From paper bahi to phone: moving your khata in an afternoon
23 June 20261 min read
Moving from a paper bahi to a phone sounds like a weekend project. It isn't. Most shopkeepers are up and running in an afternoon.
Start with your regulars
You don't need to enter five years of history. Add the customers you deal with most often and their current outstanding balance. That covers the majority of your daily work from day one.
Enter opening balances, then go live
For each regular, add a single opening entry for what they currently owe — or what you owe them. From that point, record new transactions as they happen and let the running total do the maths.
Keep the paper for a week
Run both side by side for a few days until you trust the app. You'll stop reaching for the register without even noticing.
- Add your top 20–30 customers first
- Put in opening balances, not full history
- Record new entries as they happen
- Keep a backup — Smart Bahi can export to Excel
By the end of the week the phone is faster than the pen, and your books are with you wherever you go.
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