Howsit ERP Hub: User Guide

Howsit ERP Hub runs your business's accounts, taxes, stock, sales counters, people and customers in one place, on your own business ledger. This guide walks through every screen in the order of the left-hand menu.

Who sees what. The menu shows only what your role allows (see Team & Roles). Some modules come with the Large plan; on the Medium plan they show a lock and a note to upgrade.

India and the rest of the world. Screens follow the country of the company you open: an Indian company gets GST, TDS, PF/ESI and Form 16; a company elsewhere gets its VAT or sales tax, its own tax number name (TRN, VAT Reg. No., ABN ...), its own financial year and payroll by its own rules. See Using the ERP Hub outside India.

Getting started

1. Buy a plan. In the Howsit app, open Business › ERP Hub, choose Medium or Large, the billing period (6 months or a year) and your country, enter your business name and tax number, and pay. Your books are set up in a few minutes.
2. Open your company. The Company Gateway lists the companies of your business. Choose one to enter. An owner or admin can add more companies (for example a branch abroad); each keeps its own country's chart of accounts, currency and financial year.
3. Fill in Company Setup (Statutory & GST › Company Setup): tax registration, address, bank details for invoices and the type of organisation. Invoices and returns use these.
4. Invite your team (User Management › Team & Roles) with each person's role.
5. Add customers, suppliers and items, then start entering vouchers.

Keyboard shortcuts (accountants). Esc: Accounting Dashboard · F4 Contra · F5 Payment · F6 Receipt · F7 Journal · F8 Sales · F9 Purchase.

What each plan includes

Cloud server and daily backup are free for your business's first year; after that a monthly cloud fee is added to each bill (shown on the plan screen).

User Profile

Your name, photo and contact details as the ERP Hub shows them, and your sign-in sessions. Every role has this page.

User Management

Team & Roles lists everyone in your business with their role and the companies they can open.

• Invite someone with their Howsit number (for a number outside India, type it with + and the country code, e.g. +971 50 123 4567) or, if they have no mobile number, their email, then choose a role and the companies they may open. They join the workspace by themselves the next time they sign in to Howsit or open Business, and see a welcome; someone invited by email joins once that email is confirmed in their Howsit Settings. Anyone except the owner can leave a workspace from the business list (⋮ › Leave this workspace).
• Change role or companies, Remove access (they lose access at once) or Restore access.
• Link to an employee record so a person sees their own payslips and leave in My HR.

Every change is recorded in the business's audit log.

Customization Studio (Large plan)

Fit the books to how your business works, without code.

• Fields: add your own fields to sales invoices, purchase bills, journals, POS bills, customers, suppliers, items, employees, CRM leads and assets (text, number, amount, date, yes/no, a choice from a list, or a link to a record). Mark a field required and the voucher screens ask for it.
• Registers: your own lists (for example vehicles, sites, contracts), with your own columns, kept in the books.
• Approvals: rules such as "a payment above 50,000 needs a manager's approval". A voucher over the limit waits in Approvals until someone with that role approves or rejects it; it posts only when approved.
• Branding: the invoice title, terms and conditions, declaration, authorised signatory, and the receipt footer for POS bills.

Accounting Entry

Accounting Dashboard

The chart of accounts as a tree (groups and ledgers with balances), with:

• Opening balances: type them in, or Download format, fill it in Excel and Upload Excel / CSV; Check opening balances before posting.
• Upload ledgers in bulk from Excel / CSV.
• Key figures of the company at a glance.

Vouchers: Contra, Payment, Receipt, Journal, Sales, Purchase, Credit Note, Debit Note

How to enter a voucher:

1. Choose the date (a locked year refuses it), and for payments, receipts and contras the cash or bank account.
2. Add the lines: the ledger (search as you type, or create one on the spot), debit or credit, and for customers / suppliers the party. Choose a cost centre (branch, project or scheme) where you track one.
3. On sales and purchase vouchers, pick the party and add items (from the item master: price, HSN / tax rate fill in) or plain lines. Tax is worked out by the books: - India: CGST + SGST within the state, IGST between states, from each item's GST rate; no GST charged by an unregistered supplier unless under reverse charge; TDS deducted on a supplier's bill when they have a TDS section; TCS on sales where it applies. - Elsewhere: the country's VAT / GST / sales tax rate of each item.
4. Stock: tick Update stock and choose the warehouse; the invoice moves the goods in or out of the stock register.
5. Dispatch (sales): vehicle number, transporter, LR number and distance, printed on the invoice and used for the e-way bill.
6. Payment mode (payments from a bank): Cheque takes the next leaf of that account's cheque book (a skipped number is refused, see Bank Accounts & Cheques); Online / NEFT / RTGS / IMPS / UPI takes the transaction reference. The supplier's bank details show for checking.
7. Narration, terms for the invoice, and your own fields from the Customization Studio.
8. Post (or Save as draft). A voucher over an approval limit waits for approval.

