Prescription photos that arrive on WhatsApp and land in one queue, a pharmacist check before anything is packed, Schedule H1 entries made at the moment of sale, stock held by batch and expiry, refill reminders for your regular diabetes and BP patients, and a rider app that records every delivery and UPI payment. Built for neighbourhood chemists, small chains and hospital pharmacies in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune and across India, working inside the terms of your own drug licence.
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One record for the patient, the prescription, the order, the batch it came from and the rider who delivered it, so the counter, the pharmacist on duty and the owner all see the same thing.
A web screen at the counter for the pharmacist on duty and the store manager, and a panel for the owner across branches.
Most patients order on WhatsApp; regular buyers can also use a simple app or website. Both feed the same queue.
For your own delivery staff, made for small screens and riders who prefer Hindi or Marathi.
A typical chemist in Vashi, Kharghar, Dombivli or Aundh runs on a billing package bought years ago, one or two registered pharmacists, a few counter boys, a delivery rider on a scooter and a WhatsApp number that never stops. Regular patients send a photo of a prescription or an old bill, sometimes at eleven at night, and expect the medicines at their door within the hour. Distributors visit or take orders on calls, and the owner checks margins at the end of the month, if at all.
The leaks are small and constant. A WhatsApp order gets buried under twenty newer chats and the patient goes to the store across the road. A refill patient on diabetes and BP medicines quietly shifts to a marketplace app because nobody reminded them. A strip expires on the shelf because the newer batch was picked first, and the expiry return to the distributor is filed late or not at all. The rider comes back with cash that does not match the bills. Each one is minor; together they decide whether the store grows.
The rules are also tightening, not loosening. Prescription medicines need a valid prescription and a registered pharmacist. Schedule H1 sales go in a separate register that inspectors check. In September 2025 the GST rate on most medicines was cut, and stores carried old-MRP and new-MRP stock side by side for months. In July 2026 some alcohol-based liquid products were reported to have moved into Schedule H1, and in September 2026 the Health Ministry put out a draft asking stores that supply prescription drugs to run CCTV. The national rules for selling medicines online, meanwhile, are still not final.
Infoways, a web, app and software company in Mahape, Navi Mumbai, builds ordering, prescription and stock systems for pharmacies: WhatsApp and app ordering with prescription upload, a pharmacist check queue, refill reminders for chronic patients, a rider app, and batch and expiry tracking. Below we explain how each part works, the rules it has to respect, how it compares with the billing software and marketplace apps you already know, and what to ask before you spend anything.
Eight modules, who uses each one, and the awkward cases that decide whether the software helps the counter or slows it down.
Used by the counter staff. Every incoming order, whether a WhatsApp photo through the WhatsApp Business API, a call noted by staff, a website upload or an app reorder, becomes one card in a single queue with the patient’s number and saved family profiles. Blurry photos get a one-tap “please resend” reply. A patient who sends four photos in a row gets one order, not four. Staff type the medicines against the image, or pick them from the patient’s last bill, and the order moves to the pharmacist. Nothing is packed straight from a chat.
Solved in your appUsed by the registered pharmacist on duty. Each order shows the prescription image beside the typed list. Items marked Schedule H, H1 or X in your item master are flagged in colour, and the order cannot move to packing until the pharmacist approves it, asks the patient a question, or rejects a line. Every decision is logged with the pharmacist’s name and time. An old prescription, a missing doctor’s registration number or an unusual quantity raises a warning. Schedule X items can be blocked from remote orders entirely if your adviser says so.
Solved in your appWhen an H1 item is billed, the screen asks for the details your register needs: patient name and address, prescriber name and address, drug, quantity and batch. The entry is made at sale, not reconstructed the night before an inspection. The register prints in a clean layout for the inspector, and the prescription image is stored with it. For Schedule X, which needs its own licence, the system keeps the separate record and the prescription copy for the period your adviser confirms. Changes after saving are logged, never silently overwritten.
Solved in your appUsed by the store manager and counter. Every purchase is entered by batch, expiry date and MRP, so the same product can sit in stock at two MRPs, as happened after the September 2025 GST change. When staff bill or pack, the system suggests the batch that expires first. A near-expiry list for the next 30, 60 and 90 days shows what to push, move to another branch or return. Short-dated items are flagged before they go to a delivery customer, so a patient does not receive a strip expiring next week.
