Udhaar khata

A khata built from your bills.

Credit comes from the bill that created it, payments settle the invoices they actually clear, and a customer is only chased on the date you agreed with them.

Entries

Made by the bill, not typed twice

Payments

Allocated to specific bills

Reminders

Only once the date is near

Offline

The khata works with no signal

What you need to know

What a credit book has to do to be trusted.

01 · The gap

A running total is not a ledger

A khata that keeps one running total per customer tells you someone owes four thousand rupees and nothing about which purchases make it up, so when they dispute it you are back to memory. Here credit is created by the bill that gave it, so every rupee that came from a bill points at a dated bill with items on it.

  • Balances built from bills, not from typed entries
  • Every amount traces to a dated invoice
  • Nothing to enter twice, so nothing to disagree with
  • The customer can be shown the bill behind any figure

02 · Settling

Two hundred rupees against four old bills

Part payments are the normal case in a udhaar book and the hardest thing to keep straight on paper. When a customer pays, you choose which bills it clears and how much goes against each. What remains stays visible on the bill it belongs to instead of dissolving into one balance, and a receipt prints for what they just handed over.

  • One payment split across several invoices
  • Part-paid bills keep their remaining amount
  • A printable or shareable payment receipt
  • The original bill is never rewritten

03 · Chasing

A reminder that arrives when you agreed it would

Reminding a customer on a day you had not asked them to pay is how a shopkeeper loses a customer, and it is why generic overdue alerts get switched off within a week. Each customer can carry one date you expect to be paid by. Nothing is said about them until it is close, and the customer list shows it only as a short note on a line that already exists.

  • One expected-payment date per customer
  • Presets of a week, fifteen days, a month, two months
  • Silence until the date is near or past
  • Overdue customers grouped, oldest first

04 · Offline

The khata does not need a signal either

Recording credit, taking a payment against it and printing the receipt all run from the phone. The entry is made the moment the customer is standing there, not when the network comes back, and it is backed up on its own afterwards.

  • Credit and payments recorded offline
  • Receipts print with no connection
  • Syncs by itself, with nothing to press
  • A payment sent twice is still one payment

05 · Trust

Nobody can quietly change what someone owed

A ledger is only worth anything if it cannot be edited behind your back. On every plan, payments and corrections are appended rather than written over the top, so the history stays readable and a finalized bill is never rewritten. On Business, every change also carries the name of whoever made it and the value it had before, in an activity log that nobody can delete — not staff, and not you.

  • Corrections appended, never overwritten
  • Cancel and re-bill instead of editing
  • Who changed what, and what it was beforeBusiness
  • Staff roles decide who can settle a paymentBusiness

Common questions

Questions about udhaar.

What is a udhaar khata?

It is the credit book an Indian shop keeps for regular customers who pay later — the bahi khata. BillCountr keeps the same book digitally, with the difference that each amount is linked to the bill that created it rather than being a handwritten running total.

Can I record udhaar without making a bill?

Yes. A khata entry records an amount a customer owes, or has paid, without a bill — with a photo of the paper bill if there was one — and an old balance can go in when you set the customer up. Where you can, make a bill: a balance built from dated bills is the easiest to explain later.

Will it send reminders to my customers?

Not automatically. You are told which customers have reached the date you set, and you decide who to contact and how. Nothing goes to a customer unless you choose to send it — that relationship is yours, and an app that chases people badly costs you the customer, not us.

Can my staff settle payments?

By default, no: a cashier makes bills but does not record payments against old dues. With Business you decide exactly what each role can do, including taking payments, and on Business every payment is recorded against the name of whoever took it.

Does the khata work without internet?

Yes. Recording credit, settling a payment and printing a receipt all work offline, and sync when the connection returns.

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