After posting, open the voucher (from the Day Book, a ledger or a report) to:

• Print a sales invoice (original / duplicate / triplicate) or a delivery challan, a purchase bill, or any voucher as PDF. Invoices carry seller and buyer details, tax numbers, item codes, HSN, quantity, rate, tax, bank details, terms and the authorised signatory.
• Edit / correct: it opens filled in; posting the correction cancels the original and links the two (the original stays on record, as the law requires).
• Cancel it. Posted vouchers are never deleted, only cancelled or corrected, so the audit trail is complete.

Bulk upload: every voucher type can be uploaded from Excel / CSV (download the template, fill it, check, post). Payment rows take the cheque or online mode; each row is checked before anything is posted.

Ledger Creation

Create a ledger or a group under the right parent (Bank Accounts, Sundry Debtors, Indirect Expenses ...), with an optional number and currency. Open a ledger to rename it, move it, disable it, or delete it when it has no entries.

Customers & Suppliers

The party master: name, tax number (GSTIN and PAN in India, the local tax number elsewhere), address (its state decides CGST + SGST or IGST in India), contact, bank account (account number, IFSC / SWIFT) and the TDS / TCS section that applies. Payment vouchers show the supplier's bank details from here.

Items (goods & services)

The item master shared by invoices, POS and stock: code, name, group, unit, HSN / SAC and GST rate in India (or the VAT rate elsewhere), selling and buying price, barcode, and opening stock with its cost. Search by name, code or barcode.

Track batches and expiry dates (medicines, food, cosmetics): switch it on for the item (only while it has no stock) and, if you like, give its shelf life. Every delivery is then received with its batch number, manufacturing date and expiry date; the counter always sells the batch that expires first and never an expired one; the bill shows the batch and expiry; returns go back to the batch they came from.

Financial Statements

Every report has a period (today, this or last month, quarters, each financial year, or your own dates), can be filtered by cost centre where it makes sense, printed with the company's header, and exported to Excel. Tap a line to open the ledger behind it.

• Balance Sheet: assets, liabilities and capital.
• Profit & Loss (Graph): income, expenses and profit, with a chart. A government body or non-profit sees an Income & Expenditure Account (surplus / deficit) instead.
• Trial Balance: opening, period and closing balance of every ledger.
• Cash Flow: operating, investing and financing cash flows.
• Profit by Cost Centre: income, expense and profit of each branch, project or scheme.
• Receipts & Payments: the cash and bank account of a period: opening balance, receipts and payments by head, closing balance; for the whole organisation or one scheme.
• Scheme Budgets: a budget per scheme / cost centre and expense head for the year. Every voucher booking an expense to the scheme is checked when it posts: Stop refuses it, Warn posts it and says so. See budget against actual and the balance left, and print it.
• Receivables (Ageing) and Payables (Ageing): who owes you and whom you owe, by age (0-30, 31-60, 61-90, 91-120, over 120 days).
• Year-End Closing Utility: 1. Check the year's preview and close the year into retained earnings (or the capital / corpus fund). The closing balances become the next year's opening balances. 2. Set the admin override password (owners / admins) and lock the closed year: everyone can still view and print it, nobody can post, correct or cancel anything in it. 3. To adjust a locked year, an owner or admin opens it with the password, posts the adjustment, closes it again (next year's opening balances update) and locks it again.

Display

• Day Book: every voucher of the period, in order.
• Accounting Ledger: one ledger's or one party's entries with the running balance (and their bank, address and tax numbers when you print a party's ledger).
• Accounts Group Summary: the members of a group and their balances.

Bank Reconciliation

Match your books with the bank statement.