Solved in your appUsed by the pharmacist and owner. When a regular medicine for diabetes, BP, thyroid or cholesterol is billed, the pharmacist marks it as a refill. The system works out the next due date from the quantity and dosage, and a few days before, the patient or a family member gets a WhatsApp message to reply and reorder. The list shows who has lapsed, who moved to a different brand, and who needs a fresh prescription because the old one has run out. The reminder never sends a medicine without the pharmacist’s check.
Solved in your appUsed by riders and the owner. Packed orders go into sealed bags, and the rider app shows the address, landmark, amount and a call button. The rider photographs the sealed bag at pickup and at hand-over, collects cash or UPI, and marks refused orders, which come back into stock against their batch. Cold-chain items like insulin can be flagged for an insulated bag and a time limit. At day end, each rider’s cash and UPI are matched against bills, so shortfalls show up the same evening.
Solved in your appUsed at the counter. When a patient asks for something you do not have, staff log it in one tap instead of saying “kal aana”. The list becomes your short book for the next distributor order and shows how many sales you lost by product. Where a different brand of the same molecule and strength is in stock, the system can show it to the pharmacist, but any switch is the pharmacist’s decision and follows your licence terms and the prescriber’s instructions. The patient is told before the bill, not after.
Solved in your appUsed by the owner and purchase person. Distributor invoices are entered or imported with batch, expiry and scheme quantities. Expiry and breakage returns are tracked by distributor and claim date, so a credit note is chased instead of forgotten. For a small chain, stock can move between branches with a transfer note, and the owner sees sales, stock, near-expiry and rider cash for every branch from one login. Where your billing package can export or offers an API, the order system reads stock from it instead of keeping a second, wrong count.
Solved in your appTell us how many counters and riders you have, which billing software you use and how orders come in today. We will tell you what to put in place first.
These are the points chemists ask us about most. Drug rules are national, but licences and inspections are run by each state’s drugs control department, so practice can differ.
| Term or rule | 1What it means | 2How the software handles it |
|---|---|---|
| Retail drug licence (Form 20 and Form 21) | A retail chemist is licensed by the state drugs control authority, not by CDSCO. Form 20 covers most drugs; Form 21 covers Schedule C and C(1) items such as insulin and vaccines. The application is made on Form 19. | Licence numbers, validity and the registered address of each branch are stored and printed on bills, and an order can only be served by a branch whose licence covers that item. |
| Registered pharmacist | Prescription sales are to be made by, or under the personal supervision of, a pharmacist registered with the State Pharmacy Council (reported as Rule 65 of the Drugs Rules 1945). | Only users marked as registered pharmacists can approve a prescription order. Their name, registration number and time are saved on every approval. |
| Schedule H | Prescription-only medicines that carry the “Rx” warning on the label. They should be sold only against a prescription from a registered medical practitioner. | Items are flagged as Schedule H in the item master, so an order with them cannot be packed without a prescription and a pharmacist’s approval. |
| Schedule H1 register | A narrower list, including certain antibiotics and habit-forming drugs, with a separate register of prescriber, patient, drug and quantity. A state government notice says the record is kept for three years and open to inspection. | The H1 entry is captured at the moment of billing, with the prescription image, and prints as a register for the inspector. |
| Schedule X | Narcotic and psychotropic medicines with tighter controls, their own licence forms and a longer paper trail. Prescription copies are reported to be kept for two years. | Kept in a separate register. Remote and WhatsApp orders for Schedule X can be blocked completely, which is what most chemists we speak to prefer. |
| Online sale of medicines | National e-pharmacy rules were drafted in 2018 and, as reported in July 2025 and since, are still not final. Courts have issued differing interim orders over the years. | We do not build a nationwide medicine marketplace. We build local ordering for your own licensed store, with prescription checks, in the way your adviser approves. |
| CCTV at pharmacy premises (draft) | A draft notification of 8 September 2026 proposes that premises supplying prescription drugs, other than wholesalers, run CCTV and keep recordings for at least three months. It was open for comments and is not yet law. | Orders, approvals and hand-overs carry timestamps, so they can be matched to camera footage if the rule is finalised. The camera system itself is separate. |
