Finance / Loans

For a lender: a finance company, a chit or hire-purchase business, or anyone who advances money and collects interest. Money is the stock. Loans are disbursed to borrowers, a schedule is drawn, EMIs are collected at the counter or on a round, overdue accounts are chased, and post-dated cheques are tracked to the bank. There are no sales or purchase bills; the counter is the loan desk.

Set up before your first loan

The owner does these, in this order.

1. Decide how you collect Settings > Finance. Switch Route Collection on if collectors walk a round; leave it off for a counter office where the borrower comes to you.
2. Fill the lists your loan forms pick from Setup > Masters: Banks, Relations (for guarantors and nominees), Vehicle Makes, Income Accounts and Expense Accounts, and Party Groups or Staff Groups if you use them. With Route Collection on, cut your map under Locations here too.
3. Add your staff Setup > Directory > Staff. Each collector needs a staff record before a loan can name them as its agent.
4. Add your borrowers Setup > Directory > Customers, or pick them as you disburse.
5. Enter the loans you are already running with Disburse Loan, using their original terms and start date, so the schedule reproduces what the borrower agreed.
6. Create a login for each person and tick their switches (see Who signs in).
7. Run one test loan: disburse a small amount, collect one EMI and print the receipt. Check the principal / interest split is what you expect.

How the work flows

Each step says who usually does it and what prints.

The whole loan on one page:

flowchart TD
    A[Disburse Loan] --> S1[Step 1: what is lent
borrower · principal · category · vehicle or gold details]
    S1 --> S2[Step 2: when it comes back
duration · frequency · EMI due day · start date]
    S2 --> S3[Step 3: what it costs
interest type · rate · rate basis · fees]
    S3 --> S4[Step 4: how it is handed over
payment mode · guarantors · cheques · documents]
    S4 --> L[(The loan and its terms
with its schedule)]
    L --> D[Dashboard: due today · overdue · expected inflow]
    D --> C[Collect EMI: pick borrower]
    C --> C1[Instalment prefilled
principal / interest split · late fee]
    C1 --> P[(Collection recorded
instalment settled)]
    L --> Q[Post-dated cheques held]
    Q -->|bank it| P
    Q -->|bounced| F[Fee charge]
    L --> X[Extend / renew loan] --> L
    P --> Z{Balance zero?}
    Z -->|yes| CL[Loan closed]
    Z -->|no| D
    D -->|overdue| W[WhatsApp reminder]

Who signs in

Give every person their own login. A lender has no seat picker: you add a user, then tick the switches on the Finance group of their permissions. The owner or an admin opens on the Dashboard; everyone else opens straight on the loan book.

1. Open the user form Settings > Users > Add User.
2. Set the login: email or user name, password, and the Role Type (User for staff).
3. Tick the switches on the Finance group for the job, as in the cards below, and save.

These are typical shapes, not built-in seats: what a person may do is exactly the switches you tick. Existing staff keep what they could already do, because each finance switch starts on for a user who could already do that job; Collect for Other Agents and Receive Agent Cash are the exceptions and start off. The full list is in Settings & permissions.

Where it is in the app

The owner or an admin opens on the Dashboard; everyone else — a collection agent, a loan clerk — opens straight on the loan book. Each menu shows only what this seat is granted; a menu left empty does not appear.

On a computer: the menu bar

Across the top: the seat’s own screen, then the other of Dashboard / Loans, then these menus, and Tools (Settings, utilities, Help, Logout) last.

On a phone or tablet: the side menu and the bottom bar

The side menu starts with My Work (the seat’s own screen, the other of Dashboard / Loans, Disburse Loan and Route Collection), followed by Office (Reports, Directory, Accounting). Collect EMI sits with the quick actions. A screen on the bottom bar is not repeated in the side menu.

Businesses of other categories get the same loan engine under Vouchers > Loans (Given / Taken) on the POS page, or as a Loans group on their own shell. See Loans for the module itself.

Screens

Dashboard

Disbursed this month, collected this month, due today, overdue count and value, expected inflow for the coming weeks, cheques that can be banked now.

Loans

Every loan given, filterable by status (running, overdue, closed) and borrower. From a row: view the schedule and passbook, collect, extend or renew, record a cheque status, print or share the agreement, or export the schedule. A loan the lender was already running before the app is entered with its original terms so the schedule reproduces what the borrower agreed.

Disburse Loan

Picks the borrower, then a four-step form in the order the lender works: what is being lent, when it comes back, what it costs, how it is handed over. Interest can be flat, reducing balance or simple; frequency monthly, weekly, daily or custom days; fees and nominee details are kept on the loan.

Collect EMI

Pick the borrower and the instalment; the principal/interest split and any late fee prefill, the receipt reads the payment back before it saves. Partial and advance payments re-flow the remaining schedule.

Route Collection

The whole round on one screen: every borrower with something due or overdue in the next seven days, worked top to bottom without leaving the list, with the running total, a search box and a tick against everyone already collected from in this sitting. Where you run more than one collector, pick a Round to walk just that agent’s book — or tick Unassigned to find the borrowers nobody is chasing. The round picker is offered only to a user who may collect for other agents; a collector simply sees their own list.

Directory and masters

Borrowers are loan contacts; staff are the collectors. Party Groups and Staff Groups classify them; Income and Expense Accounts are the heads interest, fees and overheads post to.

With Route Collection switched on, a loan can name the Collection Agent who walks it — the staff member whose round that borrower falls on. Leave it empty for a counter business, where the borrower comes to you. It is what makes the Agent Collections report and the per-agent round possible, and it is only offered to a user who may assign rounds.

The rupee’s round trip

flowchart TD
    A[Capital available to lend] --> B[Loan disbursed]
    B --> C[Schedule of instalments]
    C --> D[EMIs collected]
    D --> E{On time?}
    E -->|yes| F[Principal returns · interest earned]
    E -->|no| G[Overdue: reminders · late fee]
    G --> H{Recovers?}
    H -->|yes| F
    H -->|no| I[Cheque banked · renewal · or written down]
    F --> J[Interest is the income
principal is the stock returning]
    J --> A
    I --> A

Settings & permissions

Settings > Finance carries Route Collection — switch it on if your collectors walk a round, off for a pawn or gold-loan office where the borrower comes to the counter. It turns on the Route Collection action, the Collection Agent field on a loan, and the Agent Collections report. Interest rounding follows the business’s decimal setting.

User permissions — the Finance group, so you can give a collector exactly the round and nothing else:

Every one of these is on by default for a user who could already do the job — switching to the new permissions does not take work away from staff who were doing it yesterday. The two exceptions are Collect for Other Agents and Receive Agent Cash, which are new jobs and start off. The user form only ever shows the group belonging to that user’s own business, so a lender never reads a gym’s permissions.

Reports

In a lending business each report is its own menu entry under Reports, so you go straight to the number instead of landing on a hub and picking from it. Other businesses that lend on the side get the identical list as a Loan Reports tile page.

Plus Loan Party Statement per borrower, and the general Reports: Day Book, Expenses, Income.

The money reports — Ageing, Agent Collections, Expected Inflow and Monthly Summary — need View Portfolio Money, so a collector granted View Reports keeps their chase list without being handed the whole book’s exposure.