Notes for owners · Industry-Specific Software Guides
Khata Book, Excel or Billing Software: What a Kirana Store Needs
A paper khata suits a shop with few credit customers and no deliveries. Excel helps once you want totals, but it sits away from a busy counter. Software makes sense when credit, stock and home orders must share one record. GullySystem’s Grocery Management System can start with counter billing and khata alone.
Ganesh HS, Strategy and Technology, GullySystem · · 3 min read
What the paper khata does well
A khata book is quick. The owner writes a date and a figure, and the regular nods.
It costs nothing and needs no power. For a shop with a handful of credit customers, it may be all the record needed.
Its weakness is that it is the only copy. A smudged or missing page leaves you asking a customer of ten years what he bought in March.
Where Excel helps, and where it stops
A sheet gives totals. You can see who owes what and sort by amount.
But Excel sits away from the counter. Someone must copy each credit sale into it at night, and a missed line looks exactly like a paid one.
Stock in Excel is harder still. Goods arrive in cases and sell by the packet, and nobody updates a sheet after every sale.
What billing software adds
Billing software records credit at the moment of sale. The khata balance moves with the bill, not with someone’s memory.
Stock falls with every bill and rises with every supplier purchase. Low-stock alerts flag atta and oil before a busy Sunday.
Orders from WhatsApp and phone calls can sit on the same list as counter sales. The rider confirms payment at the door, so cash and UPI settle without a round of calls.
- Credit posted to the customer at billing time
- Stock reduced with every sale
- Supplier bills recorded against what you owe
- Phone and WhatsApp orders on one list
- Rider payments confirmed order by order
A one-week test to decide
Count three things for one week. Credit sales, home orders, and items that ran out.
If all three are small, keep the khata and photograph each page weekly. If credit is large but deliveries are few, start with billing and khata only. If all three are large, the records need joining.
- Few credit customers and no delivery: the paper khata
- Many credit customers: billing with a khata
- Credit, stock and home orders together: one connected system
What to settle before you switch
Write down every customer’s balance from the khata and have regulars confirm it. That figure becomes the opening balance.
List your items, units and prices, including loose rice and dal sold by weight. Decide who may change a price at the counter.
Then ask how sales and purchase figures reach your accountant for Tally. Get the answer before the first bill.
One-week kirana record count
A sheet with three tally columns: credit sales, home orders and items that ran out. Mark each one as it happens for seven days. The totals show which of the three options fits your shop.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Is billing software too much for one counter with no delivery?
It may be. If all you need is a GST bill, a simple billing app costs less. Connected software fits shops that carry credit, stock and home orders together.
Can loose items be billed by weight?
Yes. Rice, dal and oil sold loose are billed by weight at your rate, alongside packed goods that are scanned.
Will the software file our GST returns?
Not on its own. It prints GST bills at the counter, and your accountant exports sales and purchase reports to file returns.