How to Make a Handwritten GST Invoice

There is nothing wrong with a handwritten invoice. The law cares about what is on the document, not whether it came out of a printer. Plenty of shops run entirely on a bill book and are perfectly compliant.

The problem is the bill book. Most of the ones sold in the market were designed before GST, and they leave out fields that are now required. You can write beautifully on the wrong form and still hand your customer something they cannot claim credit on.

What has to be on it

A tax invoice must carry:

• Your name, address and GSTIN
• A serial number — consecutive, unique within the financial year, no more than sixteen characters, using only letters, numbers, hyphen or slash
• The date it was issued
• The customer’s name, address and GSTIN, where they are registered
• For an unregistered customer where the invoice value crosses ₹50,000: their name, address, the delivery address and the state
• HSN or SAC code
• Description of what was supplied
• Quantity and unit
• Taxable value, after any discount
• The rate and amount of tax, split into CGST and SGST, or IGST for an inter-state supply
• Place of supply with the state name, for an inter-state supply
• Delivery address, where it differs from the place of supply
• Whether tax is payable on reverse charge
• Your signature

How many digits of HSN you need depends on your turnover slab, and that threshold has been revised more than once. Check which applies to you rather than copying what the last book had printed.

Numbering: the part that causes trouble

The serial number has to be consecutive and unique for the financial year. In a handwritten book that means two habits:

Start a fresh series each financial year. A prefix makes this painless — 26-27/001 tells you the year at a glance and cannot collide with last year’s 001.

Never skip, never reuse, never backdate. If you spoil a bill, write “cancelled” across it and keep it in the book. A missing number in a sequence is the first thing anyone looks for, and an empty gap is worse than a spoiled page.

If you run more than one book — one at the counter, one for deliveries — give each its own series. The rules allow multiple series; they do not allow two invoices with the same number.

Where the arithmetic goes wrong

Three mistakes account for most of them.

Tax on the wrong base. GST is charged on the value after discount, not before.

The wrong split. