Looking for an udhaar book alternative? Read this first

Should I switch away from my khata app?

Only if your problem is no longer about credit. Digital khata apps in Pakistan do one job well: they track who owes you what, dated and totalled, usually for free, on a phone, with no setup. If credit tracking is all you need, POS software means paying every month for things you won't use. Look at an alternative when the shop has problems a credit ledger can't see: stock that runs out without warning, staff who need their own logins, customers asking for tax invoices, or a second counter. Those are billing and inventory problems.

So the question to ask is whether your problem has changed shape.

What do khata apps do well?

Udhaar Book and the other Pakistani khata apps solved a real and common problem. The paper register was costing shops money through torn pages and smudged dates, and they built a free replacement that runs on a phone. A free app that moves a small shop onto a dated, totalled, backed-up ledger is a good thing, and we won't pretend otherwise to sell software.

We also won't list their features and mark them wrong. We haven't audited their products, they keep changing, and any table we drew would soon be out of date and probably unfair. Below, NexusTill is compared with credit-only apps in general, not with any one competitor's feature list.

Who should stay on a khata-only app?

Stay if this describes your shop:

• You only need to know who owes what and since when. You have no stock or billing questions.
• You don't keep much inventory. You buy what you sell, or your stock is small enough to see from where you stand.
• You never print a receipt or issue an invoice, and no customer has ever asked for one.
• One person runs the counter, so nobody argues about who wrote what.
• You work from a phone in a small shop, and a monthly fee would be a real cost against a thin margin.

If that's you, keep your money. Software you don't need is a subscription and a login for a problem you don't have.

When does a shop outgrow a credit-only app?

When the questions you ask stop being about money owed and start being about goods, people or paperwork. There are four common triggers, and most shops hit them in this order.

1. Stock starts running out without warning

A credit ledger tracks rupees. It doesn't know you're down to two bags of atta, because it never saw the items. If customers are the ones telling you something has run out, you need software that tracks stock as you sell. That means each sale has to carry its line items, which a khata entry doesn't have.

2. Somebody else is on the counter

One ledger with one owner is simple. Two people entering credit on a shared phone is where trust breaks down. At that point you need separate accounts with separate roles, so you can see who recorded what, and a cashier can take money without seeing your margins. NexusTill has staff accounts and roles on Growth at Rs 6,999 a month, with up to 5 tills and 5 staff.

3. A customer asks for a tax invoice

This usually comes suddenly, from a business customer who needs the invoice to claim input tax. A khata entry can't become an invoice. It has no line items, no tax breakdown and no seller or buyer details. If you sell to businesses at all, you need software that can issue a quick receipt for a walk-in customer and a proper tax invoice from the same sale.

4. There's a second counter, or a second shop

Once stock and credit exist in more than one place, you need them added up together. Multi-branch, warehouses and stock transfers between branches are on NexusTill's Scale plan at Rs 11,999 a month. If you have one shop with one till, you don't need that plan and shouldn't buy it.

What do you gain by moving, and what does it cost?

You gain things a credit ledger can't do. You give up free, and you spend some time on setup. NexusTill's Starter plan is Rs 2,999 a month for one till and two users (you and one other person). It includes unlimited products and customers, barcode scanning, inventory with low-stock alerts, quick and tax invoices, the customer credit ledger with email reminders, the daily cash-up, offline billing and 90 days of report history. The AI assistant is not on Starter. It starts on Growth with 30 questions a day and goes up to 100 on Scale.

• You gain itemised credit sales, stock that updates as you sell, receipts and tax invoices, one shared ledger for staff, and reports that show which items make money.
• You give up the free price, and you spend an evening entering your regular customers' opening balances and your fast-moving products.
• Udhaar works the way it always did. You still give credit and record payments, and every balance is still dated automatically.

How do you move without losing anything?

Don't type in old history. Carry today's balances across as opening amounts, run all new sales in one place from tomorrow, and keep the old app open for reference for two weeks. Then compare a few balances. If they agree, you're done. If they don't, the old record is still there to check against.

NexusTill's trial is 7 days, needs no card to start, and doesn't turn into a paid plan by itself. A week is enough to run your real udhaar and your real stock through it, and that is the only comparison that settles the question.

Don't switch because something newer exists. Switch when your shop starts asking a question your current tool can't answer.

Written by The NexusTill team.