Billing for a shop where the same shirt comes in six sizes.

01 · Variants

Size and colour are separate items here, and you should know that first

There is no size-and-colour matrix. A shirt in six sizes is six products, usually named and barcoded that way, which is how most shops already label their stock. It works, and for a shop with a barcode on every piece it works well. For a boutique carrying forty styles across five sizes and four colours it means eight hundred product rows, and that is a real reason to choose something built around variants instead.

• Each size or colour is its own product
• Barcode per piece, scanned at the counter
• Names and codes follow your own labelling
• No size-colour matrix, no variant grid

02 · Tax

Five percent, which is where most garments sit

Choosing clothing sets GST on at five percent, the rate most readymade garments and footwear fall under, and the HSN picker offers garment, fabric and footwear codes. Items above the threshold that attract a different rate carry their own, so one bill can mix rates without anything being set up in advance.

• GST on, 5 percent, from the first bill
• Garment, fabric and footwear HSN codes offered
• Per-item rate for anything that differs
• Mixed rates on one bill

03 · Returns

Exchange season, handled without editing a bill

Garment retail runs on returns and exchanges, and the wrong way to handle one is to edit the original bill — the document the customer is holding stops matching your records. A return here is a credit note with its own number: stock comes back in, the customer's due drops or a refund is recorded, and your sales figures net it out.

• Return part of a bill, line by line
• Credit notes in their own numbered series
• Stock returns automatically
• Sales and tax reports net the return out

04 · Discounts

Sale pricing without rewriting the price list

Discounts are on by default for this trade, applied per line or on the whole bill, so a festival sale does not mean re-entering prices and then putting them back. MRP and selling price are held separately, and a price typed below cost raises a warning before the bill is saved.

• Line-level or bill-level discount
• MRP and selling price kept apart
• A warning when a price goes below cost
• The discount prints on the customer's bill