Van Sales and Cash Reconciliation: A Daily Routine That Catches Leaks

Van sales look simple: load a vehicle, drive a route, sell and deliver, come back with money. The trouble is that two things move at once, goods and cash, and both can leak without anyone noticing until the end of the month. A short daily routine catches leaks while the facts are still fresh. This guide describes one using gamitrack's branches, transfers, orders, deliveries and payments. To be clear up front: there is no dedicated van-sales module, so this is a way of using the standard features, which works well in practice.

The setup: one branch per van

Create a branch for each van, named after the vehicle or the route. Now the van has its own stock record, separate from the warehouse. Every unit in the van is visible as stock at that branch, and every unit that leaves is a recorded movement.

Why this works: at the end of the day the van's stock should equal what you loaded minus what you delivered. Any other number is a question worth asking.

Step 1: Load by transfer in the morning

The stock keeper loads the van and records a transfer from the warehouse branch to the van branch, per SKU and batch, with the vehicle number as a reference. The transfer is checked against stock on hand, so you cannot load what the warehouse does not have. See moving stock between branches and warehouses for the details.

The driver or salesperson signs for the load. Count together; the quantity in the system should equal the cartons on the vehicle.

Step 2: Sell and deliver during the day

Orders are taken in the mobile app in the usual way, with prices from the applicable price list. If the vehicle carries stock for immediate delivery, dispatch the order from the van branch and mark the delivery as delivered, with GPS, optional photo and the receiver's name. The driver's view of the work is described in a delivery person's day in gamitrack.

When the shop pays, choose Collect payment, the method (cash, eSewa, Khalti, Fonepay, bank or cheque) and the amount. Payments are allocated to the oldest open invoices first.

Rules to set for the crew:

• Record the payment at the shop, not in the evening. Memory is unreliable.
• Never accept a payment method that is not recorded in the app.
• Never change a price. If a shop asks for a discount, a manager decides.

Step 3: End-of-day stock check

When the van returns:

1. Count what is physically left in the vehicle, by SKU and batch.
2. Open Stock for the van branch and compare with the counted quantity.
3. Transfer the unsold goods back to the warehouse branch.
4. Record any damage with a damage-out movement and a note.

If the count does not match, do not adjust yet. First look at the day's movements for the van: was an order dispatched from the wrong branch? Was a delivery recorded twice? Most differences are posting errors, not theft.

Step 4: End-of-day cash check

Open Payments and filter for the day and the person. Total by method:

Method	Recorded	Physically handed over	Difference
Cash	from Payments	cash counted by accountant	explain
eSewa / Khalti / Fonepay	from Payments	match against wallet or bank report	explain
Bank / cheque	from Payments	cheques handed over, bank slips	explain

(The columns are a template; fill in your own numbers.)

Cash is counted by the accountant, with the driver or officer present, and the figure is signed. Digital payments are matched later against the wallet or bank statement. Cheques are listed with number, bank and date.

Handover rule: all cash is handed over the same day. Cash that stays overnight with a field person is the starting point of nearly every shortage story.

Step 5: Review the exceptions

Each evening, someone reviews the exception list:

• Far-delivery flags. Deliveries marked far from the shop's location.
• Visits & flags. Short visits, missing photos.
• Stock differences at the van branch.
• Cash differences between recorded and counted.

For a small difference (a few rupees in change) write it off with a note and a limit, for example below a fixed amount per week. For anything bigger, investigate the same day.

Step 6: Connect it to receivables

Cash handed over is only part of the picture. Open the party statements for shops that received goods on credit. Due days count from dispatch, so a van delivery dispatched today starts the clock today. If a shop promised to pay "tomorrow" the collection plan should reflect it. See month-end closing checklist for how collections feed month-end.

A hypothetical day

Suppose a van is loaded with 60 cartons of three SKUs. During the day it delivers 52 cartons to eight shops, and four shops pay cash. At 6 p.m. the van branch should hold 8 cartons. The crew count 8: stock reconciles. Cash recorded as payments for the day is the sum of those four payments; the accountant counts the cash handed over and finds it matches. Ten minutes, both ledgers are clean. If instead the count were 6 cartons, the manager would immediately look for two missing cartons while the day is still fresh. (All numbers are invented for illustration.)

Controls that help

• Rotate van crews' routes from time to time.
• Do surprise stock checks at the end of a route.
• Keep driver and cashier roles separate where staff numbers allow.
• Use the integrity score and flags as conversation starters, not verdicts.

Setting limits and responsibilities

Write down the rules in a single page and have every crew member sign it: the latest handover time, the maximum cash a person may carry before an interim handover, who is allowed to approve a discount, and what happens when a difference is found. People respect rules that are clear and apply to everyone, including managers. Review the page every quarter using the exceptions you have seen, and remove any rule that nobody can explain.

Finally, thank the crews whose numbers are clean. In most businesses the vast majority of field staff are honest, and a visible routine that proves it protects them from suspicion when a shortage turns up somewhere else.

Next steps

The same ledgers, payments and stock pages serve the whole company, so no separate system is needed for vans. See the plans on the pricing page and the payments articles in the Help centre.