For anyone whose record is a pen and a ruled book
How to record sales in a notebook so they match your bank account
A notebook is not the problem. A notebook that does not say how each sale was paid is. What to write down, in what columns, so the day can be checked against the bank without guesswork.
Start here
Most notebooks record the sale and forget the payment
Ask to see a shop's book and you usually find the same thing: item, quantity, amount. That is a record of what was sold and it is genuinely useful. It just cannot be checked against anything, because the one column that would let you check it is missing.
Your bank account does not know what you sold. It knows what arrived and when. The only way the two ever meet is if the book says how each sale was paid, and nothing in this guide is more important than that one column.
The columns
Six things to write for every sale
It takes a few seconds longer per line and turns an evening of guessing into a five minute check.
What was sold, by name
Not just an amount. Without the item you can total the day but you can never tell what to reorder, which is the more valuable half.
The amount charged
The price actually taken, including any discount given at the counter. A discount that is not written down looks identical to a shortage later.
How it was paid
Cash, transfer, card on the terminal, or in-app. This is the column that makes reconciliation possible, and it is the one that is nearly always missing.
A reference if it was a transfer
The sender name, or a short code you ask the customer to type. Without it a credit of ₦8,000 is unattributable by the time you look at it.
Who recorded it
Initials are enough. Not to blame anyone, but because a repeated difference on one shift is a process to fix, and you cannot see the pattern if every line looks the same.
Anything that left without a sale
Staff meals, breakages, goods taken on credit. These belong in the book at the moment they happen, or they arrive later as a mystery.
The check
Five minutes at the end of the day
This only works because the book now says how each sale was paid.
Total the book by payment type
Three totals: cash, transfer, and anything taken on a card. They are checked in three different places, so adding them together first is what makes the job hard.
Count what is in hand against the cash total
This one should agree tonight. If it does not, the difference is in today's counter and not in the bank.
Check the transfers against your alerts
Same trading window. With a reference beside each line this is reading rather than detective work.
Leave the card total for tomorrow
Card and in-app collections settle later, usually the next working day. Tick them off when the settlement lands, and do not treat them as missing tonight.
Carry anything unresolved forward on one line
A short list, in the front of the book, not in your head. Most of it resolves itself when the next settlement arrives.
What this fixes
The same book, one column better
A credit lands in the account
- Today
- Whose was that?
- With TAB
- Line 14, Tuesday
The reference column turns an unknown credit into a finished line.
The count is short
- Today
- Somebody must have taken it
- With TAB
- Two sales were paid by transfer
Most suspected theft in a small shop is a payment method that was never recorded.
A customer disputes a price
- Today
- Your word against theirs
- With TAB
- What was charged, and when
The book only settles it if the amount taken was written, not the list price.
Deciding what to reorder
- Today
- A total for the day
- With TAB
- What actually moved
Amounts alone cannot tell you this, which is why the item column earns its space.
The honest limit
Where a notebook genuinely stops working
One counter, one person writing, a short list of items: this routine is enough, and anybody telling you to buy software at that size is selling something.
It stops being enough when sales arrive from more than one place, when more than one person writes in the book, or when you cannot say what an item cost you when you bought it. At that point the book is still right, it is just slower than the decisions it is meant to inform.
Where TAB fits
One mention, then you can go
TAB writes the line for you. The customer pays from their own phone by card or bank transfer, the payment attaches itself to the order, stock counts down as it sells, and collections settle to your bank the next day as one figure to check rather than a list to match. The columns above are what a system should be giving you. If a book is giving you them already, you are ahead of most.
Questions we get
The ones worth answering plainly
- How do I record sales so they match my bank account?
- Write the item, the amount actually charged, how it was paid, and a reference for any transfer. Total the day by payment type rather than as one figure, check cash against what is in hand tonight, check transfers against your alerts, and tick off card collections when they settle the next working day.
- Why does my notebook never agree with my bank?
- Almost always because the book records what was sold but not how it was paid. A bank account only knows what arrived, so without a payment column there is nothing to compare, and the gap has to be guessed at.
- Is a notebook good enough for a small shop?
- Yes, at one counter with one person writing and a short list of items. It stops being enough when sales come in from several places, several people record them, or you cannot say what an item cost you.
- How do I know which transfer paid for which sale?
- Ask the customer to type a short reference you give them, and write the sender name beside the line. Better still, take the payment against the order itself so the two are joined and nothing needs matching.
- Should cash and transfers be totalled together?
- No. They are verified in different places and at different times: cash tonight, transfers against your alerts, card collections when they settle. One combined figure cannot be checked against anything.
Think TAB might help?
Tell us what you run and we will say plainly whether it fits, including when it does not.
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