57 essential terms covering India regulatory (DPDP, GST, RERA, FSSAI, MSME), WhatsApp Business API, payments, marketing metrics, AI, and SaaS — written in plain English with India-specific context, examples, and FAQ.
21-character ID assigned by MCA (Ministry of Corporate Affairs) to every Indian incorporated company.
Directorate General of Foreign Trade — the agency under the Ministry of Commerce that regulates imports and exports in India.
India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 — the country's first comprehensive personal data protection law.
Food Safety and Standards Authority of India — the regulator for food businesses in India.
Goods and Services Tax Identification Number — a 15-character ID assigned to every GST-registered business in India.
Monthly (or quarterly) statement of outward supplies — every B2B and B2C invoice your business issued in the period.
Monthly self-declared summary of all outward and inward supplies and tax liability — the form you actually pay GST against.
Harmonized System of Nomenclature — a 4-8 digit code that classifies goods under GST for tax rate determination.
10-digit code from DGFT required for any import or export of goods/services from India.
Unique 64-character hash generated by GST Network's Invoice Registration Portal — required for e-invoicing.
Credit you can claim for GST already paid on business purchases — reduces what you owe in GST.
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise — government classification with benefits for businesses below specific turnover thresholds.
Permanent Account Number — 10-character alphanumeric ID issued by Income Tax Department, used as universal taxpayer ID.
GST rule that determines which state/UT gets the tax on a transaction — drives whether CGST+SGST or IGST applies.
GST mechanism where the recipient (you) pays GST instead of the supplier — applies to imports and specific notified services.
Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 — regulates real estate developers and protects homebuyers in India.
10-character alphanumeric ID required for any business deducting Tax at Source (TDS) — separate from PAN.
Mechanism where the seller collects tax from the buyer at the time of sale — opposite of TDS.
Tax Deducted at Source — mechanism where the payer deducts income tax before paying the recipient, then deposits with the government.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's Do-Not-Disturb registry — restricts unsolicited commercial communication via SMS and calls.
Online MSME registration system that replaced the older Udyog Aadhaar in July 2020.
Meta-approved third-party providers that resell WhatsApp Business API access.
Ad format on Meta (Facebook + Instagram) that opens a WhatsApp chat directly when clicked — a primary lead-gen channel for Indian SMBs.
Meta's official, fastest path to creating a WhatsApp Business Account — one-flow signup integrated into BSP/SaaS dashboards.
An official WhatsApp Business Account on the WhatsApp Business API — distinct from the consumer WhatsApp Business app.
Meta-hosted, direct API access to WhatsApp Business — alternative to using a BSP.
Pricing model where you're charged per 24-hour conversation, not per message — varies by category (utility/marketing/authentication/service).
Meta's score for your WhatsApp Business number — based on user reports, block rate, and message quality.
India's largest payment gateway — processes UPI, cards, wallets, net banking, EMI for online merchants.
Unified Payments Interface — India's instant interbank payment system, the default payment method for Indian SMBs.
UPI's recurring debit feature — enables auto-charge for subscriptions, EMIs, and rentals up to ₹15,000 per month per mandate (₹1L for some categories).
Annualized value of one customer contract — used for measuring deal size in B2B SaaS.
Average rupee value per customer transaction — key revenue lever for ecommerce.
Annual run-rate of recurring revenue — the standard valuation metric for subscription businesses.
Total marketing + sales spend divided by new customers acquired — measures how much it costs to bring in one customer.
% of customers who cancel or stop subscribing in a period — one of the most important SaaS health metrics.
Average time from lead created to closed-won — measures sales velocity.
Total value of merchandise sold through a marketplace or platform — gross of returns, refunds, and platform commissions.
Detailed description of the customer you should be targeting — the highest-fit, highest-LTV, most-likely-to-succeed segment.
Total revenue (or profit) one customer generates over their entire relationship with the business.
Lead deemed worth talking to by marketing — meets initial criteria but hasn't been validated by sales.
Predictable monthly revenue from subscriptions — the foundational metric for SaaS and any subscription business.
Revenue generated per rupee of ad spend — direct measure of advertising efficiency.
Ecommerce metric — % of orders that come back undelivered, typical pain point for COD-heavy Indian D2C.
% of qualified opportunities (SQLs) that convert to closed-won customers.
When an LLM generates plausible-sounding but factually incorrect or fabricated content.
AI model trained on vast text data — generates human-like text, answers questions, follows instructions.
Technique where an LLM is given relevant documents/data at query time, instead of relying solely on its training data.
Technology that converts spoken audio to written text — foundation of voice agents and call transcription.
Technology that generates spoken audio from text — used in voice agents, IVR, accessibility.
Standard way for one application to communicate with another — the foundation of modern SaaS integrations.
Compact, self-contained way to securely transmit information between parties as a JSON object — used widely in SaaS authentication.
Industry-standard protocol for delegated access — lets users grant apps limited access to their data without sharing passwords.
Pre-packaged tools, libraries, code samples, and documentation that helps developers integrate with a specific platform.
Cloud-based ecommerce platform — the dominant choice for Indian D2C brands launching in 2022-2026.
Mechanism where one app pushes real-time event data to another via HTTP POST — the inverse of an API call.
GST-ready invoicing, DPDP-compliant consent capture, RERA-friendly broadcast templates, WhatsApp Business API with auto-localization — Doggu was built for this regulatory environment.
Try Doggu free for 14 days