What a shop bill book should record (and what it should not)

The facts you cannot reconstruct later

When a customer argues about a bill, or a supplier asks what is still due, you need:

• Who — customer or supplier, with enough of a name and phone to find them again.
• What — items, quantities, rates and tax you actually charged.
• When — bill date and due date.
• What was paid — cash, bank or UPI as you recorded it, and the remainder.
• What happened to the stock — the quantity that left or arrived with that bill.

Quotations, orders and deliveries are useful when you do not bill on the spot. They are not a substitute for the bill that finally moved stock and money.

Opening balances are part of the book

If someone owed you ₹12,000 on the morning you switched from paper, that number has to be entered as an opening balance. If you skip it, every “outstanding” report starts wrong. The same applies to cash in the till and stock on the shelf.

What Bill Book covers

Bill Book is built for that counter workflow on Android: sales and purchases, parties, stock, expenses, cashbook, reports and PDF sharing. Records stay on the device. Get it on Google Play.

It is a recordkeeping tool. It does not file GST, register e-invoices with the government, or connect to a bank. Check OCR readings and tax settings before you save. Reports summarise what you entered.

Leave these with an accountant

• Statutory accounts, GST returns and e-invoice IRNs.
• Whether a particular expense is deductible.
• How to treat damaged stock for tax.

Export PDFs and backups they can use. Do not email a live backup into a group chat.

Paper habits worth keeping

Number bills in order. Do not delete a billed sale to “fix” it; record a return or a correction you can explain. Close cash at the end of the day against the book. And export a backup before the phone is replaced. Support notes are on the Bill Book support page.