Every bill a vendor raises against you — for stock, services, utilities, anything — gets recorded in Booksmor as a Purchase voucher. This guide covers the manual flow, the additional charges (freight, packaging) that go on a typical vendor bill, and the Capture Bill AI shortcut that reads a PDF/photo and pre-fills the form for you.
Time to read: ~12 minutes. You’ll need: at least one vendor and one product on file. If you haven’t set those up yet, start with Your first day with Booksmor and Managing Customers, Vendors and Products.
What you get when this is done
- Every vendor bill recorded with the correct GST split (CGST + SGST or IGST) based on the vendor’s state.
- Stock auto-incremented when the bill is for a physical product (Booksmor uses moving-average cost).
- The vendor’s invoice number stored against the voucher so you can search by it later.
- Additional charges (packaging, freight, etc.) recorded separately on the same voucher.
- Capture Bill: upload a PDF or photo, get a pre-filled draft purchase that you review and confirm.
Where to find the screen
- Manual entry: Sidebar → Daily → Transactions → Purchase tab.
- AI-assisted entry from a PDF / photo: Sidebar → Daily → Capture Bill.
Both paths land at the same Transactions page in the end — Capture Bill creates a draft purchase voucher that you confirm in Transactions before posting.
Path A — Manual entry
This is the everyday workflow: you have a vendor bill in front of you, and you type it into Booksmor.
Step-by-step
- Daily → Transactions → Purchase tab.
- Vendor — pick from the dropdown. Click + New beside it to add a vendor without leaving the page (only Name is required at minimum).
- Purchase account — leave as — default — unless you want to split the expense to a specific account (e.g. Office supplies vs COGS — raw materials).
- Voucher date — the date you’re recording the bill into your books. Defaults to today.
- Due date — when you’re going to pay the vendor.
- Vendor invoice no — the number printed on the vendor’s bill. Stored against this purchase so you can search by it.
- Vendor invoice date — the date on the vendor’s bill (may differ from the date you record it).
- Lines — one row per item on the bill:
- Pick a product from the — select product — dropdown (or click + New product to add it inline).
- Enter Qty and Rate (defaults to the product’s purchase rate, editable).
- For purchases, GST % per line is not shown — see “How GST works on purchases” below.
- GST amount (from bill) — type the exact GST amount the vendor charged (read it off the bill). Booksmor stores this as-is rather than recalculating, because vendors sometimes round or split tax differently than the rate would imply.
- (Optional) Additional charges — see “Adding freight, packaging, etc.” below.
- (Optional) Tick Paid now via to record the payment at the same time (Booksmor auto-posts a matching Payment voucher).
- Description / narration — anything you want to remember about this bill.
- Click Post.
A green banner: ✓ Posted — serial PUR/2026/00001.
How GST works on purchases
Sales invoices charge GST you calculate per line; purchases record the GST your vendor charged. The two are different by design:
- On a Sales Invoice, you decide the rate (it auto-fills from your product). Booksmor calculates the tax amount.
- On a Purchase, the vendor already calculated the tax. You’re recording what they billed you, so Booksmor asks for the GST amount (in rupees) rather than a percentage.
This is why the Purchase form has a single GST amount (from bill) field instead of per-line GST % boxes. Type whatever the vendor’s bill says — even if it’s slightly different from what 18% of the subtotal would be (vendors round, split tax across line bundles, etc.).
The blue Place of supply strip still appears — based on the vendor’s state vs yours — to remind you which kind of GST (CGST+SGST vs IGST) Booksmor will book.
Adding freight, packaging, etc.
Most real vendor bills have non-product line items: shipping charges, packaging, insurance, late-fee adjustments. These don’t carry GST in the same way and shouldn’t sit in your inventory cost.
- In the Additional charges section below the product lines, click + Add charge.
- Enter a label (e.g. “Freight”, “Packaging”, “Insurance”) and an Amount.
- Add more rows as needed.
Charges add to the Voucher total but are posted to a separate expense account (Booksmor uses “Freight & packing” / “Other charges” as appropriate). They don’t affect product cost or inventory value.
Stock for purchases of goods
When a line item is a product with Type = Goods, Booksmor automatically:
- Increments stock by the quantity on the line, and
- Updates the product’s moving-average cost based on the rate you entered.
Subsequent sales of the same product use this updated moving-average cost on the COGS leg.
No setup required — this happens for every posted Purchase voucher with goods on it.
Path B — Capture Bill (AI shortcut)
If you’d rather not type, point Booksmor at a PDF or photo of the bill and let the AI read it for you. The AI never posts anything — it creates a draft you review and confirm.
Step-by-step
- From the sidebar, Daily → Capture Bill.
- Click the file input next to Bill file (PDF / image / text) and pick the bill. Accepted formats: PDF, JPG/PNG, plain text.
- Click Read bill.
Booksmor’s AI reads the file (this takes 5–15 seconds for a typical bill) and shows you:
- Vendor name as it read it.
