Compare
What are you using today?
One table, every tool, honest cells — including the ones we lose. Then the detailed page for yours.
| What a factory asks for | Excel + diary | Tally | Busy | Vyapar | Zoho | Big ERP | SutraBook |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The floor | |||||||
| Stock that moves only when documents moveNo typed stock figure, anywhere. | — | Partly | Partly | Partly | Partly | ✓ | ✓ |
| Production with stages & recipes | — | Partly | Partly | Partly | Partly | ✓ | ✓ |
| Job work: challans, ITC-04, the one-year clock | — | Partly | Partly | — | — | Partly | ✓ |
| Quality checks & a quarantine shelf | — | — | — | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Machines, breakdowns & time lostA breakdown is a period, so "how many hours" is a sum, not a guess. | — | — | — | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Godowns, transfers & stage-wise stock | — | Partly | ✓ | Partly | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| What a batch cost to makeMaterial cost per run, and per piece — taken from what the run actually consumed, not from the recipe. Scrap is paid for by the good pieces, so a bad run costs more each, which is the point of looking. Labour and power are not in it yet and we say so on the screen. | — | Partly | Partly | — | Partly | ✓ | ✓ |
| Batch / lot & expiry trackingBusy and Tally have it today; ours is on the roadmap. | — | ✓ | ✓ | Partly | Partly | ✓ | — |
| Money & tax | |||||||
| Double-entry books, trial balance, P&L | — | ✓ | ✓ | Partly | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| GST returns checked before filingNot just prepared — checked, naming the documents. | — | Partly | Partly | Partly | Partly | Partly | ✓ |
| Purchase-side credit & debit notes | — | ✓ | ✓ | Partly | Partly | ✓ | ✓ |
| Supplier advances & payments on account | — | ✓ | ✓ | Partly | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Opening balances: stock, cash, bank, both sides’ dues | Partly | ✓ | ✓ | Partly | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| E-invoice & e-way generationTheirs today; our roadmap. | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| People | |||||||
| Attendance → wages → payslipsMonthly, daily, piece-rate and overtime on one register. | — | Partly | — | — | Partly | ✓ | ✓ |
| Roles & permissions, per personThe gate marks attendance and never sees a wage. | — | Partly | Partly | Partly | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Workers see their own attendance and dues | — | — | — | — | Partly | Partly | ✓ |
| Running it | |||||||
| Reminders that watch dates for youGST dates, overdue bills, the job-work clock, machine service. | — | — | Partly | Partly | Partly | Partly | ✓ |
| Reports: day book, ageing, wastage, downtime, GSTThe accountant’s set — day book, trial balance, profit and loss, what you own and owe, ageing, GST returns. | Partly | ✓ | ✓ | Partly | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Where the money came from: by item, by customer, by supplier, by monthSales, purchases, production, spending, wages and stock written off — each grouped the way you ask and downloadable as it reads. Returns are netted and shown, not hidden. Wages sit behind their own permission, so the supervisor who marks the register never sees them. | Partly | Partly | Partly | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| This month against last monthEvery one of those reports can be held against the period before it, or against the same period last year. The month that went quiet still gets a row — a customer who bought last month and nothing this month is the line worth seeing, and a comparison that drops it only ever shows growth. Rises are coloured only where there is an honest direction: revenue up is good news, stock written off up is not, and a bigger tax figure is neither. | Partly | Partly | Partly | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Paper: invoice, challan, order, payslip, credit & debit notesNot one template bolted on per screen — one house style, so a payslip looks like it came from the same business as the invoice. The amount is written out in words, counted in lakh and crore. The job-work challan prints in triplicate with the value Rule 55 asks for, each copy marked for whose it is. A payslip shows earnings and deductions in two columns, so a bank clerk can read it without adding anything up. A credit note names the bill it corrects on its face — or says plainly that it belongs to no single bill — and every figure on it is printed positive with one line saying which way they point, so nobody subtracts twice. Nothing that has not been issued can be sent: you can look at it and print it, and that is all. | Partly | ✓ | ✓ | Partly | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audit trail: who did what, on every documentOurs reads as a sentence — "Payroll run approved · PAY-RUN-0001 · Arjun" — with what changed on tap, and it only ever shows you the kinds of record you can already open. | — | Partly | Partly | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Import your Excel — judged before anything is written | ✓ | Partly | Partly | Partly | Partly | Partly | ✓ |
| Export everything, any time | ✓ | Partly | Partly | Partly | ✓ | Partly | ✓ |
| Live from any device, many users | — | — | — | Partly | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Keeps working through a dead spotOurs: the screens you were on keep showing, marked with the time we last had them, and attendance and machine breakdowns can be entered — they wait on the phone and send themselves when the line returns. Bills and payments still need a connection, on purpose. | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Partly | — | Partly | Partly |
| Living with it | |||||||
| English and Hindi, written not translated | — | — | — | Partly | — | — | ✓ |
| Every screen explains itself, and refusals say why29 briefings, inside the app, in both languages. | — | — | — | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Works the first afternoon, no consultant | ✓ | Partly | Partly | ✓ | Partly | — | ✓ |
✓ built for it · Partly = exists, with limits · — not there. Verified 2026-09-05; details and sources on each comparison page. Batches and e-invoice are theirs today and our roadmap; full offline working is theirs and deliberately not ours — the table says so.
Now the detail, for your tool
Every page starts with what your current tool is genuinely good at. Then the day it stops being enough.
Excel + the diary
Excel was right — until the second person.
Read the honest comparison →TallyPrime
Keep the accounting. Add the factory.
Read the honest comparison →Busy
Good stock records in the office. Now put them on the floor.
Read the honest comparison →Vyapar
When the shop became a factory.
Read the honest comparison →Zoho Books + Inventory
One product, because the factory is one thing.
Read the honest comparison →Big ERP (SAP B1 · Odoo · NetSuite)
ERP depth is real. So is the project.
Read the honest comparison →Read the rows again — they’re factory questions
Where is my stock? What did this batch cost? Is the month ready to file? Who came in today? The tools above answer some of them, because they were built for shops, accountants, or everyone at once. SutraBook answers all of them — because it was built for factories, with India’s GST native to it.