| GST and MRP on medicines | From 22 September 2025, GST on most medicines was cut from 12 to 5 per cent, with some moved to nil. Manufacturers issued revised price lists; stock already released could be sold without re-labelling. | Each batch keeps its own MRP and tax rate, so old and new stock bill correctly side by side. Rates are settings your CA confirms, never hard-coded. |
| Schedule H1 additions in 2026 | In July 2026, medicinal products with more than 12 per cent v/v alcohol, sold above 30 mL, were reported to need a prescription and to be moved into Schedule H1. | Schedules are a field in the item master. When a product moves, you change one setting and every future sale follows the new rule. |
| Patient data under the DPDP Act 2023 | Prescriptions reveal health conditions. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, the store is responsible for consent, purpose and safe keeping of this data. | Consent at sign-up, prescription images visible only to pharmacists, a retention setting, and a log of every export or download. |
We have taken these points from state drugs control notices, the Drugs Rules as described by legal publications, and news reports of recent notifications. Some are drafts. Rules change, and your state drugs control office may read them differently. Confirm each point with your drug licence consultant, your CA or the drugs control office before it goes into the software. We set up what you and your adviser approve; we do not give legal advice.
Almost every chemist we meet already has billing software. Marg ERP, LOGIC ERP, GoFrugal, eVitalRx and general billing apps such as Vyapar and myBillBook are common names, and most of them handle GST bills, batch and expiry stock and distributor purchases well. If your counter billing works, do not replace it. The gap is usually in front of the billing: orders arriving on WhatsApp, prescription checks, refill follow-up and delivery, which billing packages were not built around.
The second thing you compete with is the marketplace apps: Tata 1mg, PharmEasy, Apollo 24|7, Netmeds and the quick-commerce players now delivering health products in minutes. Some chemists list with these platforms as a supply partner and get extra volume, and for some that is the right choice. The trade-off is that the patient becomes the platform’s customer, not yours, and you follow their terms on pricing, margins and data.
Building your own ordering layer makes sense when you have a loyal base of regular patients you want to keep, more than one branch, your own riders, or a hospital or clinic that sends you prescriptions. It does not make sense for a single store doing a handful of WhatsApp orders a day; a WhatsApp Business catalogue, a quick-reply list and discipline will do. Our guide on custom software vs off-the-shelf goes through the trade-off in more detail.
An honest comparison. Many chemists end up using two of these together.
| Factor | 1Billing software plus a WhatsApp number | 2Listing on a marketplace app | 3Your own ordering layer on top of billing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Single stores with few remote orders | Stores wanting extra volume without marketing | Chemists with regular patients, branches or own riders |
| Prescription check | In the pharmacist’s head and chat history | Platform’s process plus yours | Logged queue with pharmacist name and time |
| Refill follow-up | Rarely done | Platform reminds the patient | Your store reminds your patient |
| Who owns the patient relationship | You, but nothing is recorded | Mostly the platform | You, with full history |
| H1 entries for remote orders | Entered later by hand | As per platform and your licence | Captured at billing with the image |
| Delivery and cash control | Rider’s notebook | Platform logistics | Rider app with photo and UPI record |
| Time to start | Already running | Days to weeks, subject to approval | A few weeks for a first version |
Product names are mentioned only to help you compare. Features and terms change, so check each vendor’s current offering directly.
None of these needs an accountant. A good pharmacy system shows them on one screen, by branch.
Of the patients whose refill fell due this month, how many bought it from you within a week of the due date. Worked out from the chronic patient register. It is the single best measure of whether regular patients are staying or drifting to a marketplace app.
Solved in your appMinutes from the order arriving to the rider’s hand-over photo, split into waiting for the pharmacist, packing and riding. If most of the time sits before the pharmacist check, you need another pharmacist at peak hours, not a faster rider.
Solved in your appNumber of requests logged for products you did not have, by product and by distributor. It tells you what to stock, which distributor fills poorly, and how many patients you sent across the road.
