Tracking empty cylinders, per customer.
How do you track empty cylinders in a gas agency?
You count them per customer rather than only in total. Every cylinder that goes out is recorded against the account it went to and every shell that comes back is recorded against the same account, so at any moment each customer's record says how many of your cylinders he is holding. A total alone tells you that shells are missing, not who has them.
What an empty is
An empty is the cylinder itself once the gas is gone. It belongs to the agency, not to the customer, so a depot needs to know how many shells each customer is holding at any moment. Counting them only in total is how a yard slowly loses cylinders.
Why do the yard count and the book disagree?
Because they are counted at different times by different people, and because a return that is not written against a customer is a cylinder that has come back in the yard and not come back in the book. Counting per customer removes the second cause, and a physical count records the remainder as a correction rather than quietly rewriting the number.
What is a ledger check?
MicroCylo replays every recorded movement for an account and compares the result with the balance it has stored. If the two ever differ, the application says so rather than showing you a figure it cannot justify. It is the same idea as tallying a register page against its carried total, done on every account at once.
Can I see what a customer is holding before I sell to him?
Yes. The shells held sit on the customer's account alongside his rupee balance, so both are in front of you at the counter rather than in two different books.
Empty cylinders
Record a movement
Out with customers
21 accounts holding shells| Code | Customer | Holding | Last movement |
|---|---|---|---|
| C-0114 | Johar Town Gas Agency | 42 | 06 Sep |
| C-0027 | Ravi Road Cylinder Depot | 31 | 08 Sep |
| C-0086 | Model Town Gas House | 27 | 05 Sep |
| C-0132 | Misri Shah Fuel Suppliers | 19 | 04 Sep |
| C-0059 | Garden Town Gas Service | 16 | 07 Sep |
| C-0071 | Wapda Town Gas House | 12 | 08 Sep |
More questions on this
Does it count different cylinder sizes separately?
Yes. Filled and empty are counted separately for each product and size, not pooled into one number.
What happens when I do a physical count of the yard?
You enter what you actually counted, and the difference between that and the book is recorded as a correction with a date. You can see what went missing rather than only that the number changed.
Can I tell how long a customer has been holding my cylinders?
Yes. The movements are dated, so the account shows when the shells went out as well as how many are still out.
Half an hour, on your own figures.
Send us a page of your register or a month of your Excel and we'll load it before the call, so what you see is your depot and not a demo one.
+92 334 852 0320 · sales@microcylo.com · Sahiwal, Pakistan