What easy gst accounting software should do for a small Indian business, what it should not pretend to do, and a free way to find out which side of that line you are on.
What most businesses actually need
In order of how often it hurts: raise a correct invoice quickly; know what is in stock; know who owes money and for how long; enter purchases without an evening lost to typing; hand the accountant something clean on the 5th.
A full chart of accounts appears nowhere on that list for most owner-run businesses, because their CA maintains it anyway from the same source data.
Buying for the list above, rather than for a feature comparison, is how businesses end up with software they still use in a year.
Where billing ends and accounting begins
These are two products and the line between them is worth knowing before buying either, because buying the wrong size is the usual mistake.
Billing is the front of the business: issuing invoices, holding customers and items, stock, knowing what is unpaid, and producing the figures a GST return is built from. Accounting is the whole ledger: a chart of accounts, journal entries, bank reconciliation, depreciation, payroll, and a trial balance that a balance sheet and a profit and loss statement come out of.
Most small businesses need the first continuously and the second periodically. That is why the common and cheapest arrangement is to bill in a billing system and give the accountant clean exports at the end of a quarter or a year — nobody is then making journal entries who should not be.
This product sits on the billing side: GST documents, stock, receivables, and exportable figures. It does not produce a balance sheet, and saying it did would only waste your time and your accountant's.
What Billixo covers
- GST invoicing with the full Rule 46 field set and the tax split derived from place of supply.
- Inventory that decrements as you bill, with low-stock warnings before you run out mid-order.
- Purchases entered from a photograph of the supplier bill — supplier, GSTIN, lines and tax as a draft you check.
- Payments and part payments recorded against invoices.
- Receivables with ageing, so the follow-up list writes itself.
- Recurring invoices for anything billed on the same day each month.
- Proforma invoices and quotations in the same numbering discipline.
- GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B summaries exported for filing or for your CA.
- Bulk import and export — CSV and Excel in; CSV, Excel and JSON out.
- Team logins on the paid plans, each with their own credentials.
What it does not do
- A full general ledger with a chart of accounts and journal entries.
- Payroll.
- Manufacturing costing, bill of materials and work orders.
- Multi-currency consolidation.
- Statutory audit and financial statement preparation.
- If you need these, you need accounting software, and it is better to know that now than after a migration.
Setting up in about twenty minutes
- Open the free account and enter your business name, GSTIN and state.
- Add your products with HSN codes, rates and opening stock.
- Add your regular customers with GSTIN and state.
- Add your regular suppliers.
- Raise one invoice and confirm the stock moved.
- Enter one purchase — photograph the bill if you are on a paid plan or still inside the 14 days of full access.
- Look at the receivables list. That is your working screen from here on.
Inventory that stays accurate
Stock goes wrong for one reason above all others: it is maintained separately from billing. Two records, updated by two people, diverging quietly until somebody counts.
The fix is not better discipline, it is a single source: stock that moves because an invoice was raised, not because someone remembered to adjust it. Purchases increase it, sales reduce it, and the count is a check rather than a reconstruction.
Low-stock warnings then become useful rather than noise, because the number they are based on is real.
Working with your accountant
The handover that works is a file, not an account. GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B summaries, a purchase register that reconciles to 2B, and exports in CSV, Excel or JSON.
That leaves your CA free to work in whatever they use, and leaves you free to change billing software later without a negotiation. Both of those are worth more than an integration that ties you to one practice.
CGST, SGST and IGST — worked out, not chosen
Whether a sale attracts CGST and SGST or IGST is not a preference. It follows from the place of supply: same state as your registration means the tax splits into central and state halves, a different state means one integrated tax at the combined rate.
That sounds simple and goes wrong constantly, because it is a dropdown in most billing software and a dropdown is something a tired person clicks past. In Billixo the split is derived from the state on the customer record against the state on your registration, and it changes the moment either does.
The consequence of getting it wrong is real: an IGST invoice raised as CGST/SGST has to be credited and reissued, and if the return has already gone in, amended.
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.
Bill scanning, in practice
The single largest time cost in most small businesses is not raising invoices — it is entering purchases. A photograph of a supplier bill goes in and a structured draft comes out: supplier, GSTIN, line items, rates, tax split and total.
You check it. That is the workflow, and it is deliberate: an extraction you did not read is a liability, not a saving. But checking a filled form takes fifteen seconds and typing one takes three minutes, and that difference compounds over a month of purchases.
Who it is built for
Small and mid-sized Indian businesses that are registered under GST and bill regularly. One person doing everything, or a counter with three people billing at once and an accountant who needs the month to close cleanly.
The design assumption throughout is that whoever raises the invoice is busy and is not a tax specialist. So the tax is computed rather than asked for, the compliance fields are populated rather than presented as questions, and the report the accountant wants is a download rather than a request.
Try it free — the free plan needs no card and does not expire.
The price, plainly
Free is ₹0 and stays ₹0. The paid plans are bought for a fixed term, paid once, with no auto-renewal and no card kept on file — when a term ends the account drops back to Free until you decide to buy again.
There is no per-invoice charge, no per-user surprise on the free plan, and no feature that is technically included but practically throttled. What the plan says you get is what you get.
Compare the plans on the home page, or just start free now and look at the ceiling from the inside.
Reliability, backups and getting your data out
Cloud billing software is only as good as its worst day. Two things matter more than any feature list: that your data is backed up somewhere you can reach, and that you can export it in a format something else can read.
Exports here are CSV, Excel and JSON, on every plan including the free one, covering customers, products, invoices and payments. That is the honest test of whether software respects you — not what it promises, but what it lets you take when you leave.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free plan?
Yes — ₹0, no card, no expiry, with volume limits, one login and a watermark on the PDF. Every new account also gets the complete paid feature set for its first 14 days.
Can I import my existing item and party lists?
Yes, by bulk import from CSV or Excel on the paid plans. Export is available on every plan including the free one.
Is this full accounting software?
No. It is billing-led: invoices, purchases, inventory, payments, receivables and GST summaries. There is no general ledger, no payroll and no manufacturing costing. For most small businesses that is the right scope, because the CA maintains the ledger anyway.
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.
See it working on your own bills
The fastest way to judge billing software is to bill with it. Photograph one supplier invoice, raise one sales invoice, and look at the PDF your customer would receive.
Open the software demo → — free account, no card, about a minute to set up.
More details on the home page → — what it does, what it costs, and where the limits are.
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