RA Bill Software built for civil contractors

What is an RA bill — and why it's so easy to get wrong

A Running Account (RA) bill is a progress bill raised at intervals through a construction project. Instead of billing the whole contract at the end, the contractor measures the work done up to a cut-off date, values it at BOQ rates, and bills the difference between the cumulative value now and what was already billed in earlier RA bills. Retention is held back, GST is added, and the client pays against that running account.

It sounds simple, but the arithmetic compounds. By the third or fourth RA bill you're juggling cumulative quantities, previous-bill quantities, item-wise rates, retention percentages, GST splits and deductions — usually across several spreadsheets that don't talk to each other. One mistyped cell and the bill is short-paid, queried, or rejected. Worse, errors hide: an over-measured quantity in RA-2 only surfaces when the client's QS reconciles at RA-5, and now you're issuing a negative bill and a difficult conversation.

RA bill software removes the arithmetic entirely. True Site Sync keeps a single live chain — measurement → abstract → RA bill — so every figure on the bill is calculated from the work actually recorded on site, and is traceable straight back to that record.

See it in action

Here's what an RA bill summary looks like in True Site Sync — quantities and deductions are computed for you, ready to export as a PDF on your letterhead.

Illustrative RA bill summary — previous vs current quantities and retention computed automatically.

How True Site Sync generates an RA bill

Everything an RA bill needs — handled for you

Who uses it — real-world scenarios

RA bill software vs. doing it in Excel

Five RA billing mistakes this software prevents

Most RA bill disputes trace back to the same handful of errors. Because True Site Sync derives every figure from the site record and the work order, each of these simply can't happen the way it does in a spreadsheet.

1. Double-billing a quantity

In Excel it's easy to forget that part of an item was already claimed in the previous RA bill, so you bill the full cumulative quantity again. The software always carries the previous-bill quantity forward and bills only the difference — the classic over-claim is gone.

2. Wrong or outdated rates

When rates live in a separate sheet, an old rate sneaks into a new bill. Here rates come straight from the work order's BOQ, so every item is valued at the agreed figure, every time.

3. Forgetting retention or applying it twice

Retention is set once on the work order and deducted automatically on every RA bill at the right percentage — never missed, never doubled.

4. GST mistakes

CGST/SGST vs IGST, and the right SAC, are configured per work order and applied consistently, so the tax on the bill matches what your accountant expects.

5. Un-traceable figures

When a client's QS questions a quantity, you can open the exact measurement entry behind it instead of defending a number you can't reconstruct. That single capability resolves most billing arguments before they escalate.

How RA billing fits your full workflow

RA bills don't exist in isolation — they're one link in a chain that runs from the site to your bank account. In True Site Sync that whole chain lives in one place, which is what makes the billing so fast and so reliable.

It starts with measurement sheets recorded on site, draws rates and quantities from BOQ and work-order management, produces the RA bill, and posts the value to the client ledger inside construction billing — which in turn feeds your cash-flow view so you can see what you've billed, what's been received, and what's still outstanding. Because everything is connected, raising RA-6 also updates your receivables and your cash forecast automatically. There's no exporting between tools and no reconciliation step — the bill is the data.

And because the platform is offline-first and cloud-synced, the engineer on site, the billing engineer in the office, and the owner checking cash on their phone are all looking at the same live numbers.

Getting started takes under ten minutes

You don't need an implementation project or a training week. Create your workspace, add the project, and either type your BOQ items in or import them from an Excel template — that's the only setup. From there your site team starts measuring and your first RA bill is a click away.

The Solo plan starts at ₹2,500 a year and every plan includes a free 7-day trial of the full platform, so you can raise a real RA bill from real measurements before you pay anything. There's no card required to start, it runs on Windows, Android and any browser, and your data is yours — exportable as PDF and Excel at any time. If you already keep BOQs in spreadsheets, you can be billing from True Site Sync the same afternoon.

Most contractors find the first RA bill is the convincing moment: the previous quantities are already carried forward, retention and GST are already applied, and the PDF is on their letterhead — work that used to take an evening, done in minutes.