The lines are the body of a document. This page covers everything between the customer at the top and the total at the bottom.
Three kinds of line
| Kind | What it does |
|---|---|
| Item | A thing you are charging for. Quantity, rate, tax, amount. |
| Section heading | A label that groups the lines under it. Charges nothing. |
| Note | A line of text in the middle of the document. Charges nothing. |
All three sort together, so you can put a heading above a group of items and a note underneath it. A long quotation that is broken into sections is far easier for a customer to read, and far easier to argue about one part of.
Adding an item
- Click into the item field and start typing. Your item list is searched as you type.
- Pick the item. The rate, unit, HSN or SAC code and tax rate all arrive with it.
- Set the quantity.
- Change the rate if this customer is getting a different one.
If the customer has a price list of their own, the rate that arrives is theirs, not the ordinary one. That is the whole point of a price list.
Units
Thirty-three unit codes are offered — Nos, Pcs, Bdl, Qtl, Mltr, Sqf, Cbm and so on. They are deliberately restricted to the codes that GSTR-1 and an e-invoice will accept, so nothing you pick here can be refused later by a portal.
Discounts
There are two, and they are different.
| Discount | Where it applies | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Line discount | One line. A percentage or a flat amount. | One item is discounted and the rest are not. |
| Document discount | The whole document. | You are giving an overall deal. |
A document discount can be applied before tax or after it. Before tax is the usual one and reduces the GST; after tax does not. Which is correct depends on what you agreed, so both exist.
Charges
Freight, packing, installation and anything else that is not an item. A charge carries its own tax rate, because freight is not always taxed at the same rate as the goods.
A charge can also be negative, which is how you put a deduction on a document without pretending it is a discount.
A tax on the whole document
Separately from line tax, you can add a tax at document level for this one document. It can be applied on the taxable value, the subtotal or the grand total — three different bases, because local levies do not agree about which they use.
Rounding
Four choices: none, nearest, up or down — and you set what to round to. Round to the nearest rupee and ₹2,84,600.40 prints as ₹2,84,600. The rounding is shown as its own line, so the customer can see what happened.
Nothing here adds up on its own
One engine does every sum. Lines, discounts, charges and document tax are all costed by the same recalculation, which writes sixteen computed money columns on the document and six on every line. No screen does arithmetic of its own — so a total can never disagree with itself between the editor, the print and the report.
Where to go next
Something missing or wrong here? Tell us. A question that needed asking usually means a page that needed writing.