Running your business on SnapLedger · Tailor Shop · Lesson 3 of 7

The fabric: ordered by the owner, received at the shop

2:27 · Captions: English, Arabic, French and Chinese.

In most shops, fabric is ordered by phone, delivered to a shop the owner isn't in, cut on the table, and almost never written down. So the shelf is a guess, and so is what each order used. In this lesson, every metre is counted, from the owner's order to the cut.

What you'll learn

  • Order what the open orders need, from wherever you are
  • Check the delivery in against the order, and keep a customer's own fabric apart at no cost
  • Cut for an order and charge the metres to it

Step by step

  1. Into the work room — Mr Mehta has said yes, so Zuhair moves his order on to the work room.
  2. His own brocade — First, the brocade Mr Mehta brought in. Zuhair marks it as the customer's own: it sits on the shelf at no cost, so it never mixes with the shop's fabric, or its value.
  3. Sanjay checks the gap — Buying is Sanjay's. From wherever he is, he asks what the open orders need. SnapLedger adds up every garment's fabric, takes off what's on the shelf and already on order, and drafts one order for his merchant.
  4. One order — He checks the draft and orders. No phone call to the shop: the order is already where Zuhair will look for it.
  5. Checked in — When the rolls arrive, Zuhair checks them in against Sanjay's order, line by line: what actually came. He types no prices; the order's prices apply. That check-in is the record, numbered, and the fabric is on the shelf at what it cost.
  6. The merchant's bill — The merchant's tax invoice came with the rolls. Zuhair puts it in, as he does every paper: it's read and filed. Until the shop pays it, the delivery shows it's waiting for its purchase; once it's paid, the bill finds this delivery by itself.
  7. The cut — Then the cut, the moment this lesson is about. Zuhair picks the order and the garment, and the list comes up from the shop's standard for a sherwani. Four and three-quarter metres of raw silk went to the tailors, so that's what he types, and the fabric leaves the shelf, charged to this order.

The kurtas and the bandi the same way. The bandi uses his own brocade, so the order is charged nothing for it. And the shelf shows exactly what's left, metre by metre, for Sanjay too, wherever he is. Next: the fitting, the collection, and the rest of the money.