• Uncleared: each bank entry not yet on the statement. Tick it and enter the bank date (the date on the statement), then Save. Include cleared shows the ones already done (and lets you undo one).
• Statement: upload the bank's statement (Excel / CSV); the ERP Hub suggests which entry each line is; accept the matches.
• Cheque dishonoured / stale (from an entry's menu): - Dishonoured: a cheque came back unpaid. A reversing entry dated the day it came back puts the customer's (or supplier's) balance and the invoice back, with any bank charges; both are settled in the reconciliation. - Stale: a cheque you issued was not presented while valid (3 months in India, 6 in most countries). It is written back the same way and the supplier is owed again. - Cancel the voucher instead, only while it is in the current, unlocked year and not on the statement.
• Cheques across the year end: a cheque issued before the year end and cleared after it needs nothing special. Enter its bank date in the new year: last year's reconciliation statement keeps it as "issued but not presented", this year's shows it cleared; last year's books never change.

Bank Accounts & Cheques

Each bank ledger (one per bank account, or one per scheme / project for a government body) with its bank, account number, branch code (IFSC, sort code, routing number ...), branch and scheme, printed on documents. Add cheque books (first and last leaf); a cheque payment must use the account's next leaf: a skipped number is refused with the number that is next. Void a spoiled leaf to move on; remove an unused book.

HR & Payroll

My HR Portal (Employee View) (Large plan)

An employee's own HR, on their phone or the web.

• Joining form (new joiners, before they get their employee ID): fill in personal details, contact and addresses, identity (PAN, Aadhaar, UAN, ESI number in India; the national / tax ID elsewhere), the bank account for salary and an emergency contact; upload a photo and documents (PAN, Aadhaar, bank proof, ID, certificates; JPG, PNG or PDF up to 5 MB, private to you and HR). Send to HR for verification. If HR sends it back, their note shows: correct it and send it again. Once HR verifies it, you get your employee ID. Only the last 4 digits of an Aadhaar number are kept.
• Dashboard: check in / out with GPS and a selfie, your leave balances and New leave request, the Service Book (joining date, grade, reporting to, pay history) and company announcements.
• My Profile: your details. After verification you can change your contact details and photo; identity and bank details are changed by HR.
• Pay & Tax: your payslips (tap one to view / print the PDF), the year's income tax (projected taxable income, tax for the year, deducted so far, still to be deducted), and in India your tax regime (new or old; chosen before the year's first salary) and, under the old regime, your investment declarations (80C, 80D, home-loan interest, NPS, house rent for HRA) for HR's approval. Form 16 for each year (India) or the annual pay statement (elsewhere).
• Appraisal: your self-appraisal for a period (rating and achievements), sent to HR.
• Property: your property statement (asset, value, remarks), kept on your record.

HR Manager Admin

• Dashboard: - Joining & verification: Invite a joiner (name, mobile, joining date, department, designation; Large plan); follow the forms waiting for verification, being filled in, or sent back; open one to check the details and documents, then Verify (give the employee ID) or Send back with a note; Edit details or upload a document for them. - Headcount, pending leave, open vacancies; announcements; Manage Appraisals (review and approve); Post New Job and Add an applicant.
• Leave: approve or reject leave requests (nobody approves their own), allocate leave by type and period, see each employee's balances.
• Payroll: 1. Setup (once a year). India: choose the state for professional tax and Set up payroll: salary components with their ledgers, both income-tax regimes (with the 87A rebate, marginal relief, surcharge and cess) and the standard structure (basic 50%, HRA 20%, special allowance 30%; PF 12% of basic up to 15,000; ESI 0.75% up to 21,000 gross; professional tax by state; income tax worked out every month). Elsewhere: Set up payroll by your country's rules: the basic pay share, the employee's social security (name, %, monthly ceiling) and the income-tax bands with any tax-free amount (no bands: salary not taxed). 2. Set an employee's pay: the monthly gross pay from a date (a raise is a new pay from its date). 3. Run payroll for a month: every active employee with pay and no slip for the month is paid, slips are posted (salary expense and payables). Verified a joiner later? Run the month again: only they are paid. 4. Salary slips: open any slip as a payslip PDF; post draft slips. 5. Statutory dues (India): PF (employee 12%, employer EPS 8.33% up to 1,250 and EPF difference, EDLI and admin charges), ESI (0.75% + 3.25%), professional tax and salary TDS (section 192) of the month, with due dates; download the PF ECR file for the EPFO portal and the ESI contribution list; Book the employer's PF / ESI share; Pay each due from the bank with its challan reference (TRRN, challan number, CIN). 6. Income tax (India): approve investment declarations; open Form 16 of any employee (Part A with the challans; Part B on the actual year). Elsewhere: the annual pay statement of any employee. 7. Custom salary structure: your own components and formulas for staff not on the standard structure.
• Employees: the directory. Tap a person to open their full record (details, photo, documents, edit). Add employee directly (HR enters everything), Give My HR to all employees with a mobile number, quick edit and offboard (stops future payroll).

