The Supplier Khata, Without the Khata
“We owe Beximco… around forty thousand.” If your supplier dues live as round numbers in a notebook — or in your head — you are almost certainly paying more than you owe, or paying later than you promised. Usually both.
Every pharmacy runs on supplier credit. The delivery comes on Sunday, the memo says payable, and the representative comes back next week to collect. Multiply that by fifteen or twenty companies and you get the khata: a notebook of names and amounts, some crossed out, some circled, one page per company if you’re organized.
The khata has two famous failure modes:
The blurry total. “Around forty thousand” is not a number you can defend when the rep’s own sheet says forty-six. Without invoice-level records, the supplier’s ledger wins the argument by default — and you pay their number.
The forgotten invoice. A memo from two months ago slips behind the newer ones. Nobody chases it, until it surfaces with a hurt phone call from the distributor and a credit hold right when you need stock for the weekend.
Dues per invoice, not per supplier
medipharma24 records what you actually owe: each purchase invoice carries its own due. When you enter the Sunday delivery, the unpaid part of that memo becomes a due against that memo — not a bump to some blurry company total.
The purchase entry mirrors the supplier’s memo — items, batches,
bonuses, discounts — and whatever you don’t pay today is tracked against
this exact invoice.
When the representative comes to collect, you settle specific invoices. Hand over ten thousand and the system clears the oldest memos first — exactly the way a careful owner ticks them off on paper, except nothing gets missed and nothing is blurry. If you and the rep disagree, you’re no longer comparing a notebook against their printout; you’re looking at the same list of invoices, each one either settled or not.
The whole picture on one screen
At any moment, the supplier balance report shows where you stand with every company — total purchase dues, what you’ve paid, and the payable balance, with the per-supplier detail one tap away:
Every company, every balance — no adding up pages. (Contact numbers
blurred for this post.)
Three questions this answers instantly that a khata never could:
- “How much do we owe, in total, right now?” — one number at the top of the report. Most owners have never seen this number for their own shop.
- “Which memos are getting old?” — dues age per invoice, so the two-month-old memo can’t hide behind Sunday’s delivery.
- “What did we pay this company this month?” — every payment is on record, with the invoices it settled.
Why this is also a profit question
Supplier dues aren’t just about relationships — they’re the biggest liability on your books. Because medipharma24 keeps real accounts underneath, every purchase due flows into the balance sheet automatically, and paying a memo updates both the supplier’s balance and your cash position at once. The khata never talked to your cash book. Here, they’re the same system.
Previously in this series: Your sales are up. Are you actually making money? — or start with the full tour.