How to move your dry cleaning shop from notebook to software

Switching systems is mostly a people change, not a computer change. A few decisions up front make the difference:

• Pick a quiet go-live day. Choose a normal weekday, not a Sunday rush, wedding week or the fortnight before Diwali.
• Name one owner for the switch. The owner or a trusted manager answers staff questions and decides when the notebook closes.
• Check devices and internet. KIWIKIT runs in a web browser on a PC, laptop, tablet or phone, and needs internet; there is no offline mode. Keep a mobile hotspot ready as a backup connection.
• Time the free trial. KIWIKIT has a 3-day free trial with every feature and no payment details. The shop is locked when the trial ends until a plan is chosen, so start it just before go-live and use it for setup and practice.

The rate card drives every bill, so do it before anything else. In KIWIKIT a new shop starts with a ready-made rate card of 30 common garments, from shirts and sarees to suits, blankets and curtains, with services like dry clean, wash and iron, steam press and saree polish. Edit it rather than typing from scratch:

• Go through your price list and correct each normal and urgent rate. The starting urgent rates are about one and a half times the normal rate, so change them if you charge differently.
• Decide which services you charge per piece and which per KG, such as wash-and-fold.
• Add garments you handle that are missing and remove services you do not offer.
• Add a photo for each garment so counter staff can pick by picture.

Rate changes are logged, so later you can see what was changed and when, instead of relying on whoever last edited the price list.

For pricing decisions, see rate cards, advances and balances.

Give every person their own login. Shared logins make the order history useless when you need to know who did what. KIWIKIT comes with Owner, Manager, Counter Staff, Cleaner/Presser and Accountant roles, which you can adjust. Every plan includes 4 users and 1 branch, and extra users cost ₹83 per user per month.

Train in two short sessions:

• Counter staff: create a customer, take an order with three garments, print tags, take an advance, generate the bill, record payment, hand over part of an order and cancel one.
• Floor staff: scan a garment's QR with a phone camera and move it to Done, and put an order on hold with a reason.

The interface is available in English, Hindi and Marathi, and each user chooses their own language, which helps staff who are not comfortable in English.

Do not try to copy every open order from the notebook on day one. Run the two side by side instead:

• From go-live, every new order goes into the software, with no “just this one” on paper during a rush.
• Old orders stay in the notebook and are closed there when collected.
• Mark the go-live date on the last notebook page so nobody adds to it.
• Where a customer owes money from before the switch, enter it as an opening balance on their profile so their khata carries over.
• Once only a handful of old orders remain, call those customers, settle them and close the notebook.

Keep a small pad of numbered paper slips at the counter for the rare day when both the internet and the hotspot fail. Write the order on a slip, give the customer a copy, and enter it in the software as soon as you are back online, with the slip number in the remarks. Do not let the pad turn into a second notebook.

Your customer list

If your customers are in an Excel sheet, prepare name, mobile, address and any balance, and send the file to the KIWIKIT team, who will help bring it in. There is no self-service import screen. Without a list, customers are added as they come in, using quick-add from the order screen, which warns about duplicate mobile numbers.

Printers

Most counters need a 58 mm or 80 mm thermal printer for receipts and a label printer for garment tags, which print on 38 mm taffeta tags. A4 and A5 bills, including Marathi templates, print on an ordinary printer. KIWIKIT prints through the browser, directly over USB or Bluetooth from the browser, or through its Windows print agent. Do test prints before go-live and adjust layouts in the template designer.

WhatsApp

Connect your shop's WhatsApp sender number in settings. After that, customers get automatic messages when an order is received (with a PDF receipt), when it is ready for pickup and at other stages. Edit the templates to sound like your shop. Message credits, where they apply, are billed separately.

• Owner or manager at the counter during the busiest hour on day one.
• Every order has a promise date, so the overdue list means something.
• Floor staff scan garments as they finish them, not in a batch at closing.
• Cash-up each evening from the daily receipt summary, by payment mode, against the drawer.
• Watch for prices changed by hand at intake and fix the rate card instead.
• Set the automatic daily backup to your own Google Drive or the server.
• At the end of the week, ask staff what was slow or confusing and adjust roles and permissions.

• Going live in peak season. New habits break first under pressure.
• Copying the whole notebook in first. It delays the start, and old orders close faster on paper.
• Shared logins. You lose the record of who took, changed or discounted an order.
• Rush-hour orders on paper. One paper order means two places to check.
• Skipping tags because staff know the customers. Tags protect you when the person who remembers is on leave.
• Letting the trial lapse half set up. Choose a plan before the trial ends so the counter is not locked on a working day.

When you are ready, start the free trial, or contact the team if you want help with your customer list or printer setup.