A daily routine for a market trader

A day at the market flies by: you unload in the morning, customers come one after another until noon, and in the evening you count the till, tired, and head home. If someone asks "how was today?", you say "not bad". But how much is "not bad"? Was there a profit, or did money simply pass through? The convenient thing about a market trader's business is that there are few kinds of goods and they sell within the day. So a daily routine is easy to keep: one sheet of paper and a pen are enough.

Two entries: morning and evening

You do not have to hold a pen all day. Write only twice:

• in the morning: what and how much you brought, and what you paid for it (cost price);
• in the evening: what and how much is left, and how much of that has spoiled or become unusable.

Use the same unit in every entry: kilograms, pieces or crates. If you bring more goods in the middle of the day or pass some to a neighbouring stall, put it on a separate line: "added" or "passed on".

If you sell several kinds of goods, turn the sheet into a table: a separate row for each item and columns for morning, added, left, spoiled, sold, price, takings. A paper sheet or a table on your phone will do, as long as it looks the same every day. In the evening such a table puts the sums in order by itself.

The main formula

Morning quantity + added − evening balance − spoiled = sold. Then multiply the sold quantity by the selling price to get the expected takings, and compare it with the money in the till. The difference reveals a shortage, a discount or an unrecorded debt.

An example (fresh tomatoes):

• you brought 40 kg at 7,000 so'm a kilo: 280,000 so'm;
• in the evening 4 kg are left and 3 kg have spoiled;
• sold: 40 − 4 − 3 = 33 kg;
• of which 28 kg went by day at 10,000 so'm and 5 kg in the evening at a reduced 8,000 so'm: 280,000 + 40,000 = 320,000 so'm;
• the till holds 312,000 so'm, and your notebook shows 8,000 so'm given on credit.

312,000 + 8,000 = 320,000, so the records agree. If the till held 305,000, then 7,000 so'm would be unexplained: a counting mistake, too much change or an unrecorded discount. That is the kind of gap you need to hunt down.

Seeing the day's profit

Now work out the profit. The cost of the goods sold and spoiled: (33 + 3) × 7,000 = 252,000 so'm. Income is 320,000 so'm. The difference: 320,000 − 252,000 = 68,000 so'm. Take off the fare and the fee for your pitch (say 25,000) and the day's profit is 43,000 so'm. The remaining 4 kg will sell tomorrow and enter tomorrow's records as the opening balance.

Without a calculation like this it is easy to think, "there is 312,000 in the till, so that is what I earned". In fact that money also contains the 280,000 you paid for the goods.

The weekly view

Lay five to seven daily sheets side by side and look at:

• which days sell more (weekends, market days);
• which goods spoil most: buy less of them or cut the price earlier;
• which goods always stay behind: they take up space and money;
• the average daily profit.

These figures let you plan tomorrow's purchase: "on Tuesday 30 kg is enough, 40 kg is too much".

Note the season too. In summer and winter, and before holidays, sales change sharply. If you can find those days in your notebook, next year you will know in advance how much stock to bring.

Common mistakes

• writing from memory in the evening: the morning figure is forgotten;
• not recording spoiled goods, which then slip into "sold" and make takings look low;
• mixing the credit notebook with the till;
• writing the cost price once and never updating it when prices rise;
• not recording money taken for yourself (lunch, a taxi).

Conclusion

Two numbers, written in the morning and in the evening, give a market trader an exact picture of both goods and money. The habit takes a few minutes and shows whether there is a profit by calculation rather than guesswork. If your stall or your storeroom at the market has grown and you need to count the stock in full once, the Sanab team can run the count and hand over the result in a clear report.