You know how long your salesman spent at each shop from the check-out card: duration from check-in to check-out, and distance from where the visit started, written on the same record as the photo. The caveat is that duration is shown as unreliable when the check-out leg fails its own trust check. Visit duration tracking in field sales, on this Guwahati book, is Raju at Gupta Stores on Station Road: he checks in at 10:40 with a camera photo, Global Positioning System (GPS) location, device time, his name and the dealer, spends twelve minutes inside, and checks out. The card reads "At the dealer 12 minutes" and "Checked out 40 m from where the visit started." Five salesmen, about 120 dealers, five road names. Distance is from the check-in point, not from a dealer pin, because the dealer has no pin. This article walks that card, the unreliable case, and what the owner does with a Tuesday of them.
Key Highlights
- Check-out writes "At the dealer 12 minutes" and "Checked out 40 m from where the visit started" on the visit card
- Duration is shown as unreliable when the check-out leg fails its own trust check, the mock-location flag on that second stamp
- Distance is measured from where the visit started, not from a dealer pin, because Gupta Stores has no pin
In This Article
- How do I know how long my salesman spent at each shop?
- Check-out on Station Road, twelve minutes later
- Visit duration tracking in field sales when check-out cannot be trusted
- Distance from where the visit started, not from a dealer pin
- What a Tuesday of durations actually tells the owner
- After check-out, the order into Tally
- Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know how long my salesman spent at each shop?
From check-out. Raju opens Gupta Stores, checks in, does the work, checks out. Visit duration tracking in field sales is the span between those two stamps, written on the card the owner later reads. The WhatsApp list at nine is a memory. Duration is the two stamps.
The Salesman app for Tally already has the check-in: camera photo, GPS location with accuracy, device time, Raju, Gupta Stores. Check-out adds the second timestamp and the second coordinates. Duration is the minutes between them. Distance is how far the second point sits from the first.
Beat-wise sales management is Station Road as a named list, then this card at each shutter. Twenty-four shops on that stretch. The owner is asking whether twelve minutes at Gupta Stores was a conversation or a wave from the scooter.
He WhatsApps at 8:15. "Gupta Stores pe kitna time tha?" The answer is on the card, or the card says the number cannot be trusted.
Check-out on Station Road, twelve minutes later
At 10:40 Raju stands in front of Gupta Stores and checks in. The camera opens. Gallery is not an option. He photographs the shutter. At 10:52 he checks out.
The card then shows two lines the owner will quote back.
"At the dealer 12 minutes."
"Checked out 40 m from where the visit started."
Twelve minutes is the span from 10:40 to 10:52. Forty metres is how far the check-out coordinates sit from the check-in coordinates. Raju walked from the shutter to the scooter parked down the lane. That is a real check-out, and it reads like one.
If he forgets to check out until the next kirana, two streets on, duration stretches and distance jumps. The owner will see a forty-minute visit that started at Gupta Stores and ended somewhere else.
He can check in when he is not at the shop. The photo and the first coordinates will show the tea stall, or the godown, or home. Duration then measures time from that point. The owner reads the photo first.
Visit capture is phone-only. Field Visits is available on request. The owner's Field Visits screen is phone-only. Feed defaults to today, filterable by salesman or Everyone. He opens Raju, taps Gupta Stores, reads the two lines.
What a beat is in distribution sales does not put a walking order on Station Road. Duration cares about the two stamps on this one dealer.
Visit duration tracking in field sales when check-out cannot be trusted
Visit duration tracking in field sales has a second honesty rule, and it is the one that keeps the twelve-minute rows believable.
Check-out runs its own trust check. The trust check is the mock-location flag, the same flag check-in uses. If the phone reports a mock or fake location on the way out, the check-out leg fails. Duration is then shown as unreliable. The minutes are still computed. They are not presented as a clean "At the dealer 12 minutes" the owner can take to a review.
If check-in was refused because of a mock location, there is no visit at all, so there is no duration. The refused attempt still shows to the owner. If the owner has granted that device an exemption, the visit is accepted and marked Unverified. Unverified is about the location. Unreliable duration is about the check-out leg.
