Northstar Creative Co.
Invoice
PAYMENT DUEBilled to
| Item & description | Qty | Rate | Discount | Taxable value | Tax | Amount incl. tax |
|---|
Tax breakup by rate
| Rate | Taxable value | CGST | SGST | Total tax |
|---|
Amount in words
Zero only
A note for you
Terms & conditions
Additional details
Write a quote, price it line by line, and hand your customer a PDF that says what the work costs and how long that price stands. It opens as a quotation rather than an invoice, so nothing on it asks anybody to pay yet.
The document is marked as a quote, so no payment status, no balance due, and nothing that reads as a demand for money.
Show GST, VAT or sales tax at the rate that will apply, so the figure your customer agrees to is the figure they will be billed.
When the work is agreed, New from this carries the whole quote across and you change the document type. Nothing is typed twice.
The quote exists in this tab while you write it. No account, no watermark, and no copy kept on a server anywhere.
A quotation answers one question — what will this cost? — and it has to answer it precisely enough that nobody argues later. That means the work broken into lines rather than a single figure, the tax shown if tax will apply, and a date after which the price is no longer on offer. A quote with no expiry is a price you have promised forever.
It is not a tax invoice and nothing is payable on it. Under Indian GST that distinction matters: tax is due on the invoice you raise for the supply, not on the offer you made beforehand. Show the rate so the customer can see the full cost, and raise the tax invoice when the work is done.
When the customer says yes, open the quote, press New from this, and change the document type to Invoice. Every line, every rate, both parties and your payment details come across; the number moves on and the dates roll forward. The invoice you send is then arithmetically the same document the customer already agreed to, which is the point.
If you saved the quote as a draft file, open that instead — it is the same thing a month later. There is no account here, so the draft file is how a document survives the tab being closed.
A quotation is an offer: this is what the work would cost if you go ahead. A proforma invoice is a request to pay before the goods or the work are delivered, and it usually follows a quotation that has already been accepted. Neither is a tax invoice, and no tax is payable on the strength of either one.
Show it if you are registered and the work will be taxable, because a quote that hides the tax quotes a smaller number than the customer will actually pay, and that is the argument nobody wants later. Nothing is payable on the quotation itself. If you are not registered under GST, do not put a tax line on it at all.
Long enough for the customer to decide and short enough that your own costs have not moved: fifteen or thirty days is usual for services. Put the date on the document rather than leaving it open, because an old quote somebody accepts six months later is a price you no longer want to honour.
These notes are general guidance, not legal or tax advice. What a quotation commits you to depends on what it says and what you agree with your customer — check anything you are unsure about with someone qualified.
