Compare
Nivasik vs a register, Excel and WhatsApp
Most independent hotels, restaurants and shops in India run on three tools that cost nothing: a bound register at the desk, an Excel sheet, and a WhatsApp group for the staff. This page compares that setup with Nivasik, job by job, and says plainly where the register still wins.
Free for 45 days · no card · we do the setup
A register, Excel and WhatsApp cost nothing and everyone already knows how to use them, which is why they work for a small place with the owner at the desk.
They start to cost money when there is more than one person, more than one booking site or more than one shift: requests get lost in the chat, the same room sells twice, the day's cash does not match, and nobody can say who changed what. Software earns its price when those mistakes cost more than it does.
At a glance
| Job | Register, Excel and WhatsApp | Nivasik |
|---|---|---|
| Guest requests | Messages in a group chat — no owner, no clock; a request scrolls away. | Each request is a ticket with one owner and a clock, from a QR sticker in the room or logged at the desk; a missed target escalates. |
| Which rooms are free | The register, updated by hand; each booking site updated separately. | One room rack that refuses double bookings, with two-way calendar sync with Airbnb and Booking.com. |
| The guest's bill | A bill book or a sheet; room-service slips carried to the desk. | A folio from check-in; restaurant orders post to the room; GST invoices from the same record. |
| End of the day | Cash counted against memory or a notebook. | Night audit, and a drawer count per counter against what the system expected. |
| Stock | Counted when something runs out. | Stock comes off as it sells, with batches, expiry and reorder levels. |
| Staff pay | Days counted from the register; advances in a diary. | Attendance, a day of pay by the days in that month, advances taken off the payslip. |
| Who changed what | Whoever last edited the sheet. | A record of who did what, which cannot be edited or deleted. |
| Without internet | Paper keeps working. | Shop counters keep billing offline; hotel screens need a connection. |
| Setting up | Nothing to set up. | About a day, and we do it; an existing room list in Excel can be imported. |
| Cost | Nothing in rupees; paid in staff time and mistakes. | From ₹2,999 a month per property; POS ₹1,499 per outlet; free for 45 days. |
Not every line is in every plan. The ticket queue and QR requests are in Core (₹2,999); the PMS, GST invoices and Form C in Pro (₹4,999); people and pay, the city ledger, the booking page and channel sync in Group (₹2,499 per property, from three); the POS is ₹1,499 per outlet. All of it is unlocked during the 45-day trial. See what each plan includes.
What the register does well
It is worth being fair to the register, because it has run Indian hospitality for generations. It costs nothing. It needs no training, no power and no internet. Anything can be written anywhere on the page, which is exactly what a busy desk needs at 11 pm. And WhatsApp is on every phone the staff already carry.
For a small property where the owner sits at the desk, knows every guest and counts the cash personally, that is often enough.
Where it starts to cost money
- Requests get lost. A towel request in a group chat has no owner and no time on it. By the tenth message it has scrolled away, and nobody can say how long guests wait — let alone improve it.
- Rooms sell twice. With two booking sites and a walk-in, three places sell one room, and the register finds out last. See overbooking.
- Money goes quiet. A dinner charged to a room that never reaches the bill; a room night nobody charged; a drawer that is ₹300 short and nobody knows why. See the folio and the shift close.
- Pay turns into arguments. Which days did Ravi work? Was the ₹2,000 advance in March taken back? A diary cannot answer. See salary advance.
- Deadlines live in someone's head — Form C for a foreign guest is due within 24 hours of arrival.
- Nobody can see it from away. An owner who is not at the desk finds out tomorrow, or never.
The one number we can show
Nivasik publishes one measured statistic, from its pilot, and it is here because it shows the point of a clock rather than a result to be proud of:
At the pilot — one small property, 12–30 May 2026 — 45 guest requests were raised in nineteen days and 29 were resolved, with a median of 32 minutes from request to resolved. The other 16 were never marked resolved and are not counted. 28 were logged by staff, 14 came from a room's QR code, 2 by voice and 1 on WhatsApp.
A WhatsApp group could not have produced that sentence at all — not the median, and not the honest note about the 21 that were left out.
Moving off the register without losing anything
- Send us what you have — the room list (an Excel sheet is fine), the menu or stock list, and the staff.
- We set it up in about a day: rooms or counters, rates and prices, staff and roles, response targets per category, and the QR codes to print.
- Keep the register running beside it for the first week if that makes the desk comfortable, then stop when nobody opens it.
- Decide by day 45. Stay on a paid plan, or stop; nothing is deleted when the trial ends.
When the other option is better
Said plainly, because it is true for some properties and they should know before they buy.
A handful of rooms, and the owner is always at the desk
One person holding the whole picture is a system in itself. Nothing is handed over, so nothing is lost in the handover.
No booking sites, no restaurant, no staff on shifts
Most of what software fixes — double bookings, unbilled room service, disputes over pay — cannot happen yet.
The internet at the property is unreliable
Nivasik's hotel screens need a connection. Paper does not. (Shop counters are the exception: they keep billing offline.)
You are not ready to change how the place runs
Software used half-heartedly beside the register means two records and double the work. Better to wait until you will use one.
When Nivasik is the better choice
More than one person runs the desk
Shifts, handovers and days off are where registers lose things. A ticket with an owner and a clock survives the handover.
You sell on Airbnb or Booking.com
Two-way calendar sync with both, and a room rack that refuses to sell a room twice.
Rooms and a restaurant share guests
Orders post to the room's bill, and complimentary items are recorded at their real value with a reason.
You are not always there
Sign in from anywhere and see the day: requests, rooms, money and the record of who did what.
What Nivasik does not do
- Hotel screens need an internet connection; offline billing is for shop counters only.
- Guest messaging opens WhatsApp, SMS or email with the message typed in; it does not send messages by itself.
- The booking page takes bookings as pay-at-the-property; there is no payment gateway.
- The channel manager is calendar (iCal) sync with Airbnb and Booking.com only.
- Payroll is salary and payslips, not statutory payroll: it does not calculate PF, ESI, professional tax or TDS, does not file returns, and does not move money to anyone's bank account.
Questions people ask
Can we keep using WhatsApp with Nivasik?
Yes, for talking. Guest messaging in Nivasik opens WhatsApp with the message already typed — one tap — and keeps a log of what was sent; it does not send by itself. Requests work better as tickets than as chat messages, because a ticket has an owner and a clock.
Can our Excel room list be imported?
Yes. An existing room list in Excel can be imported, and we do the setup, which takes about a day.
What does it cost after the free trial?
From ₹2,999 a month per property on Core (up to 40 units), ₹4,999 on Pro (up to 80 units), and ₹2,499 per property on Group (from three properties). The POS is ₹1,499 per outlet a month. If you do not move to a paid plan after 45 days, the account becomes read-only and every record is kept.
Our staff are not comfortable with apps. Will this work?
Staff get requests on the phone they already have, and the interface switches between English and Hindi with one tap per phone. We set it up and walk it through on your own phones before you start.
Try it on your own place, free for 45 days.
We set it up for you — your rooms, menu or stock list, your staff and your prices — and walk it end to end on your phone. No card, and we invoice only if you stay.