Solved in your appStock value, at purchase rate, expiring in the next 90 days, and value written off as expired this month. Watch the trend, not one month. A rising number usually means over-ordering on schemes or poor first-expiry-first-out picking.
Solved in your appValue and age of expiry and breakage returns not yet credited, by distributor. Unclaimed returns are money already lost; a claim older than your distributor’s window is usually gone.
Solved in your appShare of remote orders where the pharmacist had to ask the patient a question or reject a line. A high share means the intake step is weak: blurry photos, missing details, or staff typing the wrong strength.
Solved in your appDeliveries per rider per day, and the difference between cash expected and cash handed over. A small gap every day is a process problem, not just a person problem.
Solved in your appSales from patients with three or more bills in the last 90 days, against total sales. It shows how much of the business rests on loyalty, which is what an ordering system is meant to protect.
Solved in your appSay you run a chemist in Vashi with two counters, two registered pharmacists on shifts, one rider and about 400 regular patients. The numbers here are only to show the flow. At 9 am the pharmacist opens the desk screen: 23 refills fall due this week, six of them today. The reminders went out on WhatsApp two days ago, and four patients have already replied “yes, same as last time”. Each reply is an order card waiting for the pharmacist’s check against the saved prescription.
At 11 am, a new patient in Sector 17 sends three photos of a prescription. The counter boy marks the duplicates, types the four medicines against the image and moves the order on. The pharmacist sees one antibiotic flagged as Schedule H1, checks the prescriber’s details on the image, approves, and the system asks for the H1 fields at billing. One item is out of stock; the patient is told before payment and the request goes into the short book. The bag is sealed and photographed, and the rider leaves at 11:25.
At 4 pm, the near-expiry list shows two batches of a cough syrup expiring within 60 days. The manager moves one batch to the front shelf and flags the other for return. The purchase person sees that last month’s expiry claim with one distributor is still not credited and calls them. At 9 pm, the rider’s summary shows eleven deliveries, eight paid by UPI and three in cash, and the cash matches the bills to the rupee.
At month end, the owner looks at one screen: refill retention, lost sales by product, expiry written off, claims pending and order-to-door time. The pattern is clear: most delays happen before the pharmacist check between 7 and 9 pm. The fix is a second pharmacist in the evening, not a new app.
One sitting with your drug licence consultant and CA to confirm what you will accept remotely, how prescriptions are verified, whether Schedule X is blocked from remote orders, delivery area, and what goes on the bill. We build to that note.
We import products from your billing software and you mark schedule, HSN, tax rate and refill flag. This is the slowest step and the most important, because every warning in the system depends on the schedule field being right.
We set up the WhatsApp Business API number in your store’s name, link stock and bills with your billing package where it allows an export or API, and test orders end to end with your staff as pretend patients.
Your pharmacists enter or confirm the chronic patient list with medicines and dosage, and patients are asked for consent before their first reminder. We start with a small group and widen it once replies look right.
Hands-on training at the store in Hindi, Marathi or English, shift by shift. Riders practise on the app with real addresses for a few days while still carrying their notebook.
For one or two weeks, H1 entries are kept in both the system and the paper register, and rider cash is checked both ways. Once the pharmacist and owner are happy, the system becomes the record.
Schedules, tax rates and the draft rules will keep changing. Maintenance and support covers updates, new reports and changes your adviser asks for.
Send us what you use today and the vendors you are comparing. We will tell you honestly whether you need custom work or just a better setup of what you have.
We quote each chemist after understanding how they work, so there is no fixed price here. A WhatsApp order queue with prescription upload, pharmacist check and refill reminders for one store is a small project. Adding a rider app, batch and expiry stock, H1 capture, a patient app and a link to your billing software makes it medium. A chain with several branches, stock transfers, a central purchase desk, hospital or clinic prescriptions coming in, and owner reports across stores is large.
The cost goes up with the number of branches, how open your billing software is (an API is far easier than a nightly file), how messy the item master is, whether you want a full patient app or WhatsApp only, and how many reports and roles you need. It comes down if you start with the order queue and refill reminders, which protect the most revenue, and add stock and delivery later.
