Proforma Invoice Format for Event Bookings & Advance Payments.

Think of a proforma invoice as a request to pay and not a claim for payment. It sits between the quotation and the tax invoice: the client has agreed the price, but the supply has not happened, so the law has nothing to tax yet. It is not one of the documents that lets a buyer claim input tax credit, and issuing it does not by itself create a GST liability, which is how published GST guides describe it. The confusion starts with the advance. Once the client pays ₹2,03,550 against it, tax on that advance falls due, because for services the time of supply under Section 13 of the CGST Act is the date the money is received. Inside that payment sits ₹31,050 of GST, exactly half of the ₹62,100 on the whole booking, and a receipt voucher under Section 31(3)(d) must follow.

Why do corporate clients ask for one? Because their finance systems want a document with a number before anyone can spend. A purchase order is raised against the proforma, the advance is approved against the purchase order, and the payment goes out against the approval. The sequence in a well-run booking is quotation, then proforma, then advance, then receipt voucher, then the event, then the tax invoice. Send the proforma the day the client says yes. Every day you wait is a day the date sits held without money behind it, which for a two-day conference hall in the December season is a real cost.

The most expensive mistake is a client who treats the proforma as the tax invoice. Their accountant books ₹4,07,100 from it, and months later the credit does not match the supplier's return. On this booking that is ₹62,100 of credit at stake for the client. It comes back to you as a phone call, and sometimes as a delayed payment of the balance. Three habits prevent it. Put the non-tax-invoice warning on the document, keep a number series that cannot be confused, and issue the real tax invoice within days of the event, showing the advances adjusted. Check the invoice shows the client's GSTIN and PO, since their system will match on both.

Foreign and non-resident clients raise a different question: is this an export? For event services the answer is usually no. Under the IGST Act, the place of supply for renting a property for a wedding or reception is where the property stands, and for organising an event to a person without a GST registration it is where the event is held. So a family paying from Dubai for a wedding in Udaipur still pays Indian GST, and the proforma should show it in rupees with the tax split. Zero-rated export treatment needs the place of supply outside India, which is not the case here. Ask your CA about your own facts, and ask the bank for the inward remittance advice, because it helps match the payment to the proforma.

Where does the e-invoice come in? Nobody reports a proforma to the government portal. The tax invoice is. If your aggregate turnover has crossed ₹5 crore in any year since 2017-18, B2B tax invoices need an e-invoice with an IRN and QR code, and businesses above ₹10 crore must report each invoice within 30 days of its date. A single lawn or hall usually sits below that level, but a hotel or a multi-property group may not. The Proforma vs Tax Invoice tab in the workbook lists the fields that change between the two documents, including that one.

Validity and revision matter more than most owners expect. Fourteen days is a fair window for a proforma, since a date that is held without an advance is an offer you are giving away. If the client changes the conference from two days to three, issue a new proforma with a new number rather than editing the old one, and cancel the earlier one in writing. The rest is a quick habit: log every payment in the Advance Log tab the day it lands, note the UTR, and issue the voucher the same day. That log becomes your evidence when the final invoice adjusts ₹4,07,100 of advances against the ₹4,07,100 total.