how can i offer layaway?

[the-don]

hello

i own a buy sell trade shop, i also offer buyback facility.
now i would like to offer a layaway service (weekly payments)

but im not sure if theres any free or cheap software which offers just this service?
or if anybody knows a easy way of doing this?

thanks

 

[Pheonix]

I used to have a few shops that did this. Handled layaway a manual;y using a form they'd sign when they put a deposit down, then an Excel spreadsheet. Used to have upwards of £5k per store using this system and it worked fine.

 

[the-don]

thanks for reply

ive found a template form i can use to sign,, your idea of using with excel sounds good.

did you still have the excel template by any chance so i could keep track of there payments?

thank you

 

[Pheonix]

No I don't I'm afraid but it was pretty simple. From Column 1 it sent something like:

Customer Name
Custome Address
Customer Telephone Number
Item Bought
Total Price of Item
Deposit Paid + Date

and then it would have columns for each payment that they made along with the date.

 

[deniser]

We just write out a form for the payment plan manually and attach it to their purchase, diarise the payments and then send them Paypal invoices at the appropriate times which they pay electronically. When they pay, we tick off that payment on the form until all the scheduled payments have a tick next to them. It's such a simple process that it doesn't seem to warrant anything more complex in terms of software. If there was interest to deal with it could be more complicated of course.

 

[Welsh Retailer]

You can't charge interest unless you have a Consumer Credit Licence and jump through a whole load of compliance hoops. If you do, you're effectively "loan- sharking", even if your rates are reasonable and may well get a visit from Trading Standards.

Whenever we offer a layaway, it's interest free, as it's not collected until paid for in full.

 

[Pheonix]

Yep. You can do a 'Buy Back' where you don't charge interest but you charge a fee for the option to buy the item back before anybody else at a set price within a set timeframe.

We never charged for Layaways, it was always a good way to make a high priced sale and help the customer manage their cash.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Can this be done in accounting software?

Also, do you have/need a credit license for this?

 

[deniser]

You can't charge interest unless you have a Consumer Credit Licence and jump through a whole load of compliance hoops. If you do, you're effectively "loan- sharking", even if your rates are reasonable and may well get a visit from Trading Standards.

Whenever we offer a layaway, it's interest free, as it's not collected until paid for in full.

Yes of course quite apart from the accounting issues which I guess is why the finance part is usually undertaken by a third party even when interest free.

 

[Welsh Retailer]

Yes of course quite apart from the accounting issues which I guess is why the finance part is usually undertaken by a third party even when interest free.

Sorry, there was an earlier post (now removed) which suggested that interest could be charged. I was trying to ensure that the OP wasn't led up a garden path....