Taking the first bill at the counter

The counter screen is built for one job: getting the person in front of you back out of the queue. A whole bill can be rung up without touching the mouse.

A bill in four steps

1. Put the items on. Scan the barcode if there is one. If there is not, type the first few letters of the name in the box at the top, watch the list narrow, and press enter. Scanning the same item twice makes the quantity two — it does not add a second line.

2. Fix the quantity. Type straight into the quantity box on the line. Decimals work, so 1.5 is fine for anything sold by weight or by the litre.

3. Take the money. The button along the bottom opens the payment box. Cash, card, bKash, Nagad — pick the way the money actually arrived. If somebody pays half in cash and half by bKash, you can enter both.

4. Print it. Skip it if nobody wants paper. If the customer's number is on the bill you can send it to them as a text message instead.

Letting it go on credit

In the payment box, enter less than the bill comes to. The remainder goes onto that customer's khata by itself. There is nothing else to do.

There is one condition: the bill has to be in a customer's name. With no name on it the system has no khata to put the balance on, so the credit box will not open at all. Type a number or a name into the customer box near the top and an existing customer comes up; a new one can be added right there, with nothing more than a name and a number.

Holding a bill

If you have to park somebody halfway through to serve the next person, hold the bill. It goes on a list, and you can bring it back and finish it whenever you like. It exists so the queue does not have to wait for one indecisive customer.

When you get it wrong

• Before you take the money — delete the line, or void the whole bill. Nothing is left behind.
• After you take the money — do not delete the bill. Return it. Opening the bill from the sales list and returning it puts the stock back, sends the money back out, and corrects the VAT by itself. Deleting it gets both the day's figures and your VAT paperwork wrong.

The reason for returning rather than deleting is the same reason you do not scribble out a line in a paper khata. What was returned, and when, and by whom, is worth keeping.

Do this on the first day

Ring up one real bill and print it. Check that your shop's name, address and phone number come out right on the paper. If they do not, set them once in the workspace settings. Do it early — the worst time to notice is after two hundred bills have gone out with the wrong address on them.