Guides · Bookkeeping
Sales register and purchase register
A sales register is the running list of what a business has sold; a purchase register is the running list of what it has bought. Together they are the backbone of both bookkeeping and GST returns.
What each register records
The sales register records every outward invoice — the customer, value, tax, and date. The purchase register records every inward bill — the supplier, value, tax, and date. Between them they capture all the taxable activity of a business.
These are the two lists a GST return is built from: output tax from sales, input tax credit from purchases. If the registers are wrong, the return is wrong.
Keeping the registers in step
The registers only help if they stay current and match the underlying documents. A sale billed but not entered, or a purchase entered twice, throws off both the books and the tax.
Keeping them in one ledger — rather than two disconnected lists — means an invoice recorded once lands in the right register automatically, with its tax already split.
How Lekha keeps both registers
Lekha records sales invoices you raise and supplier bills you capture into one two-sided ledger, with the tax fields on each, so the sales and purchase sides stay in step.
Lekha generates GST-compliant delivery challans and tax invoices against a purchase order, with HSN, place of supply, and the right CGST/SGST or IGST split computed live, and gap-free financial-year numbering.
Questions
- What is a sales register?
- A sales register is the running list of a business's outward invoices — customer, value, tax, and date — used for bookkeeping and GST returns.
- What is a purchase register?
- A purchase register is the running list of a business's inward bills — supplier, value, tax, and date — the basis for input tax credit.
- Why keep both in one ledger?
- So an invoice recorded once lands in the right register with its tax already split, keeping the books and the GST return consistent.