Contractors reorder from their phone at the rate agreed with them. Every order is checked against the credit limit and the oldest unpaid bill before a truck is loaded. Dispatch is planned site by site with an e-way bill where one is needed, the driver closes delivery with a photo and OTP, and invoices and receipts land in Tally once. Built for cement, TMT steel, tiles, sanitaryware, plywood, paint, plumbing, electrical and hardware dealers and distributors in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune and across India.
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The counter, the godown, the trucks, the field sales team and the accountant working from one customer record, one rate list and one stock figure, instead of a diary, a WhatsApp group and Tally kept apart.
The control room for the owner, the billing counter, accounts and the godown in-charge, on any computer.
An Android and iPhone app for contractors, site engineers and smaller shops that buy from you on credit.
Simple phone apps for staff who are on the road or in the godown, with Hindi and Marathi labels.
Most building material dealers in India still run on the phone. At 7:30 am a contractor calls the counter in Panvel and asks for 120 bags of PPC, two tonnes of 10 mm and 12 mm TMT and a roll of binding wire for his Ulwe site. The order is written on a slip or typed into a WhatsApp group. Someone checks the rate in a diary, someone else asks the godown if the 12 mm is in stock, and nobody looks at how much this contractor already owes until the accountant opens Tally in the evening.
The margin in this trade is thin and it leaks in small amounts. A rate quoted from memory after the company raised prices on Monday. A scheme or volume discount that the counter forgot to apply, which turns into a credit note argument at month end. A truck sent to the contractor’s old site. Steel weighed at the weighbridge at one figure and billed at another. Tiles sold in boxes but counted in square feet, so the stock never matches. And above all, credit: material goes out on 30 days, the contractor pays in 75, and the dealer funds the gap from his own pocket while paying the cement company on time.
Tax and paperwork have also tightened. Cement moved from the 28% GST slab to 18% from 22 September 2025, so every rate list and old quotation had to be redone. Dealers above the turnover thresholds set by CBIC generate e-invoices, and from April 2025 a wider band of businesses must report each e-invoice within 30 days or lose the chance to do so. E-way bills now cannot be generated for documents older than 180 days, and extensions stop at 360 days. Steel and cement are sold under BIS quality control orders, so site engineers increasingly ask for the test certificate with the material.
Infoways, a web, app and software company in Mahape, Navi Mumbai, builds ordering apps, credit control, dispatch and dealer back-office software for this trade, linked to the Tally your accountant already uses. Below: how each module works on the ground, the rules and terms it has to respect, how it compares with the ready-made billing and distributor software you have probably been shown, and how to roll it out without upsetting your counter on a busy morning.
Eight modules, who uses each one, and the awkward cases that decide whether the software helps or gets ignored.
Used by contractors, site engineers and small shops that buy on credit. The home screen shows their saved sites and last orders, so a repeat order of cement, steel and wire for the same site takes two taps. Items show in the unit they buy in: bags, tonnes, kg, boxes, pieces, coils or square feet. They see only their own rates and any running scheme. Before placing the order they see their outstanding and any bill past due. A contractor who still prefers calling is not forced onto the app: the counter enters the order in the same system, so every order sits in one queue.
Solved in your appUsed by the owner or purchase head. Customers sit in groups such as large contractors, small contractors, retailers, builders and walk-in, and each group has its own rate list, with special rates for key accounts. Cement and steel rates change often, so a new company rate list is loaded from Excel and every customer rate updates in one step, with the old rate kept in history. Quantity slabs, freight included or extra, and loading and unloading charges are separate settings. Schemes such as a per-bag discount above a monthly volume are tracked per customer, so the credit note at month end matches what was promised.
Solved in your appEach customer has a credit limit, allowed days and hold rules. When a new order would cross the limit, or any bill is past its allowed days, the order is held before the godown sees it. The owner gets a request on his phone with the outstanding, the ageing and the payment history, and can approve, cut the quantity, or ask for payment first. Every decision is logged with the name of the person who approved it. Advances, part payments and cheques not yet cleared are handled, and a bounced cheque puts the account on hold by itself until the owner clears it.
Solved in your appUsed by the dispatch in-charge. Contractors save several sites, each with an address, map pin, site contact and unloading notes such as narrow lane or crane needed. Orders land on a dispatch board grouped by area and time slot. The in-charge assigns trucks and drivers, splits a large steel order across two trucks or two days, and sees which loads need an e-way bill. Direct deliveries from the company’s plant or a distributor’s godown to the site are recorded too, so the contractor’s site-wise ledger shows everything that reached that site.
