1. Sizes and colours, with their own stock
A shirt in four sizes and three colours is twelve items on the shelf. The software should keep one product with all its sizes and colours, each with its own stock, sticker and report. Ask the seller to show you how a size that has run out looks on the billing screen.
2. A sticker on every piece
Typing item names at the counter is slow and gives wrong prices. Check that you can print stickers from the software on a label printer and on ordinary A4 sticker sheets, and that pieces which already carry the company's barcode can be scanned as they are. See how to print stickers for clothes.
3. The right GST on every piece
Readymade garments are 5% GST up to ₹2,500 a piece and 18% above (from 22 September 2025), checked on the price after discount. Fabric and sarees are usually 5% at any price. The software must choose the rate per piece by itself, not one rate for the whole shop. Try a ₹2,800 kurta with 15% off: it must come out at 5%. Our GST calculator for clothes shows the answers to check against.
4. Cloth by the metre
If you sell running material, shirting or suiting, the software should ask for the length at billing, keep stock in metres, and print the metres on the bill.
5. Billing when the internet stops
Ask what happens when the internet goes in the middle of a rush. Cloud-only software stops. Software on one PC keeps working, but your data is lost if that PC fails. The safest is both: data in the cloud and a counter that keeps billing offline. See offline vs cloud billing software.
6. Speed at the counter
In the festival rush, every second at the counter is a customer waiting. Look for: scanning with a barcode gun or the phone camera, holding a bill while the customer keeps choosing, a second bill in a new tab, split payment (part cash, part UPI), and printing without a print window.
7. Staff control
Each person should have their own login. Big discounts and returns should need the owner's or manager's PIN, and a report should show who gave which discount, who removed items after scanning and whose cash was short.
8. Exchanges and returns
Clothes come back for size. The software should find the bill, take the piece back into stock, and either refund it or give a credit note the customer spends on the exchange.
9. Reports that tell you what to do
- Today's sales and profit, on your phone
- Best sellers, and which sizes sell
- Dead stock: what hasn't sold in 60, 90 or 180 days, and the money stuck in it
- Each salesman's sales or points
- A GST summary and a Tally export for your accountant
10. Your data stays yours
Ask how you get your data out: can you download products, customers and bills as Excel files any time? Is there a daily backup kept somewhere other than the shop's PC?
11. Your language and your hardware
Staff learn faster in their own language, and customers like a bill they can read. Check the screens and the printed bill in your language, and that your printers and scanners work: 58 mm or 80 mm bill printers, a label printer, a barcode gun.
12. A fair price, and a trial at your own counter
Compare the total for two or three years, not just the first payment: setup, yearly renewal, extra counters, extra staff. Then try it with your own products before you pay. Good software will let you.