Timelines: a WhatsApp order desk with refills for one store usually takes 3-5 weeks, much of it spent cleaning the item master. Adding the rider app and stock link takes another 3-4 weeks. A multi-branch chain system runs 2-4 months in phases. See custom software development for a build around your store, or try our app cost calculator to see which features move the scope most.
Do not let staff pack straight from a WhatsApp chat. The single most useful thing any system does is force a pharmacist check, with a name and time, before a bag is sealed. If your app skips that step to look faster, it is exposing your licence, not saving time.
Do not launch a nationwide delivery website. The national e-pharmacy rules are still not final, and your licence is for your premises. Serve patients near your store, check every prescription, and ask your adviser before you advertise widely. We will not build a system that we think puts your licence at risk.
Do not skip the item master clean-up. A schedule field left blank means an H1 item sells without a register entry. Spend the week on it before anything goes live.
And do not build anything if you get only a handful of remote orders a day and have no regular-patient base to protect. Set up WhatsApp Business properly with quick replies and a catalogue, use your billing software well, and come back when orders start getting lost. Building is worth it for stores with many regular patients, several branches or their own riders.
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Ask on WhatsAppMany licensed chemists take orders by phone and WhatsApp and deliver locally, with a valid prescription for prescription medicines and a registered pharmacist checking it. National e-pharmacy rules drafted in 2018 are reported to be still not final, so the position is not fully settled. Confirm with your drug licence consultant or state drugs control office what your licence allows before going live.
It is a separate record of sales of Schedule H1 medicines, which include certain antibiotics and habit-forming drugs. A state government notice describes it as recording the prescriber’s and patient’s name and address, the drug and the quantity, kept for three years and open to inspection. The system captures these details at the moment of billing and stores the prescription image with them.
Schedule H medicines are prescription-only and carry the Rx warning. H1 is a narrower list with a separate sale register. Schedule X covers narcotic and psychotropic drugs with their own licence forms and a longer paper trail. The software flags each item by its schedule so the right checks run every time.
Prescription sales are to be made by or under the supervision of a registered pharmacist under the Drugs Rules, as reported. Our order queue lets only users marked as registered pharmacists approve a prescription order, and saves their name and time on every approval.
Not yet as a final rule. A draft notification of 8 September 2026 proposes CCTV at premises supplying prescription drugs, with recordings kept at least three months, and invited public comments. Watch for the final notification and check with your adviser.
GST on most medicines was cut from 12 to 5 per cent from 22 September 2025, with some moved to nil. Stores held old-MRP and new-MRP stock together. A system that keeps MRP and tax per batch bills both correctly. Ask your CA for the right rate for each HSN.
When a regular medicine is billed, the pharmacist marks it as a refill. The system works out the next due date from quantity and dosage, and a few days before, the patient or a family member gets a WhatsApp message to reply and reorder. The reorder still goes through the pharmacist check.
Often, depending on what the package allows. Some offer an API, many can export stock and sales files. We check yours before planning. Where there is no link, the order desk can still work beside your billing with a scheduled import, though we tell you plainly that a live link is better.
Listing as a supply partner can bring extra volume and suits some stores. The patient then belongs mostly to the platform, on its terms. Your own ordering layer makes sense when you have many regular patients, branches or your own riders and want to keep that relationship.
Yes. Stock is held by batch, expiry and MRP. Staff are shown the batch that expires first, a near-expiry list covers the next 30, 60 and 90 days, and expiry returns are tracked by distributor until the credit note arrives.
Yes. Any item or schedule can be set to counter-only, so it cannot be ordered on WhatsApp, the website or the app. Most chemists we speak to block Schedule X from remote orders entirely.
Items needing refrigeration are flagged in the item master. The rider app shows a cold-chain warning, asks for an insulated bag, and can set a time limit for hand-over. Your storage and transport practice still has to meet your licence conditions.
Prescriptions reveal health conditions and are personal data under the DPDP Act 2023, for which your store is responsible. We take consent at sign-up, show prescription images only to pharmacists, set how long images are kept, store data securely, and log every export.
A WhatsApp order desk with pharmacist check and refills for one store usually takes 3-5 weeks, mostly spent cleaning the item master. The rider app and billing link add 3-4 weeks. A multi-branch chain runs 2-4 months in phases.
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