“Expired strips shelf pe pade reh jaate hain.”
Nobody checks every batch every week, so the loss is only discovered when a strip is already past its date.
Quiet monthly write-offsPharmacy billing software built for Indian chemists, not accountants. One app handles batch-wise stock, expiry alerts before stock goes bad, GST 2.0 invoicing and WhatsApp bills. From ₹799/year. Free trial, no credit card.
Free trial, no credit card · Free migration · Setup in under an hour

Accountune research · 2026
Across our 12,000+ onboardings, the pharmacies that report the biggest first-month change aren't the ones chasing GST — it's the ones who switch on expiry alerts. The loss was never bad luck. It was a register that couldn't speak up in time.
Medical store software, also called pharmacy software, chemist software or medical store billing software, runs counter billing, batch numbers, expiry dates, prescription records, distributor accounts and GST returns from one place. Unlike a generic retail tool it bills on FEFO, selling the earliest-expiring batch first, and stores the HSN-linked GST slab against each medicine. It keeps the batch-to-buyer trail a drug licence requires.
Understanding the pharmacy context
Batch + expiry decide profit, not just stock count. A clothing shop bills and moves on. A chemist bills and must answer, months later, which batch of which drug was sold to whom. Every medicine carries a batch number, manufacturing date and expiry date, and software must bill on FEFO (First Expiry First Out) so the earliest-expiring batch sells first — or the loss shows up as an expired strip on the shelf.
GST after the 22 September 2025 reform is three buckets. The GST Council's 56th meeting scrapped the 12% medicine slab. From 22 Sep 2025 most medicines are 5%, 36 life-saving drugs are nil-rated (0%), and certain devices sit at 18% — the full medicine GST rate list covers each category with its HSN code. CBIC clarified that stock labelled before that date didn't need re-labelling. The counter still juggles three rates — software must store the right HSN + slab per medicine once.
Schedule H / H1 needs a traceable sale record. Under the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, scheduled medicines need a batch-to-buyer-to-prescription trail. “It's in the back register” is not an answer that survives a drug-licence renewal.
Distributor accounts run on credit periods. A pharmacy buys from several distributors on 15/30/45-day terms. Outstanding-per-distributor and due dates can't live in the owner's memory.
Owner-run, no dedicated accountant. Most chemist shops are run by the owner who bills, orders stock, pays distributors and files GST alone. The software must work without accounting knowledge or IT support.
Entities covered on this page
6 pharmacy problems Accountune fixes
These are not hypothetical. They happen in small businesses across India every month — and each one quietly costs money or hours.
Nobody checks every batch every week, so the loss is only discovered when a strip is already past its date.
Quiet monthly write-offsSet the window per batch; every batch nearing expiry is flagged so you return it or push a near-expiry sale before write-off.
Zero expiry losses (Kavita Deshmukh, Pune)Scheduled-drug sales scattered across a back register can't be produced when a licensing officer asks.
Licence-renewal exposureEvery scheduled sale links to its batch, the customer and the attached prescription — searchable in seconds.
Audit-ready in secondsAfter the 22 Sep 2025 reform, guessing the slab on the counter produces wrong-tax invoices and GSTR-1 mismatches.
Rate guesswork on every billEach medicine saved once with HSN + post-22-Sep-2025 slab; CGST/SGST local, IGST interstate, GSTR-1 stays clean.
Zero rate guessworkSeveral distributors on different credit periods, all tracked from memory — until a forgotten due freezes supply.
Dues kept in your headEach purchase recorded on arrival with its credit period; outstanding per distributor in one tap.
Dues in one tapFinding the right brand for a prescribed salt means walking the shelf while a queue waits.
Slow counter, lost salesType “Paracetamol 500mg” and every matching brand in stock appears at once.
Faster counter, no shelf-walkWhen any staffer can change a rate at the counter, margins leak and there's no record of who did it.
Silent MRP changesSet MRP once; every login's actions are logged; you control who can change a rate.
MRP locked, actions loggedSetup to first bill — under an hour
No IT person. No training consultant. Most medical store owners complete setup and bill their first real customer the same day they sign up.
