Most businesses track stock in some form, but the moment quantities, suppliers, product variants, and billing come together, traditional tools begin to fall short. Spreadsheets work only until multiple people need to update them. Pre-built inventory software often forces rigid workflows, making it hard to adapt the system to your own processes. As soon as your stock movement changes or your billing needs additional fields, the system stops fitting.

Clappia solves this by letting you build an inventory and billing system that matches your exact workflow, instead of adjusting your operations around software limitations. You can generate the starting version through Clappia’s AI chat. Simply give your instructions like “Create an inventory management system integrated with a billing system” and the AI creates the entire app for you. You can then refine it with Clappia’s no-code tools or with the AI itself. Everything stays flexible, and the structure evolves with your operations, whether you handle products, parts, consumables, or mixed stock with multiple billing rules.

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Different Ways to Build This in Clappia

You can create your inventory–billing setup in whichever method suits your workflow.

1. Using the AI Assistant

Describe what you need to the AI assistant and it will help you get started quickly. You can continue evolving your app with its help and suggestions. This method is the fastest when you want a working draft instantly.

2. Building Manually in the App Designer

If you prefer full control, you can build every part step by step like product details, stock adjustments, billing entries, calculations, validations, and linked data. This is useful when you already know the exact structure you want.

3. Using Clappia MCP

Some teams use Clappia’s MCP to automate app generation or create a standardised inventory template for multiple branches. You can send prompts directly from tools like Claude and let MCP create or modify apps inside your Clappia workplace automatically.

4. From Excel Files

If your existing product lists, stock registers, or rate cards already live in spreadsheets, you can import them. Clappia converts the data structure into an app, and you continue building from there.

5. From Google Forms

If you maintain order or stock request forms in Google Forms, you can import them and extend them with calculations, validations, linked data, and workflows to support billing and stock updates.

These entry points let you begin in whichever way is most convenient, and refine the system at your own pace.

The Apps You Can Build for This Setup

Once you decide to manage inventory and billing inside Clappia, the cleanest setup is to use two connected apps:

• An Inventory Master that holds your complete product catalogue, warehouse assignments, pricing, and stock levels.
• A Billing System that creates invoices, pulls validated product details from the master, calculates totals, and automatically updates stock.

These two apps work together to keep your data consistent. The Inventory Master becomes your single source of truth for products, while the Billing System focuses only on sales activity and stock movement. This separation avoids errors, prevents duplication, and gives you a setup that can scale without needing to rebuild the structure every time you introduce new products, warehouses, or pricing rules.

Below is the structure that the AI chat generated, along with all the additions you can make to support your operations.

Inventory Master App

The Inventory Master is your central database for all products. It stores the product’s identity, where it sits, its pricing, and its current stock level.
Keeping this in a separate app ensures:

• You don’t type product details repeatedly in every invoice.
• All stock adjustments flow back to one place.
• You can reuse the master data in other apps later, like Purchase Orders, GRN/Receiving, Stock Transfers, or Reorder Requests.

Because every app can pull data from every other app, this master app becomes the backbone of the entire system. You can use the Get data from other apps feature to interlink apps. If you already have existing data, maybe in a spreadsheet, you can bulk upload the entire data in one go into this app. This saves you time from manually doing this one by one.

Structure of the Inventory Master

Section: Product Catalogue

• Product Name (Single line text block)
• SKU / Product Code (Single line or Unique ID)
  Use the unique numbering block to automatically generate an ID.
• Category (Dropdown with options like consumables, hardware, finished goods, spare parts, etc.)
  Create dependent dropdowns for related categories
• Unit Price (Number block)
• Warehouse (Dropdown with options if you handle multiple warehouses)
• Current Stock (Number block)
• Supplier (Single line or dropdown list)

This structure covers the essentials, but you can expand it depending on how detailed your stock process is.

Useful Additional Fields

• HSN/SAC or Tax Category (Dropdown)
• Brand / Model (Single line)
• Reorder Level (Number block to support low-stock alerts)
• Batch Number (Single line, if you work with batches)
• Expiry Date (Date, for perishable items)
• Product Description (Multi-line text block)
• Image of Product (Camera, Image & Files)
  Use this field to either upload images from your device’s gallery or take live photos.

These additions help the Inventory Master double as a reference database for downstream processes.

Optional Warehouse Page

Some teams maintain a separate section for warehouse details:

Page: Warehouse Info

• Warehouse Name
• Warehouse Address
• Person In Charge
• Contact Number

This supports setups where stock is distributed across locations or stores.

Billing System App

The Billing System focuses on creating invoices and recording sales activity. It pulls product information from the Inventory Master app, calculates totals, and triggers stock updates automatically. This app is intentionally kept independent so the UI stays clean for sales teams, field users, or billing clerks.

It also helps avoid mistakes:
Users won’t enter prices manually since the system fetches the correct values.
Users can only select products that belong to the chosen warehouse.
Users cannot bill quantities that exceed available stock.

To keep the form easy to use, the Billing System is split into separate pages – one for customer and invoice details, one for line items, and one for the final summary. This breaks a long form into smaller steps, keeps each page focused, and makes it simpler for users to move through the billing flow.

Structure of the Billing System

Page 1: Customer & Invoice Details

• Invoice Date (Date)
• Customer Name (Single line)
• Contact Details (Phone/Email)
• Select Warehouse (Dropdown - drives product filtering)

This page collects basic customer and invoice metadata.

Page 2: Bill Items (Table Section)

This is where the line items are added.

