Restaurant & Banquet Billing Software for Food & Event Venues.

Start with the tax, because it is the one thing on a restaurant bill that the law fixes for you. Restaurant service at an ordinary restaurant is taxed at 5%, split 2.5% CGST and 2.5% SGST, with no input tax credit, under SAC 996331. The exception is a restaurant inside a hotel that counts as specified premises, meaning it charged more than ₹7,500 for an accommodation unit in a day at some point in the preceding financial year. Those restaurants charge 18% and can claim credit. A 40-seat cafe in a market street is the 5% case. Take a dinner for four in Pune: paneer tikka, dal makhani, biryani, breads and sweets come to ₹2,700, and 5% GST adds ₹135. Add ₹700 of beer, which sits outside GST and carries state VAT, and the bill is ₹3,535. The workbook on this page builds exactly that bill.

Small restaurants can opt for the composition scheme instead. The turnover ceiling is ₹1.5 crore (₹75 lakh in special category states), the rate is 5% of turnover, and the conditions bite: no alcohol, no inter-state supply, and no sales through e-commerce operators. A composition restaurant does not show GST on its bills, pays quarterly through form CMP-08 and files GSTR-4 once a year. A regular-scheme restaurant pays the same 5% but shows tax on the bill and files returns more often. Owners often choose composition for the lighter paperwork, then find that a Zomato or Swiggy listing rules them out. Check that before you decide, and check what your billing app prints on a composition bill, because showing tax there is a mistake.

Service charge is where billing software has started to cost restaurants money. The CCPA guidelines of 4 July 2022 said no restaurant may add a service charge by default, and on 28 March 2025 the Delhi High Court upheld them in National Restaurant Association of India v Union of India. In July 2026 the CCPA fined Chaayos ₹50,000 and ordered a refund to the complainant, because the charge came from commands inside the restaurant's own billing software and so could not be called voluntary. For anyone shopping for an app the lesson is practical. Ask to see where the setting lives, confirm it is off on a fresh install, and check that a cashier can leave it out without calling a manager. A tip paid to staff is a different thing. If a guest does choose to pay a service charge, ask your CA whether it is taxed, and note that the workbook shows it both ways.

Day to day, a billing app earns its fee in the flow from table to bill. A captain punches an order, the kitchen printer or screen prints the ticket, the cashier merges two tables or splits a bill four ways, and the day closes with cash, UPI and card that add up. Test the ugly cases in the demo: a void after the kitchen has started, a discount above 10%, a table moved mid-meal, an hour without internet. On e-invoicing, most restaurant bills are B2C, and e-invoices apply to B2B supplies once aggregate turnover crosses ₹5 crore, so a neighbourhood restaurant rarely needs one. A corporate lunch billed to a company with a GSTIN is B2B, but at 5% the company gets no credit, which is why buyers sometimes ask for an 18% bill. The rate follows the premises, not the customer's tax position, so the answer is no.

Prices are hard to compare because vendors rarely show them. Petpooja's pricing page lists ₹12,000, ₹20,000 and ₹30,000 for its base, Growth and Scale plans before GST, does not say whether that is a month or a year, and calls the plans indicative. Third-party guides read in September 2026 report ₹10,000 to ₹15,000 a year for a base plan and ₹25,000 to ₹40,000 a year per outlet once kitchen display, inventory and QR ordering are added. GoFrugal publishes no price and offers a free trial signup. Ask each vendor for a written quote covering year one, every add-on, hardware, the renewal cap and a full export of your data if you leave. An app that traps your sales history is expensive at any price. The scorecard sheet weights twelve tests and turns your demo notes into a score out of 100.

A restaurant with a party hall upstairs is two businesses in one building. The restaurant needs tables, KOT and daily billing, so keep it on a proper restaurant POS. The hall needs a calendar that refuses double bookings, a quote that changes with the guest count, three or four instalments, and a final invoice with the right rate on each line. Hall and food sold as one package at an ordinary venue are a composite supply at 5%; a hall let on its own is SAC 997212 at 18%; decor and sound billed separately are 18%. Kaliquid covers that hall side with a slot-locked calendar, per-line GST, receipt vouchers, UPI QR and Tally export. It is not a dine-in POS and this page does not claim it is. The Pro plan is ₹999 a month per hall, or ₹750 a month if you pay yearly, which is ₹9,000 a year. Multi-venue groups are quoted separately as Enterprise.