Add your GSTIN, drug licence number and medicine master with HSN, GST slab and batch fields. Our team helps free, and you can import an existing list from Excel or Marg.
Add distributors and credit customers with GSTINs and credit periods, then enter current quantities and what each distributor is owed — carried forward accurately.
Search by salt, brand or barcode → FEFO picks the right batch → GST auto-fills → WhatsApp the bill in one tap.
Expiry alerts and distributor due-dates run in the background; you just act on them. At month end, GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B export in portal format, or your CA logs in read-only.
Batch, expiry, prescription trail, distributor dues and GST all run from one screen — no separate registers, no IT support.
What you get
From batch billing to expiry alerts to GST returns — one connected system. Every sale rotates stock on FEFO and books the right slab on its own.
Every strip traceable to its purchase
Each purchase records batch number, mfg date, expiry and purchase price as stock comes in. Any unit you sell traces back to the invoice it arrived on — exactly what a drug inspector asks for.
Before the loss, not after
Set the window; every batch nearing expiry is flagged while you can still return it or push a near-expiry sale. Nobody checks every batch every week — the date does the remembering.
Earliest-expiring stock sells first
Billing follows First Expiry First Out on its own, so stock rotates the way it should without staff hunting the shelf.
Right brand in seconds, no shelf-walk
Type “Paracetamol 500mg” and every matching brand in your stock appears at once — Crocin, Calpol, Metacin. New staff can serve confidently from day one.
Audit-ready before an inspector asks
Attach the prescription at billing; it saves against the sale, the batch and the buyer, searchable by customer, medicine or date. “It's in the back register” is not an answer that survives a licence renewal.
No 5% / nil / 18% guesswork
Each medicine saved once with its HSN and post-22-Sep-2025 slab. CGST+SGST local, IGST interstate, nil-rated kept separate in GSTR-1.
Dues in one tap, not in your head
Every purchase recorded on arrival with its credit period. Outstanding per distributor, with due dates, so a forgotten payment never freezes supply mid-week.
Units reconcile without maths
Set the purchase unit and the sale unit once. Buy a box of ten strips, sell by the strip or loose — quantity and stock value always agree at month-end.
Staff cannot quietly change a rate
Set MRP once. Every login's actions are logged. Purchase rates and margins stay owner-only, even with staff on the counter.
The queue keeps moving
Search by salt, brand or barcode. Batch, expiry, price and GST rate pre-fill instantly. WhatsApp the bill in one tap.
No month-end rebuild
Both assemble from your daily billing in portal format. Your CA logs in read-only and downloads what they need.
A stolen shop computer is not lost records
Phone, tablet, desktop and web from one login. Automatic backup with encryption.
The short version
Accountune vs Marg, Tally and Vyapar across six capabilities that matter to a pharmacy (verified 2026). If you are still comparing options, our breakdown of the best billing software for medical stores in India puts the main choices side by side.
| Capability | Accountune | Marg ERP | Tally | Vyapar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batch + expiry tracking | built-in | built-in | manual entry | basic |
| Expiry alerts (30/60/90 days) | automatic | built-in | not built in | not built in |
| FEFO batch billing | automatic | built-in | manual | manual |
| Schedule H prescription trail | built-in | built-in | none | none |
| Runs on a phone, not just desktop | full | Windows only | Windows only | app + sync |
| Free migration support | included | paid | paid | self-serve |
Marg is the deepest pharmacy system in India and it earns that — batch, expiry, FEFO and the drug trail are all there. It is also a Windows desktop you cannot open from your phone, sold as a licence plus an annual AMC. Accountune ships the same batch, expiry and FEFO control in the cloud, on any device, at a yearly price a single-counter medical shop can absorb.
Is this right for your store?
An honest read on where Accountune fits best — from single-counter chemists to clinic-attached and multi-branch pharmacies.
Best fit
The owner does billing, stock, GST and distributor payments alone — the software remembers what you can't watch every hour.
Role-based logins
Billing staff don't see purchase prices or margins; every login's actions are logged.
Best fit
High prescription volume plus monthly credit billing for doctors and wards.
Top plan
Combined reports and one login across outlets.
