GST is where hotel software earns its keep in India. Done right, compliance is a by-product of daily operations; done wrong, it’s a month-end reconstruction project with penalties attached. Here’s the shape of it — as operators run it, not as a tax lecture. (Your CA remains the authority; slabs and rules change with council meetings.) If you just need one correct document today, the GST invoice generator works out the tax split for you.
Rooms: the declared-tariff trap
Room GST follows the transaction value per night, with the key threshold at ₹7,500: at or below it one rate applies (12% at writing), above it the higher rate (18%). The operational catch: dynamic pricing moves rooms across the threshold. Sell at ₹7,200 on Tuesday and ₹8,100 on Saturday, and the same room carries different GST rates in the same week — your invoices must follow per-night, automatically. Hand-raised invoices get exactly this wrong.
F&B: composite vs. slab
Standalone-style restaurant billing at 5% without input credit versus the hotel-linked rates with credit — which applies depends on your property’s declared tariffs and registration choices. What matters in software: room service posted to a folio must carry F&B GST treatment, not the room slab, even though it settles on one bill. If the room line and the F&B line merge, the taxes merge with them, and that is an audit finding.
The invoice itself
- Sequential numbering, no gaps — voids logged, not deleted.
- CGST/SGST split shown separately (IGST only in special cases).
- Your GSTIN, and the guest's for B2B — corporate bookings need it captured at reservation, not chased at month-end.
- HSN/SAC codes on lines; per-line tax where slabs differ on one bill.
The registers
Filing wants a sales register — every invoice, taxable value, tax by rate, built from night-audit-locked days so it can’t drift from what you actually billed — and a purchase register for input credit on the office side. If producing either takes more than a download, you’re paying your CA to re-type your PMS.
The test: can you produce any month's registers in five minutes, and does the sales register tie to your locked day totals to the rupee? If yes, GST is a non-event. That's the entire design goal.