Goods taken by the owner and family: how to record them

In the evening, on his way home, the owner takes a pack of tea from the shelf and a juice for the child. The next day his wife comes and carries off soap and a cleaning product. Another time his sister asks for sugar. "It is my own shop, why write it down?" Nobody is stealing, yet goods leave and money does not come in. In small shops these outflows are very common and almost never recorded. You can make them visible with an owner's account.

Why this is not "small"

An illustrative calculation: if the owner and family take an average of 15,000 so'm of goods a day, that is 450,000 so'm a month and 5.4 million so'm a year. This money reaches neither the sales nor the till. Every unrecorded pack shows up as a shortage at the count that cannot be explained, while you look for the cause elsewhere, suspecting an employee or yourself.

There is one more point: staff see what the owner takes. If he takes goods without recording them, they begin to think "my small things do not count either". Order starts at the top.

Besides, shop money and family money get mixed up, and at month end the question arises: "where did the money go?". Goods are money too: a pack taken off the shelf equals money that never reached the till.

A separate "owner" account

The solution is simple: goods taken by the owner and his family should be a separate type of outflow. Open a section called "own use" in your notebook or table. Each entry should have:

• the date;
• who took it (owner, wife, brother);
• the item name and quantity;
• the amount at cost.

Record at the moment you take the goods, not from memory in the evening. Leave the notebook by the till together with a pen. If you keep a table, add a separate customer code "Owner": the goods leave the balance, but the entry does not mix with ordinary takings.

Which price to record at

Record at cost. The reason is that for the owner this is an outflow without profit: you are not "selling" to yourself at a markup. And cost is the money the shop has really lost. Whichever method you choose, always use the same one, otherwise months cannot be compared. An illustrative example: a box of tea costs 48,000 so'm and sells for 60,000 so'm. The amount recorded for the owner is 48,000 so'm.

Rules for family and staff

The rules should not run longer than two or three sentences:

1. Everyone, the owner included, records in the same form. No exceptions.
2. Family members do not take goods without a record. Once a week, go through the entries together.
3. If an employee may buy goods at a discount, the rule should be written: how much per month, at what price and when he pays. "I will pay later" with no record is unacceptable, because it turns into a debt that gets forgotten.
4. If the money has not been paid, the employee's entry also goes into the debt records, and the date of deduction from wages is fixed.

What to do at month end

At month end add up the "own use" section and subtract it from profit. An illustrative example: the profit shown on goods sold is 6,000,000 so'm and goods taken by the owner come to 450,000 so'm. So the real profit is 5,550,000 so'm. Anyone who sees both figures understands the shop's true position.

If daily recording tires you, there is another way: set yourself a monthly limit, for example 500,000 so'm, and try not to exceed it. With a limit, recording is easier because you need only watch one total. Still, do not drop the records: a limit without records and records without a limit both fail.

Another good habit: set yourself a monthly salary and record it as a shop expense. Then goods taken home can be counted against that salary too, and shop money and family money do not get tangled.

Conclusion

Goods taken by the owner are not theft, but if they are not visible in the records they act like theft: they hide profit and make the shortage inexplicable. A separate type of outflow, records at cost and one rule for everyone solve the problem. If part of your shop's shortage consists of such unrecorded outflows and your records have got tangled, the AniqHisob team can run a stock count, help find the causes and set up a routine.