Solved in your appThe driver sees the day’s drops in route order with the site contact and a call button. At the site he takes a photo of the unloaded material and the site contact confirms with an OTP, which is stored against the invoice. Short delivery, broken tiles or wet bags are recorded on the spot with a photo, so a return or credit note can be raised the same day instead of argued about a month later. If the network is weak, the app saves the delivery and uploads it when the signal returns.
Solved in your appUsed by the godown in-charge. Each item has a base unit and conversions: tiles stocked in boxes and sold in square feet, steel stocked in tonnes and sold by bundle or piece, pipes by length, wire by coil or kg. Stock is kept per godown, with transfers between godowns logged. The pick list on the godown app shows what to load, and the loaded quantity or weighbridge slip is captured with a photo. Low-stock alerts are set per item and godown, and slow-moving items such as discontinued tile designs show up in a monthly list.
Solved in your appInvoices carry HSN codes and the GST rate for each item, set once in the item master. Where your turnover makes e-invoicing compulsory, the invoice goes to the Invoice Registration Portal through a GST suvidha provider and comes back with an IRN and QR code, well inside the 30-day reporting window. For movements that need an e-way bill, Part A is filled from the invoice and Part B from the truck chosen on the dispatch board. If the truck changes after a breakdown, the driver’s update triggers a Part B change. Your CA decides the rules; the software follows them.
Solved in your appBefore each due date, customers get a WhatsApp reminder with the bill, the ledger and a UPI link. Field sales staff see their customers’ outstanding before taking a new order and log every visit and promise to pay. Payments land in the right customer account and show on the ledger at once. Invoices, credit notes and receipts post to Tally once, and ledgers come back for the app, so the accountant keeps working in Tally as before. The owner sees sales, margin by product group, collections and the top overdue accounts every evening.
Solved in your appTell us how many contractors buy from you on credit, how many godowns you run and how orders reach you today. We will tell you which module to set up first.
The rules below are national. Your exact duties depend on your turnover, what you sell and how goods move, so treat this as a map to discuss with your CA, not as advice.
| Term or rule | 1What it means | 2How the software handles it |
|---|---|---|
| GST rates by HSN code | Each item is taxed at the rate for its HSN code. Cement (HSN 2523) moved from 28% to 18% from 22 September 2025 under the GST rate changes of that month (Notification 09/2025-Central Tax (Rate), as reported by tax publications). Other items in your range may have changed at the same time. | HSN code and rate sit in the item master with an effective date, so a rate change applies only to invoices from that date, and old invoices and returns are not touched. |
| E-invoicing and the 30-day reporting limit | Businesses above the turnover threshold set by CBIC must register B2B invoices on the Invoice Registration Portal to get an IRN. Under GSTN advisory 543, from 1 April 2025 businesses in a wider turnover band cannot report an invoice, credit note or debit note more than 30 days after its date. | Invoices go to the portal as soon as they are saved, through a GST suvidha provider. Any invoice without an IRN is flagged on the owner’s screen long before day 30. |
| E-way bill: Part A, Part B, validity | An e-way bill is needed for goods moved above the value limits set under the GST rules. Part A holds invoice details; Part B holds the vehicle. Validity depends on distance. Since 1 January 2025, e-way bills can be generated only for documents up to 180 days old, and extensions are capped at 360 days from generation. | Part A is filled from the invoice and Part B from the dispatch board. A vehicle change updates Part B. Expiring e-way bills show in red on the dispatch screen. |
| Credit notes, discounts and schemes | Post-sale discounts and rate differences given through credit notes have conditions under GST, including whether they were agreed before the sale. The treatment of volume schemes is a common area of dispute. | Schemes are recorded per customer before sales start, and every credit note is linked to the invoices and the scheme it settles, so your CA can check it. |
| Invoice Management System (IMS) | Since October 2024, buyers can accept, reject or keep pending the invoices their suppliers report on the GST portal, which affects input tax credit. | Invoices reach customers with correct GSTINs and details at once, which reduces rejections. Rejections your CA sees can be tracked against the invoice. |
| BIS mandatory certification for cement and steel | Cement is under the Cement (Quality Control) Order 2003. Many steel products are under the Steel and Steel Products (Quality Control) Order 2024, which requires the BIS Standard Mark under a licence and a certificate with each consignment. Buyers can check a licence number on the BIS Care app. | Each batch or lot can carry the brand, grade such as Fe 500D, BIS licence number and the mill test certificate, which the contractor can download against his invoice. |
| MSME 45-day payment rule (section 43B(h) and MSMED Act) | Buyers who owe money to micro and small enterprises registered on Udyam are expected to pay within the agreed period, capped at 45 days, or lose the tax deduction for that year. Traders are reported to be outside this rule, but manufacturers and works contractors who supply you may be covered. | Purchase bills from MSME suppliers carry a due date, and the owner sees which supplier payments are near the limit. Whether a supplier is covered is for your CA to decide. |
| Packaged goods declarations | Pre-packed items such as cement bags, paint tins and adhesive packs carry the declarations required under Legal Metrology rules, including net quantity and MRP where it applies. | Your website and app catalogue show the pack size and MRP fields from the item master. Labelling itself stays the manufacturer’s duty. |
| Customer and staff personal data | Contractor names, phone numbers, site addresses and driver locations are personal data under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023. | Access by role, consent on the app sign-up, driver location only during duty, and a log of every export. |
We have taken these points from GSTN and CBIC notices, BIS and ministry orders, and reputable tax publications. Thresholds and rules change through the year, and your own position depends on your turnover and products. Confirm every rule with your CA before it goes into the software. We set the rules you approve; we do not decide them for you.