• Select Product
  
  • Pulled from Inventory Master
  • Filtered automatically based on the selected warehouse
    
    
• Quantity (Number)
• Auto-Fetched Unit Price (Calculation field: pulled from master)
• Display In-Stock Quantity (Fetched from master for reference)
• Line Total (Calculation field: Quantity × Unit Price)

The “Select Product” field uses the Get Data from Other Apps block to pull product details directly from the Inventory Master. This ensures users always pick from the verified product list instead of typing names manually and users only see the products that belong to the selected warehouse. This keeps the billing process clean and prevents cross-warehouse errors.

The pricing and totals in this table run through the Calculation fields, which update whenever a product or quantity changes. This keeps the unit price, in-stock value, and line total aligned with the data coming from the Inventory Master.

You can expand this table with:

• Discount
• Tax %
• Tax Amount
• Item Notes
• Batch Number (if needed)

The core idea remains that everything here is linked and validated against the Inventory Master.

Summary Section

After the table:

• Subtotal (Calculation field)
• Tax Total (if applied)
• Grand Total (Calculation field)
• Invoice Notes / Terms (Multi-line)

This section provides the final calculation before submitting the bill.

Workflows That Run Behind the Scenes

Once a bill is submitted, workflows keep the Inventory Master updated so stock levels remain accurate across warehouses. The workflow setup focuses on adjusting stock based on the quantities billed.

Stock Decrement Workflow

When a bill is created in the Billing System, a workflow updates the corresponding product entry in the Inventory Master:

• The workflow locates the product using fields like SKU and warehouse.
• An Edit Submission node is used to decrease the “Current Stock” value by the billed quantity.

This workflow keeps product availability aligned with every billing entry without requiring manual stock adjustments.

Optional Alerts

You can add workflow-based notifications:

• Alerts when stock drops below reorder level.
• Emails to warehouse managers when a bill is created.
• Automated daily/weekly billing reports.

These can run in parallel without changing the app structure.

Analytics & Dashboards

Both apps support analytics pages for quick overviews.

Inventory Master Analytics

• Stock per Warehouse
• Products with Low Stock
• Stock Distribution by Category

These help warehouse and procurement teams stay ahead of shortages.

Billing System Analytics

• Sales Totals per Invoice
• Warehouse-wise Sales Summary
• Top-Selling Products
• Sales Trends Over Time

You can also create scheduled reports to send these analytics regularly.

How You Can Extend This Setup Further

Once the core flow works, you can build more around it:

• Add a Purchase Order app and increase stock when items arrive.
• Add GRN / Receiving to validate delivered quantities.
• Add Delivery Notes that link billing to dispatch operations.
• Build Customer Master and link invoices to customer profiles.
• Create Stock Transfer apps for warehouse-to-warehouse movement.
• Add Barcode Scanning fields for faster product selection.
• Integrate with Google Sheets for live dashboards.
• Add approval steps for high-value invoices.

Everything grows on top of the same foundation without disturbing existing users.

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How This Structure Helps You Later

A separate Inventory Master and Billing System gives you a clean modular setup:

• You can replace or expand one app without touching the other.
• Stock remains accurate across all apps because they all refer to one master source.
• You can plug in new workflows (like approvals or automated reports) without redesigning your forms.
• If your operations expand to new warehouses or product lines, you simply add more fields and continue.

This becomes a base for broader systems like procurement, sales, order management, and warehouse operations.

How the App Works for Users

For users, the system remains simple, they can use the app either from the web or mobile app. There is no extra setup for the mobile app.

• They select the warehouse.
• They pick products filtered to that warehouse.
• Prices populate automatically.
• Totals calculate instantly.
• Stock updates happen silently after submission.

Users see a clean front-end, while all the linked data and workflows run in the background. Everyone, from warehouse staff to billing teams, sees only what they need based on permissions.

Distributing the App to Your Team

Once your inventory and billing setup is ready, you can decide who uses which part of it. Clappia lets you control access at the app level so each person only sees what they need.

• Warehouse or store staff can submit stock updates or stock movement entries.
• Sales or billing teams can create billing records without touching backend stock data.
• Managers can view submissions, dashboards, and analytics.
• Admins can edit the app, manage workflows, and handle advanced logic.

If you work with external staff, suppliers, or temporary teams, you can share app links so they can submit information without a Clappia login which is useful for delivery partners, franchise partners, or contractors who need to submit stock or billing details occasionally.

You can also keep teams separate. If you don’t want sales teams to see purchase-side data, or warehouse teams to see billing data, you can assign access accordingly. Each app stands on its own, and only the users you choose can view or update it.

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Why Teams Build Inventory + Billing in Clappia

Here are some straightforward reasons companies prefer using Clappia for inventory systems where billing is part of the workflow.

• You control the entire structure—product attributes, batch details, pricing, taxes, units, stock movement rules.
• The system adapts whenever your process changes, without needing to migrate to new software.
• AI generates the base version quickly, and the no-code editor lets you refine it without technical work.
• You keep inventory, billing, and related apps inside one workspace instead of using scattered tools.
• Linked data ensures accuracy (products, suppliers, rates, and taxes pulled from master apps).
• All changes appear instantly to users, making live updates easy during audits or stock reorganisations.
• Logs track app edits, workflow runs, stock updates, and billing activities.
• You can connect the system with Google Sheets or email workflows for automated reporting.

Moving Forward With Your Setup

Once the inventory and billing structure is in place, you can continue expanding it without starting over. Some teams add approval steps for billing, others connect stock records with purchase orders or delivery tracking. You can build dashboards for product movement, automate low-stock alerts, or link billing entries to customer master data.

As your process grows, the system grows with it. You can add fields, workflows, and linked logic at any point, and users see the changes instantly after refreshing the app. This makes Clappia a long-term base for inventory, billing, procurement, and even order management—without needing to shift platforms each time your requirements evolve.