Best fit
Salt & composition search to dispense the right generic fast.
first-time cloud
Plain language, free migration and setup under an hour.
Recognise your store? You're exactly who Accountune is built for.
Start freeAccountune Product Team
Product Research — India SME Billing
Based on
In our experience onboarding medical stores, the first month after switching is almost never about GST — it's about expiry. Owners come in worried about returns and tax, then realise the quiet ₹3,000–5,000 a month they'd written off as normal was simply a batch nobody got around to checking. Software doesn't make a chemist more careful. It just remembers the date so they don't have to.
Buyer's guide · 2026
Score every shortlisted tool against these seven checks before paying. For a medical shop, each one separates real pharmacy billing software from a generic retail biller.
Confirm it stores batch number, mfg date and expiry per entry and bills on FEFO — not just a flat stock count.
Accountune
Accountune: on by default — every purchase captures the batch.
A report you must remember to open is not an alert. Look for automatic 30/60/90-day warnings.
Accountune
Accountune sends them in the background, on your dashboard.
Many tools still show the old 12% slab. Confirm 5% / nil / 18% per HSN after 22 Sep 2025.
Accountune
Accountune stores the slab per medicine once; every invoice applies it.
Scheduled drugs need a sale-linked, searchable record findable by customer, medicine or date.
Accountune
Accountune attaches the prescription to the invoice and batch.
Memory is not a payments system. Check for a per-distributor ledger with credit periods.
Accountune
Accountune shows outstanding per distributor in one tap.
Your shop shouldn't depend on one Windows machine that can fail or be stolen.
Accountune
Accountune runs on Android, iOS, desktop and web with automatic cloud backups.
Add licence + AMC + setup + IT. A cheap desktop licence with a yearly AMC can cost far more.
Accountune
Accountune is from ₹799/year, all-in, with free migration help.
Compiled from GST Council / CBIC guidance, the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules and feedback from 12,000+ Indian businesses · Accountune Research.
Verified customer reviews
12,000+ Indian medical stores trust Accountune · 4.9/5 rating. Customer outcomes are representative of feedback from Accountune medical store customers. Names and identifying details have been changed.
Expiry tracking prevented stock losses
“As our stock kept growing, staying on top of medicine expiry dates got really hard. The automatic alerts have cut our wastage down a lot and finally given me proper control over what's on the shelf.”
Billing time reduced by 50%
“Prescription billing is so much quicker now, and accurate too. The GST works itself out automatically, and all our records stay neat and in order.”
Inventory visibility improved dramatically
“I can see exactly what's in stock across every category, in real time. Planning reorders has become so much easier — we don't run out of medicines the way we used to.”
Batch-wise medicine tracking made easy
“The batch and expiry features save me hours every week. I always know which medicines need to move first, so nothing sits around till it's too late.”
Missing payments reduced by 80%
“Keeping track of who'd bought on credit used to be a real struggle. Now every payment gets logged on its own, and I can keep an eye on outstanding balances without any effort.”
Stock management 3× faster
“I've got full control over my medicine inventory, purchase records and billing, all in one place now. The day-to-day running of the store is far smoother than it ever was.”
Pricing
Every plan includes the day book, cash book, GST entries and reports. Higher plans raise the user, invoice and e-way-bill limits, and Growth adds audit trails, TDS and priority support.
For Getting Started
No credit card required
Perfect for Getting Started
+ taxes · ≈ ₹154/month
Perfect for Growing Businesses
+ taxes · ≈ ₹333/month
Yearly plans from ₹1,849/year. Batch tracking, expiry alerts, WhatsApp billing and GST reports are in every plan; e-invoicing, e-way bills and GSTR-2B reconciliation on the higher plans · 7-day free trial, no card · Free migration from Marg, Tally or Excel.
Type a keyword or pick a category — expiry, Schedule H, GST 2.0, pricing. Everything a chemist asks before switching is one keystroke away.
Medical store billing software is pharmacy-specific software that runs counter billing, batch numbers, expiry dates, prescription records, distributor accounts and GST returns from one place. Unlike a generic retail tool, it understands FEFO rotation — selling the earliest-expiring batch first — and stores the HSN-linked GST slab against each medicine. It keeps the batch-to-buyer trail that drug-licence compliance requires, so a sale made six months ago is searchable in seconds. For an Indian chemist, that means fewer expiry write-offs, cleaner GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B filing, and an audit trail ready before an inspector asks. In short, it replaces three or four registers with one screen.