Almost every dealer we meet already uses Tally, Busy, Marg, Vyapar or a similar billing package, and that is the right base for accounts and GST returns. Some have also been shown distributor management systems with order apps and credit blocking, and billing packages made for hardware and building material shops with multiple units and customer price lists. These products keep adding features, so compare their current versions with your own list rather than old reviews or a salesman’s demo.
For a single-counter shop selling mostly to walk-in customers with little credit, ready-made billing software plus a well-kept Google Business Profile is enough, and we will say so. If most of your credit customers are a handful of known contractors and the owner sits at the counter all day, a ready billing package with credit limits switched on may also do the job.
A platform built for you starts to pay back when the problems are in the steps before the bill: several hundred credit customers, more than one godown, rates that change weekly, contractors with many sites, your own trucks, field sales staff, and direct deliveries from the company plant. Those are the places where generic billing software expects you to bend your process. We usually build this layer in front of Tally and keep Tally for accounts. Our guide on custom software vs off-the-shelf walks through the trade-off.
Most dealers keep Tally or another accounting package. The question is how orders, rates, credit and delivery are handled before the bill is made.
| Factor | 1Phone, slips and WhatsApp | 2Ready billing or distributor software | 3Ordering platform in front of Tally |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Small counters with few credit customers | Shops and distributors whose process matches the product | Dealers with many contractors, godowns, trucks and field staff |
| How orders arrive | Calls and chat messages | Counter entry, and an order app in some products | Contractor app, sales app and counter in one queue |
| Rate per customer | From memory or a diary | Price levels if set up | Group and customer rates with history and schemes |
| Credit check | Evening, if at all | Limit check at billing | Limit and overdue-days hold before the godown sees the order |
| Site-wise delivery | Phone calls to the driver | Usually not covered | Dispatch board, e-way bill status, photo and OTP at site |
| Units and conversions | Kept in heads | Supported in better products | Bags, tonnes, boxes, square feet and pieces with conversions |
| Time to start | Already running | Days to weeks | Weeks to months, in phases |
Product names are mentioned only to help you compare. Features change often, so check each vendor’s current offering directly.
Each can be worked out from data the platform already holds. None needs an analyst.
Total customer outstanding divided by average daily credit sales over the last 90 days. If it keeps rising while sales are flat, you are funding your contractors’ projects. Track it by customer group and by salesperson.
Solved in your appOutstanding split into within terms, 1-30 days late, 31-60, 61-90 and over 90. Fresh dues need a reminder; the over-90 bucket needs the owner’s call and a stop on new credit. Look at it weekly, not only at month end.
Solved in your appOrders held for credit in the month, and how many the owner approved anyway. If almost every hold is approved, your limits are wrong or nobody is following them. Either fix the limits or stop approving.
Solved in your appSales minus purchase cost, after schemes and credit notes, for cement, steel, tiles, sanitaryware, paint and hardware separately. Cement and steel bring volume; margin often comes from tiles, fittings and hardware. Know which is which.
Solved in your appCompleted drops divided by trucks on the road, plus the share of deliveries confirmed with photo and OTP. Falling drops per truck usually means poor route grouping or long waits at sites.
