Every mandal has them: the shop on the corner that gives ₹5,000 every year, the visitor who empties their wallet at the aarti, the ex-resident who still sends something. Together they are often a serious share of the collection. And in most committees, they are the least well recorded money in the entire festival — because the register is organised by flat number, and these people do not have one.
Why it goes wrong
A collection sheet with a “unit no.” column has nowhere to put a stranger. So the ₹5,000 from the sweet shop gets written in the margin, or attributed to whichever committee member accepted it, or simply added to the day’s cash with no name against it. None of those are dishonest. All of them are unauditable.
Record the donor, not the flat
An outside donation needs the same treatment as any other rupee: a name, an amount, a date, a mode and a numbered receipt. The only difference is that the identifier is a person or a business rather than a unit.
- The donor’s name — the shop, the visitor, the well-wisher
- A contact number, if they will give one, so the receipt can be re-sent
- The amount and mode, exactly as for a member
- A receipt from the same sequence — not a separate book
How Kosh handles it
When you record a collection you can mark it as coming from a third party instead of a member, and capture their name and contact. It gets the same numbered receipt from the same series, appears in the same report, and shows up on your festival accounts under external donations — so the total is honest and the source is traceable. Your volunteers can do it from the mobile app at the mandap, which is exactly where these donations actually happen.