A visit still open at 8 PM is its own signal. Manoj on GS Road, if he checks in at nine shops and checks out of six, leaves three open. The owner sees the open ones.
Distance from where the visit started, not from a dealer pin
"Checked out 40 m from where the visit started" measures Raju against the check-in point, not against a pin dropped on Gupta Stores.
Gupta Stores has no pin. The party is a Tally ledger. Check-in does not test how far Raju is from a stored shop coordinate, because there is no stored shop coordinate. The first GPS point is wherever the phone was when the camera fired.
Distance at check-out is from that first point to the second. Forty metres means he was still in the same lane. Four hundred metres means he had already moved. Two kilometres means the second stamp is a different neighbourhood. The owner reads the number and the photo.
Station Road's twenty-four kiranas were never surveyed. Fancy Bazaar's lanes share a building. Distance from visit start is a fact the two GPS points can actually support.
Create beats and assign a salesman from the phone still only names the list. A geo-tagged visit photo versus all-day GPS tracking is the first stamp. Check-out is the second. Neither one follows the phone between shops.
What a Tuesday of durations actually tells the owner
Five salesmen. About 120 dealers. By evening the owner has a pile of cards.
Station Road: Raju, Gupta Stores 12 minutes, next kirana 8 minutes, the party that always talks 34 minutes, two shops with no check-out. GS Road: Manoj, short stamps, one 2-minute visit the owner will ask about. Fancy Bazaar, NH-37, Beltola, the same shape.
A 2-minute visit with a photo of the shutter can still be a real stop. Visit duration tracking in field sales is useful when it sits next to the photograph.
The owner pays on orders and invoices, the Team Sales toggle. Duration answers whether anyone actually stood there. Salesman-wise sales reports answer the billing question. A shop with high bills and 2-minute visits is one conversation. A shop with no bills and 30-minute visits is another. Station Road can look busy from the van and still skip the two parties whose bills are oldest.
After check-out, the order into Tally
"Take an order" is offered after check-out. Creating an order needs a working data connection. The visit stamps can wait. The Sales Order cannot.
At 10:52 Raju has signal on Station Road. He books 14 cartons against live stock. It lands in Tally as an ordinary Sales Order, which is the point of salesman order taking without re-entry. He can raise an order any other time. Order creation is not gated on Team Sales.
In a dead-signal lane he still checks in and checks out. Visit check-in with no signal saves those stamps on the phone and uploads when signal returns. Duration is computed from the two device times. The owner sees the twelve minutes after the upload.
Twelve minutes at Gupta Stores, forty metres from where the visit started. That is the card. The unreliable label is the honesty when the second stamp cannot be trusted.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do I know how long my salesman spent at each shop?
A: From check-out. Duration is the minutes between check-in and check-out, written on the visit card as At the dealer 12 minutes. Distance is how far check-out sat from where the visit started. Both sit on the same record as the photo.
Q: What does visit duration tracking in field sales show when check-out cannot be trusted?
A: Duration is shown as unreliable when the check-out leg fails its own trust check. The trust check is the mock-location flag. The minutes are still computed. They are not presented as a clean figure the owner can take as fact.
Q: Why does the card say Checked out 40 m from where the visit started?
A: Because distance is measured from the check-in coordinates, not from a dealer pin. Gupta Stores has no pin. The first GPS point is wherever the phone was when the camera fired. Forty metres means he was still in the same lane.
Q: Can he check in when he is not at the shop?
A: Yes. Check-in does not test distance against a stored shop coordinate, because there is no stored shop coordinate. The photo and the first coordinates show where he actually was. Duration then runs from that point.
Q: What if he forgets to check out?
A: The visit stays open. An open visit at evening is visible on the owner's Field Visits feed. Duration is incomplete until the second stamp exists. A late check-out two streets away will show a long duration and a large distance.
Q: Does a short visit mean he did not really go?
A: No. A 2-minute visit with a photo of the shutter can still be a real stop. Read duration next to the photograph. Minutes without the picture are only a number. The picture without check-out is only the first half of the card.
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