Solved in your appInvoices billed below the customer’s set rate, by staff member. A few are fine with a reason; a pattern means rates are being given away. Each override should need a reason and be logged.
Solved in your appCost of goods sold in the year divided by average stock value, per product group, and a list of items with no sale in 90 days. Discontinued tile designs and slow sizes tie up both cash and godown space.
Solved in your appShare of orders placed from the app or a WhatsApp link, against orders phoned in to the counter. It tells you whether the app is being used, and which large customers still need a visit to get started.
Solved in your appSay you run a building material dealership in Panvel with a counter, two godowns, five trucks and three field sales staff. The numbers here are only to show the flow. At 7:45 am a contractor opens your app and reorders last week’s list for his Kharghar site: 80 bags of PPC, 1.5 tonnes of 10 mm TMT and binding wire. The app shows his group rate for cement, his special rate for steel, and the scheme he is on for the month.
Before the order reaches the godown, the system checks his account. He is within his credit limit, but one bill is 12 days past his allowed period. The order is held, and the owner gets a request with the outstanding, ageing and payment history. He approves with a note to collect the overdue bill on delivery, and the contractor gets a WhatsApp message with the bill and a UPI link. He pays it at 9:10 am, which shows on his ledger at once.
The dispatch board puts the order on Truck 3 with two other drops in the same area. The invoice is saved, the IRN comes back from the portal, and the e-way bill is generated with Truck 3 in Part B. The godown app shows the pick list; the steel is weighed and the slip photo is attached. At the site, the driver photographs the unloaded material and the site supervisor confirms with an OTP. Three bags are torn, so the driver records them with a photo and the counter raises a credit note that afternoon.
By evening the invoice, the credit note and the receipt are in Tally without anyone typing them again. The owner’s screen shows the day’s sales by product group, three orders held for credit and how each was settled, trucks used and drops completed, and the ten oldest overdue accounts for the field team to visit tomorrow. At month end, the contractor’s scheme credit note is worked out from his actual purchases, and nobody has to argue about it.
We sit with the owner, counter, godown, drivers and accountant and write down how rates are set per customer group, what credit limits and allowed days apply, who can approve a hold, how schemes work and how deliveries are planned. Anything that lives only in the owner’s head is written down and agreed first.
Items, HSN codes, GST rates, units and conversions, customer groups, sites and opening balances are cleaned and matched with the names in Tally. The accountant signs off customer balances, because the system will carry forward whatever figure it is given.
The counter starts entering orders in the new back office, with credit holds switched on for warning only. Invoices and receipts sync to Tally and are compared with the old method every day until they match exactly.
Trucks, drivers and godowns go live. We train drivers and godown staff in Hindi or Marathi on their own phones, at the godown, in short sessions between loads. E-way bill generation is tested with your CA before it is used for real.
Pick 20 to 30 regular contractors who already order often. The field team installs the app with them, shows reorder and the ledger, and collects complaints. We fix what confuses them before opening the app to everyone.
Credit holds move from warning to blocking. The remaining customers get the app through a WhatsApp link that opens straight to their order screen. Customers who still prefer calling stay on the phone, and the counter enters their orders.
Before sign-off we check rates, holds, invoices, e-way bills, Tally sync, role access and data exports with you and your accountant. Maintenance and support continues after launch, including changes when GST rates or rules change.
Send us your product range, number of credit customers and the software you are considering. We will tell you whether a ready product fits or a custom layer in front of Tally is worth it.
We quote after understanding your business, because two dealers with the same turnover can need very different things. A dealer website with a product catalogue, brand pages and enquiry forms is a small project. A back office with customer rate lists, credit holds, an ordering app for contractors and Tally sync is a medium one. A multi-godown platform with ordering, field sales, dispatch, driver and godown apps, e-invoices and e-way bills, and owner dashboards is a large one.
The cost goes up with the number of items and unit conversions, the number of godowns and branches, how complex your rate and scheme rules are, how many trucks and drivers you run, and how messy your Tally masters and opening balances are. It also goes up if you need links to weighbridge software, a brand’s dealer portal or a distributor’s system, which depend on those systems offering a way to connect. It comes down if you start with credit holds and the ordering app for your top contractors, then add dispatch and field sales once orders flow well.
Timelines: a dealer website takes 3-5 weeks. A back office with credit holds, an ordering app and Tally sync usually takes 2-4 months, including weeks of running in parallel with your current method. A full platform with dispatch, driver, godown and field sales apps runs 5-7 months in phases. See our custom ERP development page, and the Tristar Leasing CRM case study for a working example of a business system linked to Tally.
