Digital khata: a practical guide to udhaar for shops

In Pakistan and across South Asia, the khata is the book where a shop writes down udhaar: goods given now, paid for later. Many shops also keep a second khata for suppliers, for stock taken on credit.

A digital khata does the same job in an app. Each customer has an account. Every credit sale adds to the balance, every payment takes away from it, and the running balance is always worked out for you. Nobody has to add up pages at night.

The difference matters most on bad days: when the book is lost, when a page is torn, when a customer says "I already paid", or when a staff member forgets to write an entry during a rush.

None of these are about bad customers. They are about missing information. The fix is to record everything at the moment it happens, and to see the whole picture without adding it up by hand.

1. 1Write it at the counter, not later. An entry made at the moment of sale is the one nobody argues about. If your khata is part of your POS, the credit sale and the khata entry are the same step.
2. 2Set a limit for every customer. Start small for new customers and raise it as they pay on time. A limit turns "can I take a bit more?" into a clear yes or no.
3. 3Agree a payment day. Weekly, after salary day, or at month end. Write it down when you open the account.
4. 4Never change an old entry. If something was wrong, add a correction as a new entry. That way the history stays honest, for you and for the customer.
5. 5Send a statement every month. A short list of what was bought and paid, with the balance, stops most arguments before they start.
6. 6Watch the oldest balances, not just the biggest. Money owed for 90 days or more is the money most likely never to come back.
7. 7Keep suppliers separate. What you owe suppliers is a different account from what customers owe you. Mixing them hides your real cash position.

An aging report sorts what customers owe by how old it is. A typical layout uses four columns: current, 30 days, 60 days and 90 days or more.

Read it from the right. Customers in the 90+ column need a phone call this week. Customers in the 60-day column need a reminder. If a lot of money is moving to the right every month, your credit rules are too loose, even if total sales look good.

Most people who owe a shop are not trying to cheat. They forget, or they lose track of how much it is. A polite, clear reminder with the exact balance works far better than a tense conversation at the counter.

• Send the reminder on the agreed payment day, not randomly.
• Include the balance and a statement, so the customer can check it.
• Keep the tone friendly: "Your balance with us is Rs 4,250. Thank you!"
• WhatsApp works better than SMS for most shops, because customers can see the PDF statement.
• Stop reminders once the account is settled, so customers do not feel chased.

Many free khata apps only record entries. If you run a real shop, look for these as well:

• Connected to your sales. A credit sale at the till should post to the khata on its own, with the items, so you never type it twice.
• Credit limits with a warning before the customer goes over.
• Aging (30, 60, 90+ days) without adding anything up.
• Statements and reminders you can send over WhatsApp.
• History that cannot be quietly edited. Corrections should be new entries.
• Staff roles, so a cashier can give credit up to a limit but cannot delete entries.
• Supplier khata in the same place, so you see what you owe as well as what you are owed.
• Works offline, because credit sales do not stop when the internet does.
• Backups in the cloud, so a lost phone is not a lost khata.

You do not need to copy years of pages. You only need today's balance for each customer and supplier.

1. 1Pick a quiet day and a cut-off time.
2. 2Add up each customer's balance in the paper book and check the big ones with the customer.
3. 3Make a list: name, phone number, balance. Do the same for suppliers.
4. 4Enter each balance as an opening balance, not as a sale. That way your sales reports stay correct.
5. 5From the cut-off time, write nothing new in the paper book. Keep it safely as a record.

With Tajir Point you can send us that list in Excel or CSV and we load it for you, free. Opening balances are added once, so loading the same file twice never doubles a balance. See our guide to moving from Excel or paper to a POS.

In Tajir Point the khata is part of the POS, not a separate app. Every credit sale, payment and adjustment posts to the customer's ledger with a running balance. History is append-only: corrections are new entries, never silent changes.

• Credit limits with alerts before a customer goes over
• Aging buckets (30, 60, 90+ days) at a glance
• PDF statements you can share over chat in a tap
• Scheduled payment reminders
• Supplier balances in the same system
• With the Customer Portal add-on, credit customers can log in to see their own balance, bills and payments

Read more on the khata feature page, or see pricing: the Light plan is free for 3 months with no card.