POS for Mall (Large plan)

Sales counters for shops and malls, with stock and GST / VAT from the books.

• Terminal: Open shift with the opening cash; scan a barcode (or the camera scanner) or search items; type the customer's mobile to see who they are (visits and spend) or to save them with the bill; take payment and print the receipt on the thermal printer (a tax invoice with the tax by rate; in Saudi Arabia with the ZATCA QR). Close shift with the counted cash: the day's sales are consolidated into the books.
• Paying: the counter first gets the exact total from the books (tax, discount, rounding). One bill can be paid by cash, UPI and card together: Bill works only when the payments add up to the total to the paisa; only cash can be more (the change is shown); UPI and card can never be more than the bill.
• Discounts: a discount off the bill comes off before tax (the tax is worked out on the discounted amount). A cashier can give up to 10%; more needs a manager.
• No internet: cash bills are kept on the till and sent to the books automatically when the connection is back, at the time and price they were made (a chip shows how many are waiting; the shift can't close until they are in). A bill that got no answer is never made twice when you pay again.
• Hold / Recall: put a cart aside and bring it back later on the same counter.
• Bills: find any bill, reprint it, or Take goods back (a return against the bill, refund paid out).
• Stock: receive goods (with approvals), reorder levels and the list of items to reorder.
• Analytics: stock movement, balance and ageing.
• Tenants & leases: for a mall: units, tenants, monthly rent and revenue share; Bill rent for a month.
• This till: settings of this device (paper width, printer, address, receipt footer and terms).

Asset Management

The fixed-asset register from the books.

• Register asset: name, category (with its depreciation method and life), cost, purchase date, method (straight line, written down value, double declining), useful life, salvage value, depreciation already booked (for older assets), location and the HSN code (GST). Record the purchase itself as a Purchase voucher to the fixed-asset account.
• Post depreciation due: posts every depreciation entry due up to today.
• Open an asset for its depreciation schedule; Move it to another location; Sell it to a customer or Scrap it (the remaining book value is written off).
• Asset register: print each asset's cost, depreciation so far and book value.

Inventory Management

• Items: every item with stock on hand; New item (the full item form); from an item's menu Edit item (price, HSN / tax rate, barcode), Move between warehouses, or Count and correct stock (enter what is on the shelf; quantities in fractions like 2.5 kg are fine).
• Goods in & reorder: - Receive goods into a warehouse (a manager's receipt posts at once; a cashier's waits for approval). - Approvals: approve or reject goods received. - Reorder: set reorder levels per item and see what to reorder.
• Expiring: batches that expire within 7, 30, 90 or 180 days, expired ones first; Write off an expired batch (it is counted to 0). Items kept by batch are received, moved and counted batch by batch.
• Stock reports: Movement (every in and out), Balance (opening, in, out, closing) and Ageing, for all warehouses and items or one of each.

CRM (Large plan)

Leads and the sales pipeline.

• Add Contact: a lead with company, phone, email, stage and an expected deal value.
• Search and filter by stage: Lead, Opportunity, Customer, Cold.
• Tap a lead for its sheet: - Edit the details; change the stage. - Opportunities: add one (value and what it is for); mark it Won, or Lost with the reason. - Notes & follow-ups: what was said and what to do, with a follow-up date; the list shows each lead's next follow-up. - Make customer: the lead becomes a customer you can invoice.
• Pipeline Overview: Follow-ups due today, and the value at each stage.

Statutory & GST (India) / Statutory & Tax (other countries)

Company Setup

• Type of organisation: private business (proprietorship, partnership, LLP, private / public limited, OPC), government (department, local body, autonomous body, PSU) or non-profit (trust, society, Section 8). Government bodies and non-profits get the Income & Expenditure account, the Receipts & Payments account and scheme budgets that stop (or warn about) over-spending.
• Tax registration: GSTIN and PAN (India) or the company's tax number under its local name (TRN, VAT Reg. No., ABN ...).
• Which taxes apply: GST, TDS, TCS, VAT: the voucher screens and returns follow these.
• TDS / TCS sections (India) the company uses.
• Contact and registered address (in India its state decides CGST + SGST or IGST).
• Registrations printed on documents (TAN, CIN, Udyam, FSSAI, IEC; or company number, trade licence, EORI abroad) and bank details printed on invoices.
• Invoice printing: title, signatory, designation, terms, declaration.

