Money Receipt Format — Simple, Signed, Ready to Share.

The law asks very little of a money receipt, and a dispute asks a great deal. Nothing prescribes a layout, so the format you pick matters less than whether the paper can answer the questions that come up later: who paid, who received, how much, for what, when and by what means. Picture a ₹40,000 booking token taken against a slip that says only 'advance'. Six weeks later the payer says it was for the hall and the venue says it was for the lawn, and nothing on the slip settles it. The sample above names the booking, the event date and the service. That one line separates a receipt from a note.

Write the words first and the figures second. Anyone who wants to alter ₹15,000 into ₹1,15,000 needs one digit and a gap. Turning 'Fifteen Thousand Rupees Only' into 'One Lakh Fifteen Thousand' takes a whole sentence, and it shows. Indian grouping trips up careful people too, because ₹1,15,000 is one lakh fifteen thousand while 115,000 looks like a typing slip to an older cashier. The Excel receipt on this page writes the words from the figure by formula, so ₹42,000 prints as Forty-Two Thousand Only without anyone spelling it. Draw a line through the spare space after the words either way.

Number every receipt from one series and keep a copy. A printed book with carbon sheets does this for you. If you make receipts in Word, the register sheet in the workbook plays the same role, one line per receipt with number, date, payer, purpose, mode, reference and amount. The mistake to avoid is two receipts both numbered 214, which happens when two staff members each run their own pad. Cancel a spoiled receipt by writing VOID across every copy and leaving it in the book. GST receipt vouchers are capped at 16 characters, so MR/2627/007 at 11 works and MoneyReceipt-2026-27-00007 at 25 does not.

The Indian Stamp Act puts a ₹1 duty on a receipt for cash above ₹5,000, and the practice is a ₹1 revenue stamp signed across so it cannot be used twice. The duty attaches to cash. A cheque or bank transfer leaves its own record and does not need the stamp, so a ₹42,000 cash token needs one and the same ₹42,000 by UPI does not. Forgetting it does not void the receipt: an unstamped one can still go in as evidence once the duty is paid with a ₹1 penalty. States can amend the schedule, so ask a local CA before printing a hundred receipts with a stamp box.

Cash brings a second rule that catches banquet and hall owners. A business cannot receive ₹2 lakh or more in cash from one person in a day, in a single transaction, or for one event or occasion. The last limb is the trap. Rahul Verma's wedding pays ₹50,000 on 5 August, ₹60,000 on 20 August and ₹70,000 on 2 September, all cash and each safe on its own. A fourth ₹30,000 at the counter on 18 September makes ₹2,10,000 for one wedding, and the penalty equals the whole amount received. The Register sheet keeps a running cash total per event ID and flags the row at ₹2 lakh. From 1 April 2026 the rule sits in the Income-tax Act 2025, which sources cite as section 186. Its old number was 269ST.

Rent receipts are the most common money receipt in the country, and the audience is the tenant's employer. A tenant paying ₹18,000 a month pays ₹2,16,000 a year, well past the ₹1 lakh line where the employer asks for the landlord's PAN before allowing an HRA claim. Twelve monthly receipts or one annual receipt both work, provided each names the month, the amount, the property address and the landlord's signature. Cash rent above ₹5,000 a month brings the ₹1 stamp back. A landlord who takes bank transfers should still hand over receipts, because the HRA claim rests on them.

Two things turn a plain money receipt into another document. The first is GST. A registered business that takes an advance for a service owes tax when the money arrives, so its receipt becomes a receipt voucher under Rule 50 with the rate, the tax and the place of supply on it. That is why the token above shows ₹2,000 of GST at 5%. The second is TDS. A corporate client may pay ₹4,00,000 less 2% TDS, so ₹3,92,000 lands while your invoice says ₹4,00,000. Record the amount received, the ₹8,000 deducted and the certificate to follow. CBDT Circular 23/2017 says TDS is taken on the value before GST when GST is shown separately, so 2% of ₹4,20,000, or ₹8,400, would be an over-deduction.