Optical shop software in Chennai
Chennai optical shops are, more than most, family shops with family customers. The same household comes back for years — a school child's first pair, a parent's reading glasses, a grandparent's cataract follow-up — and they very often share one mobile number. Software that treats a phone number as one person quietly merges three people's prescriptions into one record, and nobody notices until the wrong power is ordered.
LensVerge is billing, inventory, prescriptions, lab jobs and WhatsApp bookings for Indian optical shops — the OS for optical retail. It runs in a browser, so there is nothing to install and no per-machine licence, and it is the same product whether your shop is in Chennai or anywhere else in the country. What follows is what actually matters for a shop here.
What a Chennai optical shop needs from its software
LensVerge is built around that specific case: one mobile number can belong to several customers in your shop, each with their own prescriptions, invoices and history. When you add someone on a number that already exists it asks whether they are a family member on the same phone rather than blocking you or silently overwriting, and the customer screen shows everyone else on that number so you can move between them in one click.
T. Nagar, Anna Nagar, Adyar and Purasawalkam cover most of the range — dense high-street retail through to neighbourhood shops that know their customers by face. In every one of them the school-season rush is real, and it is where record-keeping breaks. A recall worklist and a searchable prescription history turn that fortnight from a scramble into a list you work through.
Areas like T. Nagar, Anna Nagar, Adyar and Purasawalkam are where most of that trade happens. LensVerge does not care which one you are in — but the way you bill, the printer on your counter and the promise you make about delivery all do, and those are settings, not rewrites.
GST for a Chennai shop: Tamil Nadu is state code 33
Tamil Nadu is GST state code 33. Puducherry, close enough to be a regular customer source, is a SEPARATE code (34), so a B2B bill there is inter-state and prints IGST. So do Karnataka (29), Andhra Pradesh (37) and Kerala (32).
You set your GSTIN and state once during setup. A counter sale then bills CGST + SGST at half the rate each; when the supply is inter-state — a buyer in Karnataka (29), Andhra Pradesh (37), Kerala (32), Puducherry (34), or goods you ship out of Tamil Nadu — one tick on the bill switches it to IGST at the full rate, and the place of supply and the buyer's GSTIN print where they are required. Tax is always computed on the amount AFTER discount, which is the single most common hand-billing error.
If your shop is not GST-registered, or you are under the composition scheme, say so in Settings and the whole system changes with you: the document is titled “Bill of Supply” instead of “GST Tax Invoice”, there are no tax rows and no HSN column, the totals say “Net Amount” rather than “Taxable Amount”, and the GST reports disappear from the menu entirely. A composition dealer's own GSTIN and the prescribed declaration still print; an unregistered shop's do not. You are never shown a tax artefact that does not apply to you.
HSN codes an optical shop uses
| Item | HSN | GST |
|---|---|---|
| Spectacle frames | 9003 | 12% |
| Sunglasses | 9004 | 12% |
| Spectacle lenses | 9001 | 12% |
| Contact lenses | 9001 1000 | 12% |
| Repair / labour | 9987 | 18% |
| Eye test | 9993 | Exempt |
Rates as notified; confirm with your CA. LensVerge fills the HSN and rate for you by product category and lets you override either on the product. Full HSN guide →
The eye test on the same bill as the glasses
A Chennai shop with an optometrist in the back usually charges for the test, and it belongs on the same document as the pair that follows it. Eye testing sits under 9993 and is exempt, while the frame (9003) and the lenses (9001) carry 12% — three lines, two tax treatments, one bill.
LensVerge holds the HSN or SAC and the slab on the product itself rather than on the invoice, so an exempt line stays exempt beside taxable ones without anyone remembering to blank a field, and each line prints its own rate. If your shop is not registered, the same three lines print on a Bill of Supply with no tax columns at all. Rates as notified — confirm with your CA.
The counter, the lab and the pickup
Single-vision jobs often come back the same day or the next; progressives and specialty lenses take longer and get ordered in. Either way the job card carries the exact prescription that was written, not a number copied twice by hand — the prescription form validates SPH, CYL and AXIS as you type, insists on an AXIS whenever CYL is non-zero, and flags a large difference between the two eyes for a second look.
Tick the job-order box while you are billing and the job appears on the orders board with the prescription, the frame, the lens, the lab name and an expected date. It moves through seven stages from received to delivered, and repairs get their own board beside it with the issue type, warranty status and charge. Nothing needs to be re-typed anywhere — the job card is built from the bill you already raised.
Printing: thermal roll or A4 tax invoice
A 58 mm thermal roll is common on a small Chennai counter and it is fully supported — the layout is built for the narrower paper rather than an 80 mm bill squeezed down. A4 and A5 tax invoices are there when the customer needs one.
Four formats come out of the same bill — 80 mm thermal, 58 mm thermal, A4 and A5 — and your default is a setting, so during a rush nobody is choosing from a dropdown. The PDF can be sent to the customer on WhatsApp or email instead of printed at all. More on the billing side →
It keeps billing when the power goes
A power cut or a dead internet connection is not a reason to stop selling, and it is the one thing that makes shopkeepers distrust cloud software. LensVerge bills offline: the app keeps working in the browser, the invoice is created and printed, stock is adjusted, and everything queues locally. When the connection returns it syncs on its own — no export, no re-typing, no duplicate bills, because each offline invoice carries its own id and can only ever land once.
That is also why it is a web app rather than an install on one machine. Your data is not sitting on a counter PC that can be stolen, dropped or wiped, and if that PC does die you carry on from a phone. On Growth and Pro your shop is backed up daily and you can download a backup yourself.
WhatsApp bookings, and timings that stay on IST
Many Chennai shops keep a long lunch gap and trade into the evening. Configure that as your opening hours and no customer will ever be offered a 2 pm slot you do not want. Reminders and appointment times are IST throughout.
Customers book eye tests by messaging your code on WhatsApp — the bot asks their name, offers the next open days from your actual hours, then a morning/afternoon/evening choice and a real free slot — or from your own booking page at lensverge.com/book/ with your code. Either way the booking lands on your appointments board and creates the customer record. Nothing to install for them, no charge per booking for you. How the booking bot works →
Dates and times are computed in IST throughout — appointment slots, reminders, recall due dates and the day's sales figures. It sounds like a detail until a late-evening bill lands on the wrong day's report, which is exactly what happens when software keeps time in UTC.
Getting the same customer back
Most optical revenue is repeat revenue, and most of it is lost quietly — the customer who tested with you last year and tested elsewhere this year. LensVerge builds a recall worklist from the date on each prescription, so you get a list of who is due rather than a reminder to think about it. Birthday and festival nudges work the same way, and every message is logged so the same person is not messaged twice.
Prescriptions are validated as they are typed — SPH, CYL and AXIS ranges, AXIS required whenever CYL is non-zero, a warning when the two eyes differ sharply — and can be printed, saved as a PDF or sent to the customer on WhatsApp with your review QR on the sheet.
What it costs
Starter is ₹499 a month (₹399 on annual) and covers 100 invoices a month with unused ones carried forward, and WhatsApp bookings are included. Growth is ₹1,999 (₹1,599 annual) for unlimited invoicing plus loyalty points, the flyer and review-QR kit and downloadable backups. Pro is ₹3,999 (₹3,199 annual) and adds multi-branch, which is what a Chennai shop with a second location needs. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial and no card.
See the full pricing or start your free trial — setup takes about ten minutes, and you can add your frames as you sell them rather than counting the whole wall on day one.
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