The CES provides a range of options to facilitate exchange: record keeping, bartering, swapping, gifting and sharing. Here is an example where the record keeping option is used.
Requirement: Your car needs an oil change.
Step 1: You either look through the Offerings List or do a search to see if anyone is offering oil changes or car maintenance. Someone is offering oil changes for T100 but you must bring your own oil and oil filter.
Step2: In the Offerings List you click on the person’s name to obtain contact details. You phone the person (the ‘seller’) and agree on a time and place for the oil change.
Step 3: The oil change takes place and then you (the ‘buyer’) fill in a cheque-like trading slip (obtainable from the site), giving the date, your name, your account number, the amount (T100) and your signature. You fill in the same details on the counterfoil or stub and get the seller to sign it. The trading slip is then separated from the counterfoil and you hand it to the seller, keeping the counterfoil for yourself. For the seller your trading slip represents your ‘payment’ and your acknowledgement of the service or goods delivered; for you the counterfoil is your record of ‘payment’.
Step 4: You leave, satisfied that your car has fresh oil. The seller then enters the details of the trade on a computer or smartphone into the transaction form of their CES ‘bank account’. This becomes a credit for the seller and a debit for you. You are now obliged to provide goods and services to the community worth T100.