Billing for your restaurant or hotel in Maharashtra
The lunch rush, the parcels and the monthly tab of your regulars, on one phone.
What fills a Maharashtra hotel at one o'clock and empties the gas by evening
Tiffin boxes filled for twelve, and one that goes to the wrong desk
From eleven the tiffin boxes are filled for the offices nearby and handed over at twelve. Each box belongs to a named customer, with a roti more for one and rice less for another. The names are written on slips stuck under the lids. A slip gets wet, a box goes to the wrong desk, and you hear of it at one o'clock, just as the lunch rush begins.
The mandal's festival meal, with the treasurer's name on the bill
Before the Ganeshotsav days a mandal asks you to feed its volunteers, a few at a time, as they finish the decorations. They eat in turns and the treasurer pays later, so the plates go down in your notebook under the word mandal. When the treasurer asks for the list, nobody can say which evening was which.
A festival eve that is not a festival
Some days, with no big holiday, fill the hotel more than a wedding season. The day before a month when many families give up non-veg is one of them. The kitchen cooks double, the cashier takes parcels and tables together, and rates of the main dishes change in the morning. Next year, you remember that it was crowded but not how much of what you sold.
What the hotel counter uses every day
Bills on your phone
The vada pav and tea at the window billed in seconds, and the misal plates at the tables billed on their own, so the window queue never waits for a table.
Credit book (khata)
A page for every regular lunch customer, with each day's bill added and the month's total ready on the first.
Low stock warnings
A warning when the dal drum, the rice sack or the oil can is nearly empty, so the cook does not find out at one o'clock.
UPI payments
A UPI payment from a table at the counter, when the customer has no change and a queue is forming behind him.
The lunch hour, the office order and the festival eve
The thali on the table, the bill on the phone
Keep your dishes and their rates on your phone. When a table asks for the bill, you pick the dishes and send it on WhatsApp, so the cashier is not stuck at the counter while the next table is still waiting. The tea cups, the thalis and the parcels each go on a bill of their own.
Each tiffin billed in the customer's name, the extra roti on a line of its own
Bill each box in the customer's name, with the extra roti as a line of its own and the lighter rice as a half plate. The slip under the lid is no longer the only record, and when a box reaches the wrong desk the bill says whose it was.
The crowded eve, read again next year
Look at the daily report for the day before the month of fasting last year. It shows which dishes sold in what numbers, and you cook and buy against that, not against a guess. On the next normal day you see the difference, and the rate you set in the morning stays on the bills of that day.
Where a Maharashtra kitchen's dal, grain and milk come from
Hotels in Maharashtra cook with what comes from nearby districts. A few of them:
- Kalamna in Nagpur is one of the largest wholesale markets for oranges and grains in Asia, and Sitabuldi is the city's main commercial market.
- Ahilyanagar has 19 sugar factories, and its sugar, milk and bank cooperatives flourish, so sugar and milk for tea move through the district.
- Jalgaon is a major business centre for tea, gold, pulses, cotton and bananas, so dal and bananas for a kitchen are sold there.
Questions Maharashtra restaurant owners ask
The mandal's volunteers eat in turns through the evening. Can I count the plates by turn?
Yes. Make a bill for each turn with the plates that turn ate, under the mandal's name. The evening's plates are the turns added together.
A customer wants his tiffin with one more roti and less rice. Can the box follow what he takes?
Yes. The tiffin box is an item, and the extra roti is another item on the bill. If roti is in your stock, the extra one takes one off the count.
Cooking gas comes in cylinders. How do I know how many full ones are left in a busy week?
Count the full cylinders as an item in your stock when the supplier brings them. In a busy week you open the count and see how many full ones are left, so you order before the kitchen is down to its last.
The Sunday thali has a fuller plate. Can it be a separate item from the weekday one?
Yes. Make it its own item with its own rate, and the report shows how many Sunday thalis went out against the weekday ones.
Cooking gas and the eve before Shravan
In March 2026 Maharashtra's food minister announced that hotels, dhabas and restaurants would get an extra 20 per cent commercial LPG supply, following central directives. For a kitchen that cooks all day, how many cylinders the month needs is a number worth writing down.
In Mumbai many people eat non-veg food and drink on Gatari Amavasya, just before Shravan, because they avoid non-veg and alcohol during Shravan (2023 report). Hotels there plan that evening well in advance, and the sales of that day are worth reading again the next year.