Matching chilli and cotton yard pattis to bank credits

A trader in Warangal or Khammam sells through a commission agent at the yard. The agent issues a patti showing quantity, rate and deductions, then pays days or weeks later. One patti can be paid in two transfers. Two pattis can be paid in one.

The bank statement shows only a date, an amount and a reference, so it never says which lot a credit settles. Memory can match ten pattis. At a hundred, it fails.

Key each patti when it arrives, not at month end. Capture the agent, the patti number, the lot or bag marks, the weighment and the rate. Then the deductions: hamali, weighing charges, commission and market fee.

Compute the net payable on the patti. Check it against your own sale slip. Differences in weight or rate are cheapest to raise while the agent still remembers the lot.

Download the statement and enter each credit by its value date, not the date you noticed it. The value date decides interest, ageing and which cheque or transfer arrived first, and it is the only date the bank will stand behind in a dispute.

Keep the bank reference with every credit, whether it is a UTR number, a cheque number or an RTGS reference. Agents often pay from different accounts than the one on record, so the name in the narration may not match.

Post daily in a busy season. Weekly is the longest gap that still lets you trace a doubtful transfer. A credit that arrives on a Saturday may carry Monday’s value date. Post it as the bank shows it, and note the day you saw it in a separate column.

Match in three passes. Start with exact amount and agent, move to one credit against several pattis from the same agent, and finish with part payments. Whatever remains is unmatched.

Give each unmatched item a reason code: short paid, paid twice, no patti received, wrong agent. Then act. Send the agent the patti numbers still open instead of a vague demand.

Never buy the next lot from an agent whose old pattis sit unmatched for weeks. Credit risk grows quietly. Rate disputes need their own line. Note the market rate on the sale day from the yard board, so an argument about a chilli lot ends in minutes.

End every working day with one list: open pattis by agent, oldest first, with days outstanding. Print it and keep it by the phone.

On the weekly review, sit with the accountant and read the list line by line. Write the next step against each agent, and tick it off by the following week. Cotton pattis tend to run in large lots, so a single short payment can hide thousands of kilograms of unpaid stock.