Especially for you. A pharmacy chain has accountants and managers to catch mistakes; a solo owner does billing, stock, GST and distributor payments alone, usually between customers. That is exactly where the quiet, expensive errors happen — a strip that expired on the shelf, the wrong GST slab on forty invoices, an input tax credit missed at month-end. One system that handles all of it means the software remembers what you can't watch every hour. Accountune is priced and built for the single-counter chemist: setup takes about thirty minutes, the screens use plain language, and most owners bill their first customer the same day they sign up.
No accounting background is needed. If you can use WhatsApp, you can use Accountune. The screens use plain language — no debit-credit jargon, no chart-of-accounts setup, no IT support to install anything. You add your medicines with their HSN and GST slab once, and from then on every invoice fills in the right rate, captures input tax credit on purchases, and updates stock automatically. GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B are prepared in the background from your daily billing. Most owners create their first GST invoice within fifteen minutes of signing up, and your CA can log in remotely to handle the technical filing side.
About thirty minutes for a typical single-counter shop. You enter your GSTIN and drug licence number, add your medicine master with HSN codes and GST slabs, then add distributors and credit customers with their credit periods. Our team helps with this free, and you can import an existing medicine list from Excel or Marg rather than typing it again. After setup, invoices auto-fill the correct rate, purchases capture input tax credit, batches record on arrival, and expiry alerts start running on their own. There is nothing to install — it works in a browser or app — so most stores are billing real customers the same day they start.
Around thirty seconds for a simple bill and forty-five to sixty seconds for a multi-item sale. You type a few letters of the medicine name and the price, batch, expiry and GST rate pre-fill instantly; add the quantity and the bill is ready. FEFO picks the correct batch for you, so staff don't hunt the shelf. During morning prescription rush and evening walk-ins, that speed keeps a queue moving instead of sending a customer to the shop next door. The finished bill can go to the customer's WhatsApp in one tap, and payment by cash, UPI, card or credit is recorded against the same invoice.
In India they are the same product under different names. Chemist software, medical shop software, medical store software, pharmacy software, medical store management software — every one of them means a system that bills at the counter, holds batch numbers and expiry dates, keeps the Schedule H prescription trail, tracks what each distributor is owed, and files GST. The differences that matter are not in the name. They are whether expiry alerts run on their own or wait for you to open a report; whether the software bills on FEFO without being told to; and whether it opens on a phone or only on one Windows machine sitting in the shop. Accountune does all of it from a browser or an app, on any device you already own.
Yes. Billing and accounts are the same system, so they cannot drift apart. Every bill you cut posts to the day book, every distributor purchase captures input tax credit, and the cash book, expense records and financial reports build themselves as you work. You are not running billing software and then re-entering it into accounting software at month-end. For a medical shop that means the day's collection, the outstanding owed to each distributor, the credit given to clinics, and your GST position are all one screen — and your CA logs in read-only to file, instead of waiting on a WhatsApp folder of photos.
Good billing software for medical shops does four things a generic biller does not: it bills the right batch with its expiry, applies each medicine's GST slab on its own, holds the Schedule H prescription trail against the sale, and tracks what every distributor is owed. Add the basics — search by salt, brand or barcode, MRP that pre-fills, and a bill you can WhatsApp in one tap — and the counter keeps moving. Accountune covers all of it and runs on the phone or tablet already in the shop, so a single-counter medical store is not paying for a desktop pharmacy suite it will never fully use.
For a single-counter medical shop that wants batch tracking, expiry alerts and FEFO billing in the cloud — on a phone, without an accountant or a months-long learning curve — Accountune is the best fit. Marg ERP is deeper if you run a distribution or C&F operation, but it is Windows-only, sold as a licence plus an annual AMC, and takes months to train staff on. Tally and Vyapar can raise a bill, but neither tracks the batch, expiry and Schedule H trail a medical shop is inspected on. Match the tool to the counter: a solo owner who bills, orders stock and files GST alone is best served by cloud pharmacy software that opens on any device already in the shop, stays current with GST 2.0, and starts with a free plan.
