Before July 2017, Indian businesses dealt with a patchwork of indirect taxes: VAT (state-level, different rates in every state), Central Excise Duty, Service Tax, CST for inter-state sales, Octroi in some cities, and Entry Tax. A typical manufacturer had to file returns for 5–6 different taxes.
Most small businesses either ignored compliance (risky) or hired a CA just to manage the tax returns (expensive). Accounting software that handled all these correctly was complex and costly.
GST replaced all of the above with one tax — split into CGST+SGST for intra-state or IGST for inter-state. One registration, one set of returns (GSTR-1, GSTR-3B), one compliance framework. For small businesses, this was genuinely simpler.
But GST also raised the bar for accounting software. Every invoice now had to show GSTIN, HSN codes, CGST/SGST/IGST breakup, and e-invoice requirements for larger businesses. Older software couldn't handle this.
DEBMEDIA AccountManager was built after GST — it's designed around GST from the ground up. The GstCalculator module handles all the intra/inter-state logic, and every invoice prints the required GST fields without manual formatting.