GST, explained for a shop

The guides

• GST invoice — A tax invoice is not just a bill with tax on it. There is a list of things it has to carry, and most disputes come from one of them missing.
• CGST, SGST, IGST — One question decides it: does the supply stay inside your state, or leave it?
• HSN code — A number that says what a thing is, so everybody taxing it agrees on what it is.
• GSTIN — Fifteen characters, and none of them are decoration.
• Reverse charge — Normally the seller collects the tax and pays it. Under reverse charge, the buyer pays it directly instead.
• Credit & debit notes — A bill that has left the shop cannot be quietly rewritten. You correct it with another document.

Why these pages have no thresholds in them

Turnover limits, e-invoicing dates and state-wise e-way bill limits all change, and a page carrying a stale one is worse than no page at all — somebody plans around it. These guides explain what a thing is and how it works, and send you to the portal for the current number.

And the book-keeping side

GST is a tax question. What the shop actually earned is a book-keeping one, and the accounting guide covers that in the same plain way — debit and credit, the day book, trial balance, profit & loss and balance sheet.

And two free tools

The GST calculator and the GST number checker run the same billing engine as our software, so what they tell you is what an invoice would say.

This page explains how GST works so a shopkeeper can follow it. It is not tax advice, and GST rules change — check the current position on the GST portal or with your accountant before you rely on it for a filing.

Questions

Is this tax advice?

No. It explains how GST works so a shopkeeper can follow it. Check the current position with your accountant or the GST portal before relying on it for a filing.

Do I need software to comply with GST?

No, but the arithmetic and the record-keeping are what most of the effort actually is — the tax split, the HSN summary, an unbroken invoice series and the returns built from the bills.