Do not try to replace Tally if your accountant and CA are happy with it. Build the ordering, credit and dispatch layer in front of Tally and sync to it. Changing accounts and changing how orders are taken at the same time is two big changes at once, and that is where dealer software projects fail.
Do not switch on credit blocking on day one. Run holds as warnings for a few weeks, look at which customers would have been blocked, fix the limits that are plainly wrong, and only then block. Otherwise the counter will find a way around the system by lunchtime.
Do not launch the app to every customer at once. Start with 20 or 30 contractors who order often, fix what confuses them, then open it to the rest. And do not load rates you have not agreed. If rates live only in the owner’s head, write the rate lists down first. Software cannot enforce a rule nobody has agreed on.
And wait if most of your sales are walk-in retail at the counter with very little credit. A good ready-made billing package and a clean Google Business Profile may be all you need for now, with local SEO so builders and homeowners nearby find your showroom.
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Ask on WhatsAppFor a counter shop selling mostly to walk-in customers, ready billing software such as Tally, Busy, Marg or Vyapar with credit limits and multiple units switched on is usually enough. A custom layer makes sense when you have many credit contractors, several godowns, your own trucks and field staff, and rules the ready products cannot follow.
Yes. We sync invoices, credit notes and receipts into Tally and pull ledgers and outstanding back, so your accountant keeps working in Tally. We match your existing ledger and stock item names during setup, and run both methods side by side until the figures match.
Yes. Customers are placed in rate groups, with special rates for key accounts. The app shows each customer only the rates set for them, and the counter bills at the same rate. Any counter override below the set rate needs a reason and is logged.
Each customer has a limit and allowed days. When a new order would cross the limit, or a bill is past its allowed days, the order is held before the godown sees it. The owner gets a request with the outstanding and payment history and can approve, reduce the quantity or ask for payment first.
Cement was moved from 28% to 18% GST from 22 September 2025, as part of the rate changes announced that month. Other items in your range may also have changed. Ask your CA to confirm the rate for each HSN code you sell; the software stores each rate with an effective date.
E-invoicing applies to B2B invoices of businesses above the turnover threshold set by CBIC, and businesses in a wider turnover band must report each e-invoice within 30 days from 1 April 2025. Sales to consumers are treated differently. Your CA should confirm what applies to you before we switch it on.
Yes, through a GST suvidha provider. Part A comes from the invoice and Part B from the truck assigned on the dispatch board. If the truck changes, Part B is updated. Since January 2025, e-way bills cannot be made for documents older than 180 days, so they should be made on the day of dispatch.
Yes. Each contractor saves several sites with an address, map pin and site contact. Every order is tagged to a site, so deliveries, invoices and site-wise outstanding are tracked separately, which also helps when a contractor bills his own client site by site.
Yes. Each item has a base unit and conversions, so tiles are stocked in boxes and can be sold in boxes or square feet, steel in tonnes or pieces, pipes by length. Stock is always held in the base unit, so it matches whichever way you sell.
Yes, if you keep it. Each lot can carry the brand, grade, BIS licence number and mill test certificate, and the contractor can download it against his invoice. Contractors can also check a licence number on the BIS Care app.
Many will if it is simple: reorder from a past order, Hindi or Marathi labels, and a WhatsApp link that opens straight to their order screen. Those who prefer calling keep calling, and the counter enters their orders in the same system, so you still get one queue.
Yes. The driver app shows drops in route order. At the site, the driver photographs the material and the site contact confirms with an OTP, stored against the invoice. Shortages or damage are recorded with a photo so a credit note can be raised the same day.
Section 43B(h) and the MSMED Act deal with payments to micro and small enterprises registered on Udyam. Traders are reported to be outside the rule, but some suppliers you buy from may be covered. Ask your CA how it applies to your purchases and sales; the software can show supplier due dates.
Contractor names, phone numbers, site addresses and driver locations are personal data under the DPDP Act 2023. We use access by role so drivers and sales staff see only what they need, consent on app sign-up, driver location only during duty, and a log of every export.
A dealer website takes 3-5 weeks. A back office with credit holds, an ordering app and Tally sync usually takes 2-4 months, including a few weeks of running in parallel. A full platform with dispatch, godown and field sales apps takes 5-7 months in phases.
Talk to our Navi Mumbai team about your contractors, godowns, trucks and credit rules. We will give you a clear plan, an honest view on ready-made software, and a price.
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