What to check before you move your shop to any billing app.

01 · Question 1

Does it bill when there is no signal?

Ask what happens at the counter when the network drops. Not whether the app has an offline mode, but whether a bill, its stock movement and the customer's credit are all saved on the phone before anything is sent. A shop in a basement market, or anywhere the tower is crowded at seven in the evening, finds out the difference on its first busy day.

• BillCountr writes every bill to the phone first
• Stock lookup, khata and printing also work offline
• Work syncs by itself when the signal returns
• A bill sent twice is still one bill

02 · Question 2

Does the invoice number stay in order when it does?

GST asks for invoice numbers that are consecutive and never repeated. That is easy online and hard offline, because a number handed out by a server cannot be handed out when there is no server. Ask whether bills made offline keep their numbers, or are renumbered when they sync. A renumbered bill is a gap in the series.

• BillCountr assigns the number on the phone, in your own series
• The server keeps the number the phone chose
• Two people billing at once use separate seriesPro
• Returns get credit-note numbers of their ownPro

03 · Question 3

Can a payment be matched to the bill it pays?

Regular customers often buy on credit. A running balance says how much they owe; it cannot say which purchases make it up. When a customer disputes a figure, the only thing that settles it is a list of dated bills, so ask whether a part payment can be put against specific bills.

• BillCountr allocates each payment to the bills it clears
• Part-paid bills keep showing what is left
• A payment-by date per customer
• A statement you can print when they ask

04 · Question 4

What does it cost when a second person bills?

Ask what the app costs when a second person needs to bill at the same time: a helper, a son or a second counter. Compare the plan you would actually be on, with the number of people you actually have, not the headline price.

• BillCountr's free plan covers one person
• A second person on the first paid planPro
• Roles decide what each person can seeBusiness
• A cashier can bill without opening your profit reportBusiness

05 · Question 5

Can you take your data out?

A shop's item list, customer list and history are years of work. Before you put them into any app, check that they come back out in a form another program can read: a spreadsheet, not a screenshot.

• Your items, customers and ledger export on every plan
• Reports export to Excel or a branded PDFPro
• A spreadsheet of items and customers imports in one goBusiness
• No lock-in, and no charge to leave

06 · Question 6

Does it have what your trade needs by law?

Some businesses need e-way bills, e-invoices above a turnover threshold, or batch and expiry records for medicines. These are not features you can do without; they are obligations. Check them first, because no amount of anything else makes up for them. BillCountr does none of the three, and if you need them, it is the wrong choice.

• BillCountr does not generate e-way bills or e-invoices
• It does not track batches or expiry dates
• It does not file GST returns
• It is billing, stock, udhaar and reports — not accounting