The khata, generated by the bill that created it.

01 · The difference

A ledger app records what you tell it; this records what you sold

Khatabook and OkCredit are digital versions of the bahi khata: you type in that someone took goods worth four hundred rupees and the app keeps the running total. That is genuinely useful and millions of shops rely on it. But the entry is still a number you typed, so a disputed balance still comes down to memory. In BillCountr the khata is a by-product of billing — the credit exists because a bill created it, and every rupee owed points at a dated bill with items on it.

• No second place to type the same amount
• Every balance traces to a bill you can show
• Part cash, part udhaar recorded on one bill
• Payments allocated to the invoices they clear

02 · Scope

The khata is one screen of a shop, not the whole shop

If all you need is who owes what, a ledger app is lighter and you should use one. The case for moving is that the same act — selling something — also has to move stock, produce an invoice a GST-registered buyer can use, and end up in a day's sales figure. Doing that in one place means doing it once.

• GST invoices with HSN and consecutive numbers
• Stock that moves from the bill, with low-stock alerts
• Suppliers and purchases on the other side of stock
• Sales, dues, stock and tax reports

03 · Chasing

We do not message your customers

Khatabook and OkCredit send automatic payment reminders by SMS and WhatsApp, and for a lot of shops that is the feature. BillCountr does not, and it is a deliberate line: an automated message chasing someone's uncle on a day you had not agreed is a relationship you lose and we do not pay for. You get told which customers have reached the date you set, and you decide who to call.

• One payment-by date per customer, set by you
• Silence until that date is close or past
• Overdue customers grouped, oldest first
• You choose who to contact, and how

04 · Language

One place these apps are clearly ahead

OkCredit publishes in eleven languages and Khatabook in a similar range. BillCountr is in English, with Hindi in progress. For a shopkeeper who reads Marathi, Tamil or Bangla and not English, that is not a small gap — it is the whole product. We would rather write that here than have someone find it after signing up.

• English today; Hindi being added
• Retailer vocabulary rather than accounting jargon
• Numbers, dates and money in Indian formats
• Tell us your language at support@billcountr.com — it changes what we build next