Each purchase records the batch number, manufacturing date, expiry date and purchase price as the stock comes in. Billing then follows First Expiry First Out automatically, so the earliest-expiring batch sells first and your stock rotates the way it should. Every unit you sell traces back to the exact purchase invoice it came from, which is precisely what a drug inspector asks for when checking the trail of a scheduled medicine. You can look up any batch by medicine, date or distributor in seconds. Because the batch detail is captured at purchase, there is no extra step at the counter — the software handles rotation while staff just bill.
You set a window — 30, 60 or 90 days — and Accountune notifies you as any batch approaches its expiry date, while there is still time to act. That means you can return the stock to the distributor, push a near-expiry sale, or simply stop reordering that item before it becomes a write-off discovered during billing. Manual tracking fails because nobody checks every batch every week; by the time someone notices, the loss has already happened. The alerts run in the background and surface on your dashboard, so the date does the remembering. Most stores that switch on alerts see expiry losses drop sharply within the first month.
Yes. Type a salt or composition such as “Paracetamol 500mg” and every matching brand in your stock appears at once — Crocin, Calpol, Metacin and any others you carry. During a prescription rush this lets staff find the right strip or offer a generic alternative in seconds, without walking the shelf while a queue waits. The search works across your whole inventory, not just one brand list, so a new staff member can serve confidently from day one. It also helps when a particular brand is out of stock and you need to suggest an equivalent fast, keeping the sale and the customer in your shop.
Yes. You configure the purchase unit and the sale unit once for each item — for example, you buy a box of ten strips but sell by the strip, or buy a strip and sell loose tablets. From then on stock and pricing calculate correctly on their own, so a box bought and strips sold never leave you with a month-end discrepancy. This is a common headache in pharmacies where the same medicine is purchased and dispensed in different units. Accountune keeps the conversion ratio behind the scenes, so the quantity on hand and the value of stock always reconcile without manual maths.
You attach a scanned prescription to the sale invoice at billing — capturing the doctor, patient and date — and it is saved with that sale, searchable later by customer, medicine or date. Under the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, Schedule H and H1 medicines need a traceable record of who bought what and when, and “it's in the back register” is not an answer that survives a licence renewal. With the prescription tied to the invoice and the batch, the full trail is ready in seconds when a licensing officer asks or a customer questions a sale months later. There is no separate paper folder to lose or refile.
After the GST 2.0 reform that took effect on 22 September 2025, the old 12% slab for medicines was removed. Most medicines now sit at 5%, thirty-six life-saving drugs were made nil-rated (0%), and certain devices and items fall at 18%. The change came out of the GST Council's 56th meeting on 3–4 September 2025, and CBIC clarified that stock already labelled before that date did not need re-labelling. At the counter a pharmacy still juggles three buckets — 5%, nil and 18% — so Accountune stores the correct HSN and slab against each medicine once, and every future invoice applies it automatically without you checking the rate each time.
Yes. Nil-rated and exempt medicines are flagged when you add them and are shown separately in your GST reports as exempt or nil-rated sales, so your returns reflect the right figures without manual sorting at month-end. This matters after the GST 2.0 reform, because thirty-six life-saving drugs moved to nil-rated and mixing them with 5% stock is a common filing error. Accountune keeps the slab tied to each medicine's HSN code, so a nil-rated strip never gets taxed by mistake and your GSTR-1 separates taxable, exempt and nil-rated supply on its own, ready for your CA.
This happens often, and Accountune handles it with a temporary Goods Received Note. You create a GRN with what physically arrived, the stock is added immediately so you can bill the same day, and the input tax credit is left pending. When the distributor's invoice reaches you, you update the GRN against it and the ITC is captured at that point — with no double entry and no stock discrepancy. This keeps your shelf and your system in agreement even when paperwork lags behind delivery, which is the usual cause of month-end mismatches between physical and recorded stock.
