Billing software can produce dozens of reports. Most shop owners open none of them — not because the reports aren't useful, but because nobody told them which ones matter or what to look for.
Here are the five that do the most work for a small business, with the one question to ask of each. Together they take about twenty minutes on the first of the month.
1. Sales summary — "Is the business growing?"
What it shows: every invoice in the period with its taxable value, discount, tax, total, amount received and balance still due. Totals at the top: number of invoices, total sales, received, and balance due.
What to look for:
- Total sales vs. last month and the same month last year. Month-on-month is noisy (festivals, weddings, school terms). Year-on-year tells you if the business is really growing.
- Number of invoices vs. average bill size. If sales are up because you had more customers, that is footfall. If they are up because each bill was bigger, that is upselling. Both are good; they need different decisions.
- Discounts. If the discount column keeps growing, check who is giving them and why.
2. Purchase summary — "Am I buying sensibly?"
What it shows: every purchase bill with taxable value, tax, total, paid and balance payable — and your total purchases for the month.
What to look for:
- Purchases vs. sales. In a steady month they should move together. If purchases are running well ahead of sales, stock is building up — check that it is deliberate (festival stocking) rather than accidental.
- Balance payable. This is money you owe suppliers. Make sure you know which bills are due soon.
- Input tax. The tax on purchase bills is your input tax credit for GST. If a supplier's bill is missing here, you may be leaving credit on the table.
3. Party report — "Who owes me money?"
What it shows: each customer and supplier with their sales, purchases, payments in and out, and closing balance.
What to look for:
- Your top 10 receivables. Who owes you the most? Credit ("udhaar") is the silent killer of small shops — sales look great while cash runs dry.
- Anyone whose balance keeps growing. A regular who pays a little less than they buy each month is slowly turning into a bad debt.
- What you owe. The supplier side of the same report tells you which payments to plan for.
Set yourself a rule: everyone over a certain amount or a certain age gets a reminder in the first week of the month. A short, polite WhatsApp message with the amount due is much less awkward than a phone call.
4. Stock summary — "Where is my money sitting?"
What it shows: every item with its current quantity, purchase price, stock value and a low / out-of-stock status.
What to look for:
- Total stock value. This is cash you have already spent and not yet earned back. If it keeps rising faster than sales, you are over-stocked.
- Dead stock. Sort by value and look for items with high value but no recent sales. That is money stuck on a shelf — consider a discount, a return to the supplier, or simply not re-ordering.
- Low and negative stock. Negative quantities usually mean a purchase bill wasn't entered — a data problem worth fixing before it confuses next month.
5. Sales by category — "What actually makes me money?"
What it shows: your sales split by product category.
What to look for:
- Your top two or three categories. These deserve the best shelf space, the most reliable suppliers and never running out of stock.
- Categories that are shrinking. Is it seasonal, or are customers buying that elsewhere now?
- Space vs. sales. If a category takes up a quarter of the shop but brings in a twentieth of sales, rethink the space.
Bonus: Cash & bank
Not one of the five, but worth a glance: the Cash & Bank report shows opening balance, money in, money out and closing balance for your cash drawer and each bank account. If you already do a daily cash close, this is a quick sanity check that the month adds up.
Make it a 20-minute ritual
- Run all five reports for last month (and the item report if you want to drill into individual products).
- Write down one number from each — total sales, total purchases, total receivable, stock value, top category.
- Compare with last month's five numbers.
- Pick one action for this month: chase three overdue customers, clear one dead item, re-order your top category earlier.
In MyShoppingBill, all of these reports sit under Reports, take a date range, and can be downloaded as PDF or CSV — so the five numbers are a few clicks away rather than an evening with a calculator.
You don't need to become an accountant. You just need to look at the same five numbers every month. The trends will tell you what to do next.