Accepting payments: cash, cheque, bank transfer, card

In Pakistan, customers will try to pay you four different ways. Each has a failure mode. Handle each separately.

Cash. The default for walk-ins. The failure mode: someone claims they paid and you cannot prove otherwise. Fix: a numbered receipt book, or better, a system that generates a receipt number, prints the amount and method, and saves a row to the audit log. Count your cash twice a day. Deposit daily.

Cheque. Standard for corporate accounts. The failure mode: it bounces. Fix: never mark an invoice "paid" until the cheque clears. The "pending" status is your friend.

Bank transfer. Increasingly the favourite of young professionals. The failure mode: the customer sends you a screenshot and you mark it paid, but the transfer doesn't land. Fix: verify in your bank app before the keys leave your hand. "I'll check my phone" is a complete sentence.

Card. Still growing in PK. Through JazzCash, Easypaisa, HBL, or Stripe for foreign cards. The failure mode: chargebacks. Fix: keep the rent agreement photo + the customer's CNIC photo on the transaction. Disputes die faster when you have proof of who was in the car.

The single most important discipline: every receipt records the method and a reference number — cheque number, bank transaction ID, card auth code. When a customer asks in six months "did I pay that?", you have an answer in thirty seconds.

A good rental system treats cash, cheque, bank, and card as equals — same form, same audit trail, different reference field. Not as a "Stripe plus an escape hatch".