Tax Setup & Payment (India) / VAT / Sales Tax & Return (other countries)

The company's tax accounts, invoice tax templates and item tax rates (each country starts with its own pack, which you can change). For a period: output tax, input tax, the net payable, and Pay it from the bank. Outside India the return is laid out as the country's own form: UK VAT100, UAE / Saudi Arabia / Bahrain / Oman VAT return, Singapore GST F5, Australia BAS, New Zealand GST101, Canada GST34, Malaysia SST-02, US sales tax by jurisdiction, or a VAT summary elsewhere.

Statutory Register

Every tax ledger (GST, TDS, TCS, VAT): opening, collected / paid, closing and what is payable, month by month.

TDS / TCS (India)

Tax deducted on suppliers' bills and collected on sales, by section and party, with what is due; deposit a section's TDS / TCS for a period from the bank with the challan (CIN, BSR code), interest and late fee.

GSTR-1, GSTR-3B (India)

The returns from your books, table by table (B2B, B2C, credit notes, exports, HSN summary; tax liability and ITC). Download the JSON to upload on the GST portal, or file GSTR-1 directly (with the GSTIN's portal login and OTP), and mark a return filed.

GSTR-2B Reconciliation (India, Large plan)

Import the GSTR-2B from the portal and match it with your purchase bills: matched, mismatched, missing in 2B, missing in the books; accept or act on each.

GST Registers & HSN (India)

Sales and purchase registers and the HSN-wise summary for a period.

e-Invoice & e-Way Bill (India, Large plan)

Settings for e-invoicing and e-way bills. On a sales invoice, generate the e-invoice (IRN and signed QR, printed on the invoice) or cancel it within 24 hours with a reason; generate an e-way bill, update the vehicle or cancel it. Needs the company's e-invoice access to be set up first.

ERP Settings

Your own language and display currency, the business time zone (decides what "today" is for postings and reports) and this device's settings.

Using the ERP Hub outside India

• Taxes: each country's VAT / GST / sales tax pack (rates, accounts and templates), invoices titled as the law there requires ("Tax Invoice" in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Australia ...), and the VAT return in the country's own layout. GST, TDS, e-invoice and GSTR menus are not shown.
• Tax number and bank code under their local names (TRN, VAT Reg. No., ABN; sort code, routing number, BSB, IBAN).
• Saudi Arabia: sales invoices and POS receipts carry the ZATCA QR code (phase 1).
• Financial year: each company keeps its country's year (January–December for most, April–March in India, July–June in Australia ...), even in a business with companies in several countries.
• Payroll: set up by the country's own rules (basic pay share, social security, income-tax bands); payslips and an annual pay statement.
• Cheques go stale after 6 months in most countries (3 in India).
• Currency: each company's own currency, with amounts written the way that currency usually is.

Frequently asked questions

Can I change a voucher after posting it? Yes: open it and choose Edit / correct. The correction replaces it; the original stays on record as cancelled. Posted vouchers are never deleted.

Can I post into last year after closing it? Only while the year is not locked. A locked year can be opened by an owner or admin with the override password, adjusted, closed again and locked again; the next year's opening balances follow.

A customer's cheque bounced. What do I do? Bank Reconciliation › the cheque's menu › Cheque dishonoured / stale › Dishonoured, with the date it came back and any bank charges.

Why can't I see e-Invoice, POS, CRM or My HR? Either your role does not include it, or your business is on the Medium plan (those show a lock). Ask the owner to change your role or upgrade to Large.

An employee doesn't see their payslips. Their mobile number (or email) must be on their employee record, or they must be invited in Team & Roles and linked to their record (or join through the joining form), and the business needs the Large plan for My HR. Employees added with a mobile number or email get My HR automatically when they sign in.

How is my data kept? In your business's own ledger, separate from every other business, with a daily backup. Documents of employees are private files only they and HR can open.

Can I export my data? Every report exports to Excel and prints to PDF; vouchers, ledgers and parties can be uploaded and downloaded in bulk.

Where do I get help? Write to admin@howsit.in or see Contact Us.