🏢 General / Service Business Guide

This guide covers using Ledgr for businesses that don't fit one of the specialty niches — consultants, agencies, freelancers, IT shops, salons, training institutes, repair services, photographers, event planners, and simple retailers without niche specialty.

Who is "General" for?

The General niche is the clean-slate option. No pharmacy fields, no garment variants, no auto-parts fitment, no salesman framework — just billing, accounting, CRM, and reports. Three classes of business fit here:

1. Service businesses (no inventory)

• Consultants — management, financial, technical, legal, tax
• Agencies — marketing, advertising, PR, design, web
• Freelancers — developers, writers, designers, photographers, translators
• IT services — software dev, AMC, infrastructure setup
• Repair services — appliance, electronics, AC service (when not parts-heavy)
• Training institutes — coaching classes, professional courses
• Salons / spas / clinics — selling time + small consumables

2. Simple product businesses

• Stationery shops, gift shops, general stores
• Small electronics retailers without complex variant tracking
• Online sellers (Etsy, Instagram-only, marketplace sellers)
• Food retailers without batch tracking

3. Mixed product + service

• Repair shops that sell parts AND charge labour
• Beauty salons that sell products AND charge for services
• IT shops that sell hardware AND offer setup/AMC

What General gets you (and what it doesn't)

Effect: forms are simpler. Product forms don't ask for batch numbers or fitment data. Reports list shows core reports (sales, purchase, outstanding, inventory, accounting, tax) without the niche-specific noise.

Initial setup for service businesses

1. Pick the General niche

During onboarding, select General / Other. Standard onboarding fields (country, currency, FY start, company details).

2. Configure tax

Service businesses in India typically charge:

• 18% GST for most professional services (consulting, IT, legal, accounting, agency work)
• 5% GST for restaurants and select services
• 0% GST for SAC code exempt services (medical, education in some cases)

Outside India: VAT (UAE 5% / UK 20% / EU per-country) or US Sales Tax. Set up the right tax group during onboarding — Ledgr seeds the standard rates.

3. Add service items (instead of products)

For service businesses, use the Services tab in Inventory:

1. Sidebar → Inventory → Services tab.
2. Click + New Service. The form is the same as Product form but pre-filled with type=service and track_stock=false.
3. Fill name (e.g. "Senior Consultant — 1 hour"), unit (hr), rate, tax group.
4. Save. Service items show up in the same picker on invoices but don't reduce inventory when sold.

Service-friendly UOMs

The General niche unit list includes time-based and area-based units:

• hr — for hourly billing (consulting, dev, design, training)
• day — for day-rate work (events, training sessions, retainer days)
• sqft / sqm — for area-based pricing (cleaning, painting, flooring, signage)
• pcs — for fixed-price deliverables ("1 logo design", "1 website")

Initial setup for simple product businesses

1. Pick the General niche

Same as service — pick General during onboarding.

2. Add your products

For products that need stock tracking:

1. Sidebar → Inventory → Products.
2. Click + New Product. Fill name, SKU, category, unit (pcs / kg / ltr), rate, tax group.
3. Tick Track stock — yes for stocked items, no for drop-ship or made-to-order.
4. Set Opening qty if you have existing stock to load.
5. Save.

3. (Optional) Enable POS for counter sales

If you need a cashier/counter mode:

1. Settings → Modules.
2. Toggle POS ON.
3. POS now appears in the sidebar.

Recording invoices

For service-only invoice

1. Sidebar → Invoices → + New Invoice.
2. Pick customer.
3. Add line items — pick service items (e.g. "Senior Consultant — 1 hour" × 12 hours = ₹X).
4. Save. Journal posts: Dr. Sundry Debtors / Cr. Service Revenue + GST Output.

For mixed product + service invoice

One invoice can have both. Example for a salon:

• Line 1: "Hair cut — Senior Stylist" × 1 = ₹500 (service)
• Line 2: "Olaplex Hair Treatment" × 1 = ₹1,500 (service with optional product cost)
• Line 3: "Take-home Shampoo 250ml" × 1 = ₹450 (product, reduces stock)

Save. Stock decrements only for line 3.

Recurring invoices for retainers

Common for service businesses with monthly retainers, AMC contracts, or repeat-customer subscriptions.

1. Sidebar → Recurring.
2. New Recurring Invoice → pick customer, frequency (weekly / monthly / quarterly / yearly).
3. Set start + end dates (open-ended is also OK).
4. Add line items (the same monthly retainer).
5. Save → Ledgr auto-generates the actual invoice on each due date.

Reports for general businesses

Standard reports apply (no niche-specific clutter):

• Sales — by Customer, by Product, by Period, Sales Register, Daily Sales
• Purchase — by Vendor, by Product, Purchase Register, Outstanding Payables
• Outstanding — Receivables Aging (0-30 / 30-60 / 60-90 / 90+), Customer Statement, Vendor Statement
• Inventory — Stock Summary, Stock Movement, Stock Valuation, Reorder Report, Margin Report, Dead Stock
• Accounting — Day Book, Ledger View, Cash Book, Payment Mode Analysis, Journal Register
• Tax — GST (GSTR-1, GSTR-3B summary), VAT, Sales Tax, TDS, TCS, Tax Liability
• Profit by Customer — per-customer revenue/cost/margin (uses product cost_price)

When to opt-in to advanced features

You may eventually need a feature that's off by default. Settings → Modules has independent toggles:

Enable Batch + Expiry

If you start dealing with food/medicines/perishables and need to track production date, batch number, expiry — toggle Batch & Expiry ON. Product form gains batch fields, POS gets FEFO picking, expiry alerts report appears.

