. Bills appear in it automatically; each payment you record on a bill becomes its own line; You gave and You got record anything outside a bill. The khata list shows who owes you what, largest first, and it works offline like the rest of the desktop app. Try the khata on our home page.