How to manage karigars in a tailoring shop

Published 25 October 2026

In most tailoring shops the counter is not where things go wrong. Orders are taken, measurements are written, the advance is collected. Things go wrong after that, between the counter and the karigar: a job nobody picked up, a slip that went home in someone's pocket, a trial date nobody remembered until the customer walked in.

This guide is about that gap. It is written for owners with two karigars or twenty, in the shop or working from home.

1. One job, one card, one karigar

Every piece of work that leaves the counter needs a card, whether it is paper or on a phone. The card should carry:

the garment and the number of pieces
the measurements, in the unit you used, and any photos of the design
the trial date and the delivery date
your notes: lining, padding, neck design, anything the customer asked for

And it should have exactly one karigar's name on it. Two names means nobody owns it. No name means it sits in the pile until the customer calls.

2. Give work out against dates, not in order of arrival

The order that came in last Tuesday is not always the one to cut first. The one with the nearest trial date is. Each morning, sort the open work by trial and delivery date and give it out in that order.

Keep an eye on two lists every day:

Not given to anyone yet. Every job here is a delivery date at risk.
Trial or delivery tomorrow. Check that each of these is with someone and moving.

3. Use stages everyone understands

Name the stages your shop actually uses, for example cutting, stitching, finishing and ready. Keep it short. When a karigar finishes a stage, the job moves on, and you can see at a glance where every piece is without walking the floor or calling anyone.

Stages also tell you where the work piles up. If ten jobs sit in finishing and two in cutting, you know who needs help this week.

4. Keep your customers' details with the shop

A karigar needs the measurements, the design and the dates. They do not need the customer's name, phone number or the price you quoted.

This is not about trust in one person. It is about the shop. When customer phone numbers travel on slips, they leave with the slip. Over time a shop can lose regular customers to work done on the side, and it rarely shows up until a good customer stops coming.

Give karigars a job number and the details for the work. Keep the customer record at the counter.

5. Notes go on the job, not in someone's head

"Madam wants the neck one inch deeper than last time" is the kind of instruction that gets lost between the counter and the cutting table. Write it on the job. When the karigar has a question, the answer should go on the job too, so the next person who picks it up sees it.

6. Plan for the rush before it arrives

In the weeks before Diwali and wedding dates, the number of orders can double while the number of karigars does not. A few things help:

Stop taking new orders for a date once your open work for that week is full. A late delivery costs more than a declined order.
Ask regular customers to come in early for festive orders.
Bring in extra hands for finishing work, such as hemming, hooks and buttons, so your best karigars stay on cutting and stitching.
Check the not-yet-given list twice a day instead of once.

7. Look at the numbers once a week

Once a week, look back:

How many jobs did each karigar finish?
How many deliveries were late, and at which stage did they get stuck?
How many jobs were redone after the trial?

You do not need a report for this. You need the jobs recorded in one place with dates. The answers usually point to one fix: one more person in finishing, one stage that needs a second pair of hands, one measurement that keeps being missed.

How Tailoring App handles this

Tailoring App was built for this part of the shop:

Every order becomes a job on a shared board, with your own stage names.
You give each job to a karigar from the counter or your phone.
The karigar's phone shows only their own jobs, with the measurements, photos and dates. It never shows the customer's name, phone number or price.
Karigars move a job to the next stage or mark it ready with one tap, and add notes as they work.
The work board and dashboard show jobs not given to anyone yet, trials and deliveries that are due or late, and where each job is.

It is free for one person and 50 orders a month, and ₹499 a month when your karigars join.