Enable Variants (size/color)

If you start stocking apparel or any item with size/color combinations — toggle Variants ON. Product form gains the variant attribute editor, parent → children flow becomes available.

Enable Salesman Management

If you grow to a sales team with commission structures — toggle Salesman & Sales Orders ON. CRM gets a Salesman tab, invoices get a salesman picker, Salesman Performance / Outstanding reports appear, Sales Order → Delivery Note → GRN flow becomes available.

Enable Party Credit

If your B2B customers buy on credit and you need to enforce limits — toggle Party Credit Limit ON. Contact form gains credit_limit field, invoice form gains credit-warning banner, Settings → Company has a "block over credit" toggle for hard-blocking.

Enable Serial Numbers

If you start selling electronics, machinery, or any item where individual serial numbers matter — toggle Serial Numbers ON. Stock-in records each serial, stock-out picks one, serial-history report appears.

Common workflows

Consulting firm: project-based billing

1. Create a service item per role: "Senior Consultant — 1 hour", "Junior Consultant — 1 hour", "Project Manager — 1 hour".
2. At end of month, generate one invoice per client with the consumed hours per role as separate lines.
3. Use customer-statement report at month-end to send a clean ledger to each client.

Marketing agency: monthly retainer

1. Create a service item "Monthly Retainer — Brand X" with the agreed rate.
2. Set up a Recurring Invoice (monthly) with start date + end date (or open-ended).
3. Each month, the invoice auto-generates and posts to receivables.
4. For one-off project work outside the retainer, raise a separate invoice.

Salon: daily counter sales + appointment-based services

1. Enable POS for counter / walk-in sales (Settings → Modules → POS ON).
2. Add service items (haircut, color, facial, etc.) as type=service, track_stock=false.
3. Add product items for retail (shampoo, serum, cream) as track_stock=true.
4. POS handles both — service lines + product lines on the same bill.
5. End-of-day day-summary report shows total bills, total revenue, top services/products, payment mode breakdown.

Freelancer: invoicing + tax compliance

1. One service item per service type (e.g. "Web Development — 1 hour").
2. Set up GST (if registered) or skip tax (if below threshold).
3. Each invoice records the work, prints clean A4 PDF.
4. End of quarter: GSTR-1 summary report → file with the tax portal.
5. End of FY: P&L + Balance Sheet + Cash Flow → hand to your CA.

Switching from General to a specialty niche later

If you grow into a specialty (start a pharmacy as part of a clinic, add a garment store to your retail) — change the business type:

1. Settings → Modules.
2. Change Business Type dropdown.
3. Niche-specific feature flags auto-update. Existing data is preserved.
4. Restart the app to refresh the UI gating.

FAQ — General/Service specific

I sell only services. Do I really need to set up Inventory?

You don't need to manage stock, but you DO need to create your services as items in Inventory → Services. The Inventory module is where Ledgr stores the catalog — even for services. Just don't tick "Track stock" on any of them.

Can Ledgr handle time-tracking — recording each consulting hour as I work?

Not natively yet. Ledgr captures hours as a quantity on an invoice line, but doesn't have a real-time timer. Workaround: track hours in any external timer (Toggl, Clockify, even paper) then bulk-enter the totals on a monthly invoice.

What about subscription billing — clients paying ₹5000/month forever?

Use Recurring Invoices. Set frequency = monthly, leave end date blank for open-ended. Each month, the invoice generates and posts. For dunning (auto-emails when overdue), Ledgr v1.0.3 doesn't have built-in email sequences yet — that's a roadmap item.

I run a small product shop — should I pick General or Wholesale?

If your customers are end-consumers (B2C) and pay cash/card on the spot: General. If your customers are other businesses (B2B) buying on credit, with invoices, party-wise outstanding tracking, salesman attribution: Wholesale. You can also start in General and switch to Wholesale later.

Can I use Ledgr just for accounting, ignoring billing entirely?

Yes. Use Quick Entry (Sidebar → Accounting → Quick Entry) to record income / expense entries directly without invoices. Useful when you bill via another system but want Ledgr for books-of-accounts only.

Multi-currency invoicing — for international clients?

Yes. On the invoice form, change the currency. The invoice prints in the chosen currency. Journal entries are still posted in your base currency (set at company level), with currency-conversion handled. For frequent multi-currency, set up a separate ledger account per foreign currency.

Can I customize the invoice template?

The standard template covers most needs (logo, tax breakup, bank details, terms). For deeper customization (different layouts per customer type, custom watermarks), the PDF is generated via @react-pdf/renderer in the app — code-level changes possible. WhatsApp us if you need a tailored template.