Khata
Farmer udhaar without the end-of-season fight
By the AgroPay team · Updated 13 September 2026
Credit is how an agri-input shop keeps its farmers. Seed and fertilizer are bought at sowing, and the money comes after harvest, months later. The shop that refuses credit loses the customer. The shop that gives it carelessly finds, every Diwali, that a few names in the bahi have quietly stopped coming.
None of that is solved by software alone. It is solved by recording credit the same way every time and looking at it on a fixed day.
Record credit so it can be collected
Always a bill, always a name, always a mobile. A credit sale written only as “Kumar, 2 bags DAP” is hard to defend later. A bill number, the farmer’s full name, village and mobile make it a record neither side can argue with.
Write down part payments at the counter. A farmer who pays ₹2,000 of a ₹3,400 bill has a ₹1,400 balance on that bill. If the ₹2,000 goes into the cash drawer and the balance goes into memory, the khata is already wrong.
Enter old dues once, on day one. When you move from paper, enter each farmer’s opening balance on the day you start. It will not carry the old bill dates, so treat all of it as the oldest money owed.
Apply payments to the oldest bill first
When a farmer brings ₹5,000 against three open bills, apply it to the oldest one first. It is what most farmers assume anyway, and it keeps the age of what remains honest. If you apply payments to the newest bill, an old June balance can hide for a year behind regular small payments.
Look at dues by age, not just by total
A farmer who owes ₹20,000 from last week is a different problem from one who owes ₹8,000 since last season. Group every balance into four buckets:
| Age | What it usually means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 0-30 days | Normal season credit | Nothing yet |
| 31-60 days | Still normal around sowing | A friendly word when they visit |
| 61-90 days | Starting to slip | A reminder with the exact balance |
| Over 90 days | At risk | A conversation before any fresh credit |
Look at this every week during the season, on the same day. The 61-90 group is where a reminder still works.
Remind without embarrassing anyone
A reminder that states the exact balance, the shop’s name and a way to pay is easier on both sides than a phone call. Send it privately, not in a village group. Thank people when they pay. And decide next season’s credit limit for each farmer from what the ageing report shows, not from how friendly the last conversation was.
How AgroPay handles udhaar
In AgroPay a credit or part-paid bill goes onto the farmer’s khata the moment it is saved, and a receipt is applied to the oldest bills first. The Outstanding and Ageing report shows 0-30, 31-60, 61-90 and 90+ day buckets per farmer or per bill, and the khata ledger prints “goods given, received, balance” line by line. WhatsApp Marketing has a ready-made balance reminder in Marathi, Hindi and English that fills in each farmer’s own balance.