- Date on the bill.
- Total amount.
- Line items (description, amount, tax rate) it could detect.
If the AI found enough to work with, you’ll see:
✓ Draft purchase created — review and confirm to post it.
Click Review & post in Transactions. You land back at the Transactions page, with the draft already loaded in the form — vendor, lines, GST amount, all populated from the bill. Adjust anything the AI got wrong, then click Post to commit it.
If the AI couldn’t extract line items (handwritten bills, very low-resolution photos, unusual layouts), no draft is created. You’ll see a hint to enter the bill manually instead.
What the AI is and isn’t
- It reads: vendor name, bill date, total, line items, tax amounts.
- It doesn’t decide accounts: the draft inherits your default Purchase account. Override on Transactions if you want a specific category.
- It doesn’t post automatically: you always review and click Post. This is by design — AI extraction is fast but not authoritative, and posting is irreversible (well, reversible with audit trail; still, conscious).
- It uses your AI quota: each bill capture is a small amount of AI tokens. Track usage at Setup → AI Usage.
After posting — viewing and editing
Same flow as Sales invoices:
- Recent vouchers at the bottom of Transactions shows your most recent vouchers across types.
- Single-click a row to expand its ledger lines inline.
- Double-click to open the full Voucher view, with Print, PDF, Share, Edit, Delete buttons.
Under GST, both Edit and Delete require a Reason — Booksmor logs it for audit.
For details on the Voucher view, sharing, and amend/delete behaviour, see the Sales Invoices KB doc — the patterns are identical.
Common questions
Why isn’t there a GST % column on the Purchase line items? Because the vendor — not you — already decided the tax rate. You enter the amount they billed, not the rate. (Sales is the opposite: you set the rate, Booksmor calculates the amount.)
The vendor charged a different GST amount than 18% of the subtotal — is that wrong? Not necessarily. Vendors often round to the nearest paise, or split tax differently across line bundles. Type whatever’s on the bill; Booksmor records it exactly. If the figure looks suspicious, query the vendor before posting.
What if my vendor bill mixes goods at 18% and services at 12%? Each product line carries its own rate (set on the product). The GST amount (from bill) field is the total tax the vendor charged across all lines, including the mix. Booksmor splits it back across HSN/SAC for your GSTR-2 working.
My vendor doesn’t have a GSTIN. Can I still record their bills? Yes. Leave the vendor’s GSTIN blank. The purchase posts without GST input credit; this is correct for unregistered vendors.
Can I claim input credit on these GST amounts automatically? Yes. Posted purchases with GST flow into your GSTR-3B input credit summary automatically. Reconcile with GSTR-2B from the GSTN portal before filing — Booksmor’s GST reports compare your purchase ledger with what the vendor declared.
What if the bill arrives weeks late? Use the Voucher date to record it in your books today, but set Vendor invoice date to the original bill date. The vendor invoice date is what GST cares about for input credit eligibility.
Capture Bill said “no line items extracted” — what to do? The AI couldn’t parse the bill — usually because it’s handwritten, blurry, or in an unusual layout. Try a clearer photo, or just enter the bill manually in Transactions → Purchase. Manual entry takes a minute or two for most bills.
The AI extracted some lines but missed others. Click Review & post in Transactions to load what it found; add the missing lines manually on the form before posting.
Where do additional charges (freight, packaging) show on my Profit & Loss? Each goes to a generic expense account in your Chart of Accounts (typically “Freight & packing” or “Other charges”). Rename or split them via Masters → Chart of Accounts if you want finer reporting.
Troubleshooting
“Negative stock not allowed” error when I post a Purchase. This shouldn’t happen for purchases — they add stock. If you see this, you’re probably on the wrong tab; check that you’re on Purchase, not Sales Invoice.
The vendor’s GSTIN field rejects what I type. GSTIN is 15 characters with a fixed pattern (state code + PAN + checksum). Double-check the value — even one wrong character will fail validation. If the vendor has changed their GSTIN, edit the vendor record first (Masters → Vendors → Edit) and then redo the purchase.
Capture Bill button is greyed out. You haven’t picked a file yet. Click the file input above the button, choose your bill, then click Read bill.
Capture Bill returns “AI quota exceeded”. Your tenant’s AI token wallet is empty. Top up via Setup → Subscription → AI tokens, or contact your superadmin to grant tokens. Manual entry still works regardless.
Post button is disabled. Most common reasons:
- The selected product line has 0 qty or 0 rate.
- No vendor is picked.
- For a paid-now purchase, no Cash / Bank account is selected.
My posted purchase shows in Recent vouchers but isn’t on the dashboard. The dashboard refreshes per-page-load. Click Dashboard in the sidebar (don’t just refresh the Transactions page) — the new purchase will be in the Payables tile.
Need more help? Email support@booksmor.com with: the voucher number (if posted) or the bill file (if Capture Bill is failing), and a screenshot of what went wrong.