There are a few hundred products answering to billbook software and their feature lists are almost identical, which is why comparing them is so unsatisfying. The things that actually decide it are not on those lists. This page covers those instead.
What separates a billing system from a template
Not the invoice. Any template produces a reasonable-looking invoice, and for two or three bills a month a template is genuinely the right tool.
What a system adds is memory. One numbering series, issued centrally, that cannot repeat. Customers and items stored once, so the GSTIN is right on the fortieth invoice. Tax derived from the place of supply rather than chosen by whoever is typing. A record of what is unpaid. And figures a return can be built from without someone compiling them.
Every one of those is about record-keeping rather than about documents, which is why the comparison between a template and a system is usually argued on the wrong ground. The invoice is not the point; the invoice is the output.
The threshold where it changes is specific: a second person starts billing, the volume passes roughly twenty a month, or you have to file a return from it. Before that, a careful spreadsheet is a defensible choice.
From a bill book to a billing system
A printed bill book is completely legal and still the right tool in plenty of places — a counter with no computer, a van, a market stall, a power cut. Nothing about moving off one is urgent.
The weakness is not legality but recall. A written book cannot be totalled without adding it up, cannot be aged into a list of who owes you what, and cannot produce the figures a return needs without someone typing every bill into something else. That typing is the real cost of a bill book, and it is paid every month.
Two habits make a book work much better in the meantime. Get the series printed with the numbers rather than filled in by hand, because hand-numbering is where duplicates and gaps come from. And pre-print your name, address and GSTIN, which removes the fields most often written wrong.
The common middle path, and a sensible one: keep the book at the counter and enter the day's bills once in the evening. That is an hour a week instead of a fortnight in October, and it gives you the records without changing how the counter works.
What you get, free
- Complete GST tax invoices — every legally required field, tax split per line, not a template with a tax box.
- Customers stored once with GSTIN, address and state.
- Items stored once with HSN or SAC, rate and tax.
- Tax derived, not chosen — CGST and SGST or IGST, from the place of supply against your registration state.
- One numbering series, issued centrally, consecutive within the financial year.
- Stock that moves as you bill, so a closing figure means something.
- A receivables position — who owes what, aged, without adding anything up.
- PDF invoices to print, email or send on WhatsApp.
- Full export to CSV, Excel and JSON, on every plan including the free one.
- ₹0 — no card, no expiry, not a trial.
Getting started, properly, in about ten minutes
- Start free now — an email address and a password. No card, nothing to install.
- Enter your business name, address and GSTIN once. These are the fields you have been retyping.
- Add your items with their HSN or SAC codes and their own rates, or import the list from a spreadsheet.
- Add the customers you bill regularly, with GSTIN and state where they are registered.
- Set the number your invoice series should carry on from, so nothing restarts in the middle of a financial year.
- Raise a real invoice — the number, the tax split and the totals come filled in.
- Print it on your own printer and export everything, so you know both ends work.
What this product is not for
Worth saying directly, because every page in this category is written the other way round and it wastes people's time.
It is not full double-entry accounting. There is no chart of accounts, no journal entries, no bank reconciliation and no balance sheet. It produces clean exportable figures for an accountant who does that work.
It is not an ERP. No production planning, no bill of materials, no payroll, no approval hierarchies across departments.
It is not installed software. It runs in a browser and needs a connection to issue a bill, so a counter that loses internet for hours should choose something local.
And it does not integrate with hardware beyond a printer and a USB scanner — no weighing scales, no fuel dispensers, no serial-port cash drawers. If something at your counter has to speak to the software directly, that decides it.
What it does do is the shared middle: correct GST documents, a numbering series that holds, tax computed rather than typed, stock, receivables, and figures a return can be built from.
Questions worth asking any vendor, including this one
Six questions, in the order of how much they cost you if you do not ask.
Can I export everything, in full, whenever I want, on the plan I am on? If export is a paid feature, your records are leverage. What happens to my data if I stop paying? "Locked" and "deleted" should both end the conversation. Who can see my data, and where is it stored? Can two people bill at once on one numbering series, and what does the second login cost? What happens when the internet drops at my counter? And what does this cost next year, after whatever the first-year price is?
None of these appear on a comparison table, and all of them are the reasons people change billing software eighteen months after choosing it.
For the record, on this product: export is on every plan including the free one, the free plan does not expire so records never become unreachable, billing needs a connection, and the paid plans are bought for a fixed term with no auto-renewal and no card kept on file.