Every purchase is recorded on arrival with its batch, expiry and invoice reference, and the credit period you agreed with that distributor. Outstanding per distributor then shows in one tap, with due dates, so a forgotten payment never freezes your supply in the middle of a week. You can see at a glance who you owe, how much and by when, instead of keeping it in your head or a separate diary. When you make a payment it adjusts against the right invoices automatically. For a busy chemist juggling several distributors, this turns a memory task into a number you can read off the screen.
Yes. One tap sends the bill as a PDF straight to the customer's WhatsApp, which most customers prefer to a paper slip they'll lose. Payment can be cash, UPI, card or credit — all are supported at the counter. Credit customers, including clinics and monthly-billing hospitals, get a running ledger so you always know the outstanding, and you can send WhatsApp payment reminders and monthly statements without a separate udhaar register. Because the bill, the payment mode and the ledger update together, your day's collection and your receivables stay accurate without any end-of-day reconciliation by hand.
Yes — both are auto-prepared from your daily billing in a portal-ready format, with HSN codes, tax splits and invoice numbers already handled. You don't rebuild them at month-end; they assemble themselves as you bill through the month. Your CA can log in remotely with read-only access and download exactly what they need, which ends the Sunday-before-the-11th scramble of sharing files on WhatsApp. Higher plans add GSTR-2B reconciliation so you can match your purchases against what suppliers have filed and claim the right input tax credit. For most chemists this turns GST filing from a monthly panic into a review-and-submit task.
For single-counter chemists, Accountune is built for exactly this case — batch inventory, expiry alerts, WhatsApp billing, GST 2.0 compliance and distributor accounts, all from ₹799 per year with every medical feature included. Marg ERP is well-known and strong for large distributors, but it runs on a Windows desktop and costs a one-time licence of ₹8,100–₹25,200 plus annual AMC. myBillBook is cheaper at entry but lacks the batch-wise stock and expiry control a pharmacy needs every day. The honest answer depends on size: a solo or 2–5 staff chemist is best served by cloud software with expiry alerts on by default, while a multi-godown distributor may still prefer a heavy desktop ERP.
Accountune starts at ₹799 per year with every medical feature included — batch tracking, expiry alerts, WhatsApp billing and GST reports — with no AMC and no setup fee. Higher yearly plans add e-invoicing, e-way bills, GSTR-2B reconciliation, CA remote access and multi-branch support. By comparison, Marg is a one-time licence of ₹8,100–₹25,200 plus annual AMC and needs a Windows desktop. There is a full free trial with no credit card — you sign up with a phone number or email. Most owners bill their first real customer the same day they start.
Your records live in the cloud, not on the shop computer, with encryption and automatic backups, so a lost or stolen machine never means lost records. You sign in from any phone, tablet or desktop and everything is exactly where you left it. Switching from Marg, Tally or Excel is free and usually done within a weekend: you export your medicine master, customers, distributors and opening stock, our team helps import it, and you carry forward opening balances accurately. Your CA keeps receiving GSTR reports in the same format, so nothing changes on their end. You can run both systems in parallel during the transition if you prefer, and your old data stays untouched in its original files until you are satisfied everything has come across.
Practical reads on GST, billing and running a business in India — written for shop owners, not accountants.
Kirana store profit margin by category, with gross and net separated, why the ranking pages contradict each other, and how to find your own number.
GST on advance payment is not charged on goods but is on services. The rule, the receipt voucher, the sum, and what to do if an order is cancelled.
How to file GSTR-4 and CMP-08 step by step, including the Table 6 mistake that creates a false negative liability and blocks your next quarter's payment.
A kirana counter and a garment showroom are not the same shop. Kirana runs on udhaar and loose quantities. A medical store runs on batch numbers and expiry dates. A garment shop runs on a size-and-colour grid. Hardware runs on multi-unit conversion. Accountune ships a build for each trade, not one, and the fields change with the trade.
Trust on every device sold
Counter-speed billing
Move volume, control credit
Stay compliant, cut wastage
Bill rods, sheets and packets right
Everyday neighbourhood billing
Loose weighing, fast-moving stock
Size, colour, season — never out of stock
Every pair, every size, tracked
From raw inputs to finished value
Join thousands of Indian small businesses running their accounts, billing and inventory on Accountune.