GST Invoice Format & Rules

A GST registered dealer must provide GST Invoice / GST Bill to clients if he is supplying taxable goods or services. GST Invoice issued must be compliant with the GST rules and regulations for all supply of goods and services. Usually, an invoice is issued to charge tax as well as to claim Input tax credit.

GST Billing & Invoicing is made easy & simple with GST Billing software. Invoice can be generated as per GST rules and issued to customers quickly. Let us see in detail what are the mandatory fields of an GST Invoice/Bill as per the GST Rules.

GST Invoice Format

A detailed professional Tax Invoice under GST must consist of the following mandatory fields:

• Name, Address and GSTIN of the supplier
• Invoice number(Unique serial number associated with financial year)
• Date of issuing Invoice
• a) Name, Address and GSTIN of the customer(if registered)
• b) Name, Address, Delivery address with state name and code(if unregistered & tax value more than Rs.50000)
• HSN code of Goods or Accounting Code of services

HSN is also not required if turnover is below 1.5 crores. If turnover is between 1.5 crore to 5 crores, only 2 digits of HSN code is required. But if turnover is above 5 crore, then 4 digits of HSN code will be required in invoices.

• Description of Goods or Services
• Quantity and Unit (in case of goods)
• Total Value of supply of goods or services along with discount(if any)
• Tax Rate
• Amount of tax charged in respect of taxable goods or services
• Place of Supply
• Delivery address(if differs from Place of Supply/Billing Address)
• Whether the tax is payable or reverse charge
• Signature or Digital Signature of the supplier
• In case of export of goods or services, invoice shall carry a endorsement such as “Supply Meant for Export on Payment of IGST” (according to the invoice type) along with the name, address, delivery address, country name, number and date of application for removal of goods for export.

Time Limit to issue Invoice – Invoicing Under GST

As per the GST Act, there is a time limit to issue invoices based on the supply of goods/services.

In the case of supply of goods:

Tax invoice must be issued before or at the time of

• Removal of goods for supplying to recipient, where supply involves movement of goods.
• Delivery of goods to recipient, where supply does not require movement of goods.
• Issue of account payment/statement where there is a continuous supply.

In the case of supply of services:

• Tax Invoice must be issued within 30 days from the date of supply of the service
• Tax Invoice must be issued within 45 days from the date of supply of the service where the supplier is a bank or financial institution.

Copies of GST Invoices Required:

The tax payer shall issue the invoice copies based on the below:

Bill of Supply

Bill of Supply is similar to GST invoice but it does not contain tax amount since it is raised for exempted goods/services.

Bill of supply is issued by a registered supplier in the following cases:

• Supply of exempted goods/services.
• Supplier opted/comes under Composition scheme.