"How much revenue do you make in a month?" He Wenlin asked. "How much does it cost for groceries? How much of the food do you usually waste?"

"I didn't count that."

He Wenlin looked at him in disbelief: "You're the boss, and you don't know your exact monthly revenue, your losses, or even how much you buy goods. You're really something."

Old Mrs. He slapped him on the head with a palm-leaf fan: "With your looks, you want to be a boss? You'll lose money hand over fist!"

He Wenhua didn't dare to fight back and said without much confidence, "The turnover is about 310 or 320 every day. I have to cook every day, so I know that, but I haven't calculated the total. Lijuan is the one who buys the vegetables. I don't usually manage it. There are some bad vegetables and such, but I haven't calculated the specifics. However, I know that our daily expenses are about 200, for vegetables, rice, flour, cooking oil, gas and so on."

“You make about three hundred yuan a day, and your expenses are two hundred. You didn’t even think about the problem. You’re really something.” He Wenlin asked, “What about your own meals? If you eat well, then two hundred yuan in expenses is about right.”

"When Lijuan's family first came, they ate chicken, duck, and fish in rotation? Later, when they were cooking fast food, they would cook more vegetables. Besides packing some for the guests, they ate the rest themselves. They would also buy fruit and snacks, but it was only a maximum of ten yuan a day."

Do you keep track of your purchases of vegetables, rice, flour, and cooking oil?

He Wenhua shook his head: "No, at the time I thought it was just the two of us in the shop, so there was no need to remember it."

"These definitely need to be recorded for easy tracking. Does the factory keep a record of its daily orders?"

"Yes, we do. We need to pay commissions to them, and we're worried about discrepancies in the quantities, so we keep a copy." He Wenhua realized what was going on. "You suspect there's something wrong with my shop's accounts?"

“It’s not necessarily an accounting issue. Let me ask you, how much have you actually saved since you opened?” He Wenlin asked.

"I've been in business for over three months, and I haven't saved up four thousand yuan yet, but I did spend three thousand four thousand on an air conditioner and a mobile phone."

"That means your profit is seven thousand four hundred."

“No, no, no, we had about a thousand yuan in hand before we opened the business when we bought the air conditioner. You gave us money as a gift when you came to celebrate,” He Wenhua recalled. “We should have earned about six thousand two or three thousand in these three months.”

“I’ll come to your place tomorrow morning. Don’t tell your wife and the others about this yet. But even if I come, I might not be able to help you get your business going.”

“I understand.”

"Wenhua, come over here and play some leveling up. We're missing one player," He Hui called out again.

Upgrading is a type of poker game that is popular in He Wenlin's hometown, but it's usually played for money, just to pass the time.

He Wenhua went after hearing the sound.

As soon as he left, Grandma He grabbed He Wenlin and whispered, "Linlin, is there something wrong with your brother's shop accounts?"

"That's hard to say, but two hundred a day is indeed too much. We have so many more orders than him. When I first started, apart from utilities and rent, my other miscellaneous expenses were only a little over two hundred a day. Don't we have more people in our shop than he does?"

Actually, the vegetables aren't expensive at all. He Wenlin buys common vegetables for five or six cents a pound. He's small, so let's say one dollar. The profit margin for food is quite high. Besides, He Wenhua mainly sells from stalls and deliveries, so theoretically, the amount of waste wouldn't be that much.

He now sells stir-fried noodles and rice from a cart for late-night snacks and breakfasts, with almost no waste. He only offers fast food at noon and in the afternoon, and even then, it's made to order. Based on his total revenue, it can be deduced that there aren't many fast food meals, so there generally aren't many spoiled dishes to throw away.

Even if you don't plan ahead and buy too much every day, even if you lose 20 pounds a day, it's only 20 yuan. Why would you need to spend 200 yuan?

"So, according to you, Lijuan and the others have a problem."

“To be honest, I really didn’t like her. Just considering the bride price, no family does it like this. The bride price suddenly went up that day. I guess she came to our place and saw our six-story house, so she added it at the last minute,” He Wenlin said.

He Wenlin actually hoped there would be problems with the accounts, so that the two of them would break up. The Xia family still had a disobedient and useless precious child. If they didn't break up, his brother would suffer more in the future.

The next day, the food factory happened to be delivering goods to the High-tech Zone, so He Wenlin took the factory's car to He Wenhua's store.

"Linlin, what brings you here?" Xia Lijuan was quite surprised to see He Wenlin.

"Sister-in-law, your arm is all better now."

"Okay, I can still do things like washing vegetables, but the doctor said I can't do heavy work."

"It takes a hundred days to recover from a broken bone, so you need to be extra careful." After saying that, He Wenlin turned to Xia's father and asked, "Uncle, are you settling in well here?"

Xia's father: "It's good, it's good."

"Linlin, what brings you here today?" Xia Lijuan asked. "Are you here to inspect the market again?"

He Wenhua felt inexplicably guilty.

"No, that's not it. My brother told me yesterday that business at the store isn't very good, and asked me to come and see if I could find a way to increase the number of orders and improve the profits."

Hearing this, the Xia father and daughter didn't think much of it.

Xia's father even said with a smile, "Wenhua is so lucky to have a sister like you."

"Uncle, you flatter me," He Wenlin said politely. "To increase profits, we need to avoid various losses, such as discarding food, saving on water, electricity and other miscellaneous expenses, and also pay attention to the daily combinations of dishes. As I have said before, we should cook according to the budget every day. Do you follow that?"

"Yes," Xia Lijuan answered readily.

Can I see your orders?

Xia Lijuan felt something was off. She took out today's order details. There were a total of thirty fast food meals for lunch, excluding rice, twelve servings of egg fried rice, and eighteen servings of fried noodles.

After looking at today's photos, I looked at the photos from the previous days, and then I went to see the vegetables that Xia Lijuan bought today.

"How much did you spend on groceries today, sister-in-law?" He Wenlin asked.

Xia Lijuan's expression changed immediately: "What do you mean? I think you're not here to help, but to check the accounts, right? He Wenhua, what do you mean?"