Restaurant Billing Software in India: What to Look For Before You Buy
A practical checklist for choosing restaurant billing software in India: GST-ready invoices, offline mode, KOT, inventory, accounting, hardware and honest pricing.
Choosing restaurant billing software is easy to get wrong because most products look the same in a demo. The differences show up on a busy Saturday night, or when your CA asks for your books. This checklist is meant to help you compare options on the things that actually matter for an Indian restaurant.
Start with how you actually serve
A full-service restaurant with tables needs table and floor management, running tabs, split bills and a way to merge or transfer tables. A quick-service outlet or cafe needs fast counter billing, prepaid orders and token or pickup handling. Many places are a mix. Write down how a typical order moves from guest to kitchen to bill, and make sure the software fits that flow instead of forcing you into someone else’s.
GST-ready billing is the minimum
Every bill should carry your GSTIN, a sequential invoice number, the correct CGST and SGST split and the right classification code. If you are on the composition scheme, it should be able to issue a bill of supply instead. Then ask the harder question: what happens after the bill? Can you get a clean report for GSTR-1, or does someone re-key it? Can it file the return, or only export data?
Offline mode is not a nice-to-have
Internet drops during dinner service. If billing stops with it, you are back to pen and paper at the worst moment. Ask specifically: can I keep billing, printing KOTs and managing tables with no connection, and does it sync safely afterwards without duplicating or losing orders?
Kitchen flow
Look for kitchen order tickets that go to the right station — grill, bar, dessert — rather than one long chit for the whole kitchen, support for modifiers and notes, and the ability to mark items unavailable in one tap so guests and staff stop ordering what you have run out of.
Payments
You should be able to take cash, UPI and cards, and split one bill across several methods, including tips. If you want online or QR payments, find out whether money settles directly to your own account or is pooled through the software vendor first — settling to your own gateway account is simpler and safer.
Inventory and costing
Basic stock counts are a start; recipe-level costing is what lets you see the real cost and margin of every dish, and deducts ingredients as you sell. Even if you will not use it on day one, check that it exists, because it is difficult to bolt on later.
Does the accounting stop at the bill?
This is where products differ most. Many billing tools give you sales reports and stop there, leaving you or your accountant to re-enter everything into separate accounting software. A tool that posts proper double-entry accounting as you go gives you a live profit and loss, a trial balance and a much easier GST filing. Ask to see the P&L screen in the demo.
Hardware
Ask what you actually need to buy. Software that runs on an Android phone or tablet and works with any standard thermal printer is much cheaper to adopt than a proprietary terminal you are locked into.
Count the apps, not just the price
Add up everything the restaurant actually runs on: billing and KOT, the captain app and kitchen display, inventory and recipe costing, accounting, GST filing, payroll, purchase bills and the daily checks each person is meant to do. Many POS products cover the first few and sell the rest as add-ons or leave them to other software, so the real cost is several subscriptions, several logins and numbers that never quite agree with the till. Ask for the price of the whole list, not just the POS.
Pricing: questions worth asking
- Is there a setup fee, and is any hardware mandatory?
- Is the price per outlet, per terminal or per user? Per-terminal pricing adds up quickly.
- Which features are in the base plan and which are paid add-ons?
- Is there a contract or lock-in, and what does cancelling look like?
- Can you export all of your data if you leave, including invoices and ledger?
A ten-minute test before you commit
- Ring up a dine-in order with a modifier, split the bill three ways, and print it.
- Turn off the internet, take two orders, turn it back on, and check both synced.
- Open the report your CA would need for GST and ask how each number was produced.
- Find the food cost of a single dish.
- Ask what happens to your data if you stop paying.
Where EasyBills fits
EasyBills is built so an independent restaurant in India runs on one app instead of a stack: offline billing, KOT routing, the captain app and kitchen display, table and counter QR ordering, Swiggy and Zomato orders, recipe costing and stock, real double-entry books, GSTR-1 filing, payroll with PF and ESI, supplier bills read from a photo, and a daily routine for every role. The move from your current POS, including your old books, is done for you, free. Everything is ₹599 a month (₹5,999 a year); or counter billing at ₹100 a month, with Operations (₹199) and Finance (₹299) added when you need them; QR ordering on its own is free; plus 18% GST. No setup fee, no card required to sign up. You can try the live demo without signing up and judge it against the checklist above.