HSN and SAC codes, and how many digits you need
Every line on a tax invoice needs an HSN code for goods or a SAC for services. How many digits depends on your aggregate turnover in the preceding financial year — smaller businesses report fewer digits than larger ones, and B2B and B2C invoices are treated differently.
Because the requirement is tied to turnover and has been tightened in stages, the practical answer is to store the fullest code you can against each product once, and let the software report at the level required. A six-digit code can always be truncated; a two-digit one cannot be expanded.
Billixo keeps the code on the product record and carries it onto every line automatically, and its AI HSN lookup will suggest one from a plain description when you genuinely do not know.
Invoice numbering: one unbroken series per year
The invoice number has to be consecutive, unique within the financial year, and no more than sixteen characters of letters, numbers, slashes and hyphens. Gaps invite questions. Duplicates cause them.
This is the single most common reason a spreadsheet-based billing setup fails an audit: two people billing on two machines, both starting from the last number they remember. A system that issues the number centrally cannot make that mistake.
The series restarts on 1 April, and Billixo restarts it for you rather than waiting to be told.
The AI, and what it is actually for
The useful application of AI to billing is not a chatbot. It is the twenty minutes a day spent retyping things that already exist on paper.
- Scan a supplier bill. Photograph it; the lines, the GSTIN, the tax and the totals come back as a draft you check rather than a form you fill.
- Find the HSN code. Describe the product in plain words and get a code to confirm, instead of scrolling a list of eleven thousand.
- Ask about your own numbers. "What is outstanding over sixty days?" answered from your data, not a manual.
- Write the reminder. A polite, specific chase for an overdue invoice, ready to send on WhatsApp.
Nothing is sent anywhere until you ask for it, and the platform runs on whichever model it has been configured with — including one hosted on your own server.
Where this fits in a working day
Morning: yesterday’s supplier bills get photographed and become purchase records. Through the day: invoices go out as goods do, shared on WhatsApp before the customer has left. End of the week: the receivables list says who to call. End of the month: the GST summary is a download, not a project.
None of that requires a new habit, which is the point. A billing system that needs discipline to work is one that stops working the first busy week.
Free, and what it costs you instead
Free software usually costs you something that is not money: your data held hostage, an export that does not work, ads inside your invoice, or a "free" tier so narrow it is a demo with a login screen.
The line here is drawn differently. Export works on the free plan — CSV, Excel and JSON — because data you cannot get out is not data you own. The invoice is a real compliant invoice, not a sample. The limits are on volume and on the conveniences, not on whether the thing works.
Start free now. If it does not suit you, take your data with you.
Where your data lives
On the server this platform is installed on. Every record carries a company identifier and every query is scoped to the signed-in account at the framework level, so one business cannot read another’s data by any route, including a crafted one.
Sign-in is rate limited, sessions can be restricted to one device per user, and passwords are stored hashed. Exports are available on every plan, free included: if you ever want to leave, your data leaves with you.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to set up?
About ten minutes to raise a first real invoice, and longer only if you are importing a long item list. The half hour worth spending is testing it with your own items and your own printer before you commit anything to it.
Is it really free, or is it a trial?
The Free plan is ₹0, needs no card and has no expiry. It carries volume limits, one login and a small watermark on the PDF. Separately, every new account gets the full paid feature set for its first fortnight so you can see the ceiling — when that ends nothing is charged and nothing is deleted, the account just settles onto Free.
Is this accounting software?
No. It is billing, GST, stock and receivables. There is no chart of accounts, no journal entries and no balance sheet. Most small businesses need billing continuously and accounting periodically, which is why the usual arrangement is to bill here and give the accountant exports.
Are the invoices valid for GST?
Yes. Every invoice carries the fields Rule 46 requires — GSTIN, HSN/SAC on each line, place of supply, the correct CGST/SGST or IGST split, and a consecutive invoice series that restarts each financial year.
Can I move my existing customers and products in?
Yes. Bulk import from CSV or Excel on any paid plan, and export back out in CSV, Excel or JSON at any time, including on Free. Most people bring their party and item lists across in one pass and carry outstanding invoices as opening balances.
Start free, decide later
You do not have to choose a plan to begin. Start on Free, use it for as long as it suits you, and upgrade only when a limit actually gets in your way — never automatically, and never because a countdown ran out.
Open the software demo → — or create the free account from the same page.
Read the full details → on the home page, including pricing and the AI features.
Related pages