Khata, Excel or Pharmacy Software: Which Is Right for Your Medicine Shop?

A khata is cheap and simple, but a medicine shop is not a grocery shop: every strip has a batch number and an expiry date, and a DGDA inspector can ask for your records on any day. This guide compares five options against 12 jobs you do every day. Already sure? See our pharmacy management software in Bangladesh.

Khata vs Excel vs pharmacy software: side-by-side comparison

Pharmacy software is the only option that does all 12 everyday jobs of a medicine shop. In the table, ✓ means it does the job well, ◐ means it is possible with extra manual work, and ✗ means it cannot do the job.

How many everyday jobs each option covers

General POS software comes second, but it still misses batches, oldest-first selling, DGDA registers and prescription control, the four jobs that matter most in a medicine shop.

Why the right tool matters more for a pharmacy than for other shops

A grocery shop that loses track of a biscuit packet loses a few taka. A pharmacy that loses track of a batch can sell an expired medicine, break the law and harm a patient. That is why your record-keeping tool matters more in a medicine shop than anywhere else.

Three facts show the pressure on Bangladeshi pharmacies today:

• Monitoring is going digital. Bangladesh has more than two lakh pharmacies, and in September 2026 DGDA's Director General said pharmacies are being brought under digital monitoring (Views Bangladesh).
• Antibiotic sales are under the spotlight. A study of 246 pharmacies in Dhaka (September to December 2024) found that 44.6% of antibiotic sales were made without a prescription and only 36.2% with one. A registered pharmacist was present in just 7.3% of shops, and 81.3% of shops named fear of losing customers as the reason (Atención Primaria, 2026).
• Records are part of the national standard. The national standards for retail drug outlets, built with DGDA for Model Pharmacies and Model Medicine Shops, cover premises, staff, training, counselling, storage and record keeping (MSH).

A khata or Excel sheet can hold records, but it cannot check them for you. Pharmacy software turns the rules into daily habits, with DGDA-ready registers and licence alarms and prescription-only medicine control. When the system blocks a prescription-only sale, saying "no" is the shop's rule, not your personal choice, which makes it easier to keep a regular customer happy.

Paper khata: what it does well and where it fails

The khata is free, needs no training and works through any load-shedding. For the first week of a brand-new shop, it is fine. As your main system, it fails in six ways:

• No expiry warning. You find an expired strip by chance, often after the date has passed.
• Batches are not searchable. If an inspector or a company recall asks about one batch, you turn pages for hours.
• Baki gets lost. Pages tear, handwriting fades, and nobody sends a reminder.
• Profit is a guess. You only know the real number when someone sits down with the books.
• No staff record. You cannot see who gave which discount or took cash from the till.
• One copy only. Water, fire or a lost notebook can wipe out years of business history.

Pharmacy software vs Excel: better than paper, but not built for medicine

Excel is a real step up. You can search, sort by expiry date and add up totals with formulas. If you already keep your stock list in Excel, that work is not wasted: it makes moving to pharmacy software faster.

But Excel was made for spreadsheets, not for a busy counter:

• Slow billing. Typing each item while a customer waits takes far longer than scanning a barcode.
• Manual warnings. Expiry alerts only work if someone builds the formulas and checks them every day.
• File problems. When two people edit the file, or someone forgets to save, your stock goes wrong.
• No audit trail. Anyone can change a number, and you will not know who did it.
• Hard to see from your phone. Each branch ends up with its own file.

Excel is a good stock list. It is not a good way to run the counter.

Digital khata apps and general POS: built for groceries, not medicines

Digital khata apps make baki and daily totals easy, and general POS software adds barcode billing, stock and reports. Both are a big improvement over paper. The problem is that they treat a medicine like any other product: one stock number, no batches and no idea which strip expires first.

What pharmacy software does that the others cannot

Pharmacy software is built around the medicine strip, not the shop shelf. In PharmaZ247 that means:

• Expiry control. Expiry date alerts and oldest-first selling warn you 90, 60 and 30 days ahead, and the system always sells the oldest stock first.
• Barcode billing. Scanning catches what tired eyes miss. In a hospital pharmacy study in the USA, barcode scanning cut dispensing errors by 85% and errors that could harm patients by 63% (HealthDay, reporting Annals of Internal Medicine). A retail counter is different, but the lesson is the same.
• Money you can see. Baki limits and daily profit show who owes what and what you earned today, on your phone every evening.
• Clean buying. Supplier orders and invoice checks mean you never pay for stock that did not arrive.
• Staff accountability. Every sale, discount and return is saved under the staff member's own login.

Why PharmaZ247 is built for Bangladeshi pharmacies

Many pharmacy software products exist in Bangladesh. PharmaZ247 was built for the problems Bangladeshi owners actually face:

• It keeps billing without internet. PharmaZ247 runs inside your shop, so billing that keeps working without internet continues for 8+ hours, and everything syncs by itself when the line returns.
• Bangla and English, no computer skills needed. If you can use bKash, you can use PharmaZ247. It runs on a phone, tablet or computer.
• bKash, Nagad and cash match every night. If something is off, you know that evening, not at month-end.
• Inspection-ready, always. Controlled-medicine registers write themselves with every sale, and your licences and your suppliers' licences get reminders 90, 60 and 30 days before expiry.
• Every branch on one phone. Live sales, stock and profit for one shop or five.
• It connects pharmacy, doctor and patient. Doctor serials with SMS send the prescription to your counter, and customers get a patient app with one-tap refills.
• VAT made simple. Mushak-6.3 and Mushak-9.1 returns are prepared from your records.

Billing is designed to take about 45 seconds per customer: scan, take payment, print.

What does each option cost?

The cheapest tool to buy is often the most expensive to run. Count the hidden costs too.

Which one is right for your medicine shop?

For almost every medicine shop the answer is pharmacy software; only the reason changes with your situation.

How to move from khata to PharmaZ247 in 3 days

1. Day 1: we come to you. Our team sets up the system in your shop and connects your printer and scanner. You keep selling as normal.
2. Day 2: your products go in. We load your medicines, prices and suppliers, and record the batch and expiry dates on your shelves. Bring your baki khata so opening balances go in too.
3. Day 3: your staff learn it. Hands-on training at your own counter until everyone is comfortable.
4. After that: you watch from your phone. The shop runs on PharmaZ247 and our team stays on call.

Want to see a full day of your pharmacy (a sale, a restock and the profit check) on your own phone in under 30 minutes? Request a free demo.

Frequently asked questions