Udhaar wapas kaise lein: getting credit back from customers without losing them

How do you get udhaar back from a customer?

Keep a dated record of every udhaar sale and every payment for each customer. Agree one fixed day when the balance is settled, and ask on that day, privately, at the counter, with the exact figure in front of you. Take part payments happily, write every payment down at once, and stop new credit for any customer whose balance keeps growing. When udhaar goes bad, it is usually because one of these steps was skipped, and only rarely because the customer was dishonest.

Why does udhaar stop coming back?

There are usually four reasons, and only the last one is about the customer.

• The record is unclear. If the khata only says "Aslam: 6,400" with no dates or items, the customer can say "itna to nahi tha" and you have nothing to show.
• There was never a day to pay. Udhaar with no settlement day has no end, and each week it feels a little less urgent.
• The shopkeeper did not ask. Asking feels awkward, so the balance sits, and the longer it sits, the more awkward asking gets.
• The balance got too big. A customer who could pay 2,000 rupees a month cannot pay 15,000 in one go, so they stop coming instead.

What should the khata show so the customer can't argue?

Every line should show the date, what was taken, the amount, and the running balance after it. Payments go on their own lines with the date and how they were paid. When the customer can see that on 12 October they took atta, ghee and sugar for 1,850 rupees, all that is left is to agree the total.

• One page per customer, with their name and phone number at the top.
• Write the line at the moment of the sale, not at night from memory.
• Write the new balance after every sale and every payment, so the last line always answers "kitna hua?".
• For a large udhaar, ask the customer to sign or initial next to the line. It takes two seconds and ends most later disagreements.
• If family members buy on the same account, write who took the goods. "Beta le gaya" starts a lot of arguments.

If you keep udhaar in a notebook today, our guide to keeping udhaar without a register (/blog/keep-udhaar-without-a-register) covers how to move it to something you can search and total.

When is the right time to ask for udhaar?

Ask on a day you agreed in advance, when the customer has money. For salaried customers that is the first week of the month. For daily earners, weekly is better, for example every Saturday. Agree the day when you first give credit, before the balance grows. "Bhai, udhaar mahine ki 5 tareekh tak clear ho jaye" is easy to say on the first day and very hard to say on the sixtieth.

Ask in private. A customer asked in front of neighbours feels shamed, and a shamed customer pays once and then shops somewhere else. Wait until the counter is quiet, or step aside for a minute.

How do you ask for udhaar without losing the customer?

Say the exact figure, ask for part of it if the full amount is too much, and make paying easy. Talk about the account, never about the person.

1. 1Open the customer's page and say the balance: "Aap ka hisab 4,200 ho gaya hai."
2. 2Ask for part of it: "Is hafte 2,000 kar dein, baqi agle mahine." A part payment keeps the account moving.
3. 3Offer an easy way to pay: cash, or JazzCash, Easypaisa or a bank transfer to the shop's account if you take them.
4. 4Write the payment at once and tell the customer the new balance, so you both leave with the same number.
5. 5Say thank you. A customer who feels good about paying comes back and pays again.

For a customer you don't see often, a short, polite message from your own phone works well: the date, the balance and the day you agreed. Keep the same tone you use at the counter. A reminder that sounds like a threat loses you the customer and the money.

What if a customer still doesn't pay?

Stop new udhaar first, then agree a written plan of small payments, and only after that decide whether the amount is worth chasing further. In this order:

1. 1Pause new credit, politely: "Pehle wala thora kam ho jaye, phir naya udhaar." The customer can still buy for cash.
2. 2Agree a plan the customer can keep, such as 500 or 1,000 rupees every week, and write it on their page with both your initials.
3. 3Follow the plan exactly. If the first payment is missed, ask the next day, not the next month.
4. 4If the customer stops coming, a visit or a word through someone you both respect often works where messages do not.
5. 5If none of this works and the amount is small, write it off, close the account, and remember what went wrong. For a large business debt, get proper advice before taking any further step.

How do you stop the next udhaar from going bad?

Decide the limit and the settlement day before you give the credit. A few simple rules prevent most bad udhaar:

• Give udhaar only to customers you know, and start small. Let the limit grow as they pay on time.
• Decide a limit for each customer and write it at the top of their page. When the balance reaches it, the next purchase is cash until a payment comes in.
• Let one person decide who gets credit. When every staff member can say yes, the limits stop meaning anything.
• Look at every balance once a week. Any account with no payment for a month needs a conversation this week.
• Count udhaar as a sale on the day the goods leave, not on the day the money comes back. Otherwise a busy udhaar month looks like a bad month.

Do you need an app or POS software to recover udhaar?

No. A notebook used the way this guide describes will recover most udhaar. Software helps when you have many credit customers or more than one person at the counter, because the udhaar goes into the khata at the moment of billing. The sale and the customer's balance can't drift apart, and "kitna hua?" is answered in one look instead of by adding up pages.

In NexusTill, khata comes with every plan, Starter (Rs 2,999 a month) included. An udhaar sale is billed to the customer's account at the counter, each payment brings the balance down, and the full dated history is there to show the customer when the figure is questioned. It can also send email reminders when it is time to settle. Our guide to POS with udhaar khata (/blog/pos-with-udhaar-khata) explains how it works in more detail.

If you have a handful of udhaar customers who all pay on time, a well-kept notebook is enough, and software will not make them pay any faster. Many kiryana customers do not read email, so a reminder will never replace the conversation at the counter. Software keeps the record clean. The fixed day and the polite ask still come from you.

If your udhaar pages have grown past what a notebook can handle, compare the plans on /pricing and try NexusTill on your own shop for 7 days. No card is needed, and nothing is charged when the trial ends. Questions? Write to support@nexustill.com.

Written by NexusTill Team.