2 April 2026 · Malee Wongsuwan
Rice and oil want paying the week after Songkran
Songkran fills a grocery. Households buy rice, oil, sugar, and the things they will take to family. The week itself can look like the best week of the year on the till. The week after is when the supplier who extended stock for the festival asks to be settled, and the street is quieter.
The owners we sit with already know this. The trouble is that the festival cash and the supplier cash share a story in their head and not a line on paper, so the good week gets spent on a repair or a family trip before the settlement day.
Write the supplier onto the week he actually comes
On the collection and payment calendar, the rice and oil supplier is not a monthly smear. He has a day. For several groceries near the market, that day falls in the week after Songkran, because the extra stock was taken in the last days of March and the usual credit runs about fifteen to twenty days.
We write that day on the cash position before the festival, while the extra order is still a decision and not a debt. The owner can see the closing cash of the festival week and the closing cash of the week after, side by side. If the week after falls under the cash floor, the order is reduced while it can still be reduced.
Wages do not pause for Songkran. If the shop stays open with extra hands for the rush, those wages land in the same fortnight as the supplier. The sheet shows both. Paying the supplier in full and the wages in part is a choice the owner can make with eyes open. It should not be a surprise on the Monday.
The quiet week is still a week
Takings after the holiday are often ordinary, not disastrous. They are simply not festival takings, and they will not automatically cover a festival-sized bill. Owners who put a portion of the festival week into an envelope labelled with the supplier's name spend the holiday without that argument in the house.
We do not tell a family how large the holiday should be. We ask which bills have a date, and we put the dates on the sheet. The envelope is the same habit as the tax set-aside: money that already has a name should leave the spendable till before Friday.
If you want this written for the coming festival, ask for a collection and payment calendar in March, or fold the fortnight into a thirteen-week position that starts in February. Either way, bring the supplier's usual settlement day, not an average of the whole year.