Glossary

The vocabulary of a delivery round

29 terms every water, milk, LPG or ice supplier uses — defined properly, with why each one matters rather than just what it means. If you are comparing software, these are the words the demos will use at you.

Round: One day's deliveries on one route, worked by one rider. A round has a start, an ordered list of stops and a close — the point at which the rider's cash, stock and bottles are counted against what the round should have produced.
Route: A named, ordered list of customers that a rider delivers to, usually covering one area. Routes exist so that the sequence of stops is a property of the business rather than something living in one rider's head — which is what makes a route survivable when that rider leaves.
Returnable bottle: A container that belongs to the supplier and is expected back — in Pakistan almost always the 19 litre polycarbonate bottle. Because it is an asset on loan rather than a product sold, it has to be tracked as a balance per customer, not as a line on an invoice.
Empties balance: The number of bottles a customer is currently holding: everything delivered to them, minus everything returned. A supplier's total empties balance across all customers is the single most useful number in the business, because it is the value of stock walking around outside the plant.
Security deposit: A refundable amount held against the bottles a customer holds, so that a lost bottle costs the customer rather than the supplier. A deposit that is not reconciled against the actual bottle count is decorative — the point is the comparison, not the collection.
Bottle reconciliation: Comparing bottles issued from the plant, bottles recorded as delivered, bottles recorded as returned and bottles physically counted, and explaining the difference. A round that reconciles daily loses a bottle at a time; a round that reconciles yearly loses a stack.
Recovery: The collection of money already owed. In delivery businesses recovery is a separate discipline from sales, because the delivery has already happened and the leverage is gone — which is why ageing (how long a balance has been outstanding) matters more than the balance itself.
Ageing: Grouping unpaid balances by how long they have been outstanding — current, 30 days, 60, 90+. A customer at 90 days is a different problem from a customer at 30, and treating them the same is how suppliers end up writing balances off.
Rider cash ledger: A running account of the money a rider has collected and not yet handed in. Closing it at the end of every round is the single most effective control in a cash delivery business, because it makes a shortfall a same-day conversation.
Subscription round: A customer on a repeating schedule — a fixed quantity on set days — rather than one who orders each time. Subscription customers are worth more and cost less to serve, and the software's job is to generate their deliveries without anybody re-entering them each week.
Offline-first: An app that records work locally and syncs later, rather than requiring a live connection at the moment of use. For a delivery rider this is not a nicety: a stop that cannot be recorded when it happens is a stop that gets recorded from memory, or not at all.
Stop: One customer visit on a round. A stop produces up to three facts — quantity delivered, empties collected, cash taken — and a delivery system that cannot capture all three at the stop will be reconciled by guesswork later.
Refill exchange: Delivering a full container and taking the matching empty in the same movement, the standard model for both water bottles and LPG cylinders. The exchange, not the sale, is the event worth recording, because it is what keeps the container count honest.
Route density: How many customers a rider serves per kilometre travelled. It is the number that decides whether a round is profitable, and the reason suppliers eventually turn down distant customers who look like revenue and behave like cost.
Bilty: The consignment note of a Pakistani goods transporter, also called a lorry receipt: one sender's goods booked at one station for one receiver at another, with the goods, the freight and whether it is paid or To-Pay. It is printed in copies — the sender's, the one that travels with the goods, and the office's — and its number is what everybody tracks the goods by.
Loading challan: The manifest of one hired vehicle: which bilties were loaded onto it, how many packages of each, the vehicle and driver, and the freight agreed with the driver. The station that receives the vehicle checks the goods off against it, bilty by bilty.
To-Pay: A bilty whose freight the receiver pays when collecting the goods, rather than the sender at booking. The goods are not handed over until it is paid — which is why the delivery desk, not the booking counter, is where To-Pay money comes in.
Kiraya, advance and bakiya: The driver's side of a loading challan: kiraya is the freight agreed for the trip, the advance is what is paid at loading, and the bakiya is the balance paid when the vehicle is unloaded — often by a different station from the one that hired it.
Station (adda): One of a transport company's own offices, where goods are booked, loaded, unloaded and handed over. Each has a short code printed in its bilty numbers and a cash book of its own.
Inter-station account: What one of a transporter's stations owes another: To-Pay freight one collected on the other's bilties, or a driver's balance one paid on the other's challan. Kept as a running account between each pair of stations, so it is settled by a transfer instead of argued over at month end.
Paid bilty: A bilty whose freight the sender pays at booking. The money is in the booking station's cash the same day and the receiver owes nothing at collection — the opposite of To-Pay.
Declared value: The value a sender states for the goods on the bilty at booking. It is usually the basis, and the upper limit, of any claim if the consignment is lost or damaged in transit.
Receiving (unloading): Checking a vehicle's load off at the destination station bilty by bilty — all there, short, damaged or missing — before the goods are handed over and before the driver's balance is paid, so any shortage is recorded against that trip.
Delivery desk: The counter at a transporter's destination station where a receiver collects goods: the bilty is found by number or CNIC, any To-Pay freight is collected, and the goods are handed over against a signature — or sent out with a rider for door delivery.
Freight rate card: A transporter's price list per route: a rate per kilogram, a rate per package and a minimum charge, with the usual transit time. It lets a counter quote consistently and a customer estimate freight before booking.
Storage charge: A charge a transporter makes for goods left uncollected at the destination station beyond a stated free period — commonly a week. Printed on the bilty so it is agreed before it is ever applied.
Full and empty stock: How an LPG agency counts cylinders: how many are full and ready to deliver and how many are empty awaiting refill. A delivery turns a full into an empty with the customer; a collection brings the empty back.
Fat rate: How milk from a supplier is priced: by quantity and by the fat content measured on delivery, at an agreed rate, so richer milk earns more per litre. Each delivery is posted to the supplier's ledger.
Mann (maund): A traditional unit milk is bought in from suppliers in Pakistan. Dairy software converts it to litres so supplier intake, stock and sales are all counted in one unit.

Put it to work

Every term on this page is a screen in Irsaal

Empties balance, deposit reconciliation, rider cash ledger, ageing — these are not concepts the software gestures at. They are things you open and read.

Start the 14-day trial See the screens