Feature
Invoicing built on the same catalogue as your stock
When billing and stock are separate systems, somebody spends every month reconciling them. Here an invoice line is a catalogue line, so what you billed and what left the shelf cannot drift apart.
Three ways an invoice starts
- From a sales order — lines, quantities and prices carry over, so nothing is retyped and nothing is transcribed wrong.
- From a Fast POS sale — a counter sale produces its bill immediately.
- Standalone — for the case where there was no order, which happens more often than order-first software likes to admit.
Tax, honestly described
SmartShelfKart supports a tax rate per invoice line, a configurable tax label that defaults to GST, your GSTIN stored in billing settings and printed on the document, and a billing report that breaks collected tax down by rate. For most small businesses selling at a handful of standard rates, that covers day-to-day invoicing.
What it is not. This is not a GST return-filing tool. It does not split a line into CGST/SGST/IGST components, maintain an HSN/SAC master, or generate GSTR filings or e-invoices. If you need those, keep filing where you file today and use the by-rate tax report as the input to it. We would rather say this plainly than have you discover it in the last week of a quarter.
Payments, part-payments and what is actually owed
An invoice is not settled by being sent. Payments are recorded against it — including part-payments, which are the normal case in wholesale — and the balance is what remains. From that, three things follow without any extra bookkeeping:
- Outstanding and overdue figures that mean something, because they are computed from real receipts.
- Customer statements: a running account per customer you can send when the conversation about money needs a document behind it.
- Ageing: how long money has been owed, in buckets, so you chase the right invoices first.
Credit notes
When something is returned or wrongly billed, the fix is a credit note, not a deleted invoice. Deleting a sent invoice destroys the audit trail and leaves a hole in the numbering that nobody can explain later. A credit note reduces what is owed while leaving both documents intact and reconcilable.
Billing reports
| Report | Answers |
|---|---|
| Collected | What actually came in, over a period |
| Outstanding | What is billed and unpaid right now |
| Overdue | What is past its due date, and by how long |
| Tax by rate | How much tax was charged at each rate |
| Customer statement | One customer's complete running account |
The link back to stock
Because invoice lines come from the catalogue, billing and inventory reconcile by construction. Profit & Loss can compute margin per product because it holds the cost from the purchase side and the price from the billing side against the same units. No export, no matching step, no month-end reconciliation.
Questions
Does SmartShelfKart file GST returns?
No. It records per-line tax rates, stores your GSTIN on the invoice, and reports tax collected by rate. Filing itself — GSTR forms, e-invoicing, HSN masters — is out of scope, and the by-rate report is intended as an input to whatever you file with.
Can I set a different tax rate per line?
Yes. The rate is a field on the invoice line, with a workspace default you can set once in billing settings so most invoices need no adjustment.
Can I record a part-payment?
Yes. Payments are recorded against an invoice and the balance is what remains, so an invoice paid in three instalments is represented correctly rather than being flipped from unpaid to paid.
How do I correct an invoice I have already sent?
Issue a credit note. The original stays intact, the credit reduces what is owed, and both documents remain in the record — which is what an auditor, and your own future self, needs to see.
Can I put my logo and business details on the invoice?
Yes. Billing settings hold your business name, address, tax ID/GSTIN, tax label and default rate, and those appear on the documents you generate.
Start running your stock on something that adds up
Open the web app in your browser, or install the Android app. The same workspace, the same live data, no card required.