Official GST Invoice Format for Indian Service Businesses.

'GST invoice' covers more than one document, and raising the wrong one is a common slip. A tax invoice is what a registered business issues when it charges GST. A bill of supply replaces it when no tax is charged, which is the case for composition dealers and for exempt supplies. A receipt voucher records an advance. A credit note lowers the value of an invoice you already issued, and a debit note raises it. For supplies under ₹200 you may skip the individual invoice unless the customer asks, provided you issue a consolidated invoice for the day. Everything in this workbook hangs off those five documents, so pick the right one before you fill in a single cell.

The billing address does not decide the tax head. The place of supply does, and the rule depends on what you sold. Hall and lawn rental follow the property, so a Pune hall rented by a Bengaluru company is a Maharashtra supply. Catering follows where the food is served. Event management and its ancillary services follow the recipient if it is registered, and the event location if it is not. Try the first case on ₹1,50,000 of hall rent from a Pune supplier. Place of supply is Maharashtra, supplier is in Maharashtra, so CGST of ₹13,500 and SGST of ₹13,500 at 18%, for a total of ₹1,77,000. The Bengaluru registration changes nothing.

Now move the food and the planner. A Surat caterer serving a wedding in Mumbai for a Surat family supplies in Maharashtra from Gujarat, so it is inter-state. Catering is 5%, so ₹2,00,000 attracts ₹10,000 of IGST and no credit is available to the buyer, for a total of ₹2,10,000. The sample invoice above is the third case. The Pune planner bills a registered Bengaluru company, so the place of supply is Karnataka and the tax on ₹4,50,000 is IGST of ₹81,000. Swap the client for an unregistered individual and the place of supply becomes Pune, so the tax turns into ₹40,500 CGST plus ₹40,500 SGST. The workbook lets you flip these cases and watch the split change.

Credit notes are where invoices go wrong after the fact. Suppose the catering client above cuts 40 plates at ₹620. That is ₹24,800 of taxable value, ₹1,240 of GST at 5% and a ₹26,040 credit. The credit note must refer to the original invoice number, and the GST can only be reduced if the note is issued by 30 November following the financial year of the original supply, or the annual return date if that is earlier. An invoice from November 2026 therefore has until 30 November 2027. Miss the date and you can still give the client the money back, but the tax stays paid. The second sheet in the workbook checks this date for you.

E-invoicing changes the process more than the format. If your aggregate turnover has crossed ₹5 crore in any year since 2017-18, each B2B invoice must be reported to the invoice registration portal, which returns an IRN and a signed QR code that print on the invoice. Sources published in mid-2026 put the reporting window at 30 days from the invoice date for businesses of ₹10 crore and above. Sales to consumers do not need an IRN. Below ₹5 crore, the invoice looks as it does here. The thresholds have changed several times since 2020, so check the current notification before relying on any figure, this one included.