Restaurant billing software and GST: what an Indian restaurant actually needs

Invoice numbering that survives an audit

GST requires a consecutive serial number per financial year, unique to the business. That sounds trivial until a bill is cancelled mid-service, or a second counter opens on a Saturday, or the internet drops and someone writes a manual bill to keep the queue moving.

The numbering has to be issued by one system, not by whoever is standing at the till. Two counters sharing one series is fine; two counters each keeping their own is a reconciliation nobody wants to do in October.

• •One series per business per financial year, issued centrally
• •Cancelled bills keep their number and stay in the record — a gap is what raises questions
• •The GSTIN, the HSN/SAC where it applies, and the tax split printed on the bill itself

Splitting and merging without rewriting the bill

Four people at a table, three paying separately, one paying for two. Two tables pushed together after the order was taken. A guest who moves to the bar. Every one of these happens nightly, and in a lot of software each one means voiding the bill and starting again — which shows up later as a suspicious number of cancellations.

Splitting by item, splitting by amount, and moving items between tables should all leave one audit trail rather than three cancelled bills.

One figure at day close

The question at the end of service is simple: what should be in the drawer, and what is in the drawer. Everything else — item-wise sales, hourly patterns, tax summaries — can wait until morning.

If the software cannot answer that in one screen, the manager counts cash against a printout and the difference gets absorbed rather than investigated. That absorbed difference is the most common leak in a restaurant, and it is rarely dramatic: a cancelled item after payment, a few times a week, by somebody who knows nobody checks.

• •Expected against counted, per shift, per person
• •Discounts and cancellations recorded with the name of whoever made them
• •Cash, UPI and card on the same bill without a second reconciliation

What you can ignore

Proprietary hardware. A bill printer and any Android phone will run a restaurant; a locked-down terminal on a rental contract mostly runs up a rental contract.

Feature counts. The number of modules matters far less than whether billing, the kitchen and your customer list are the same data. Two systems that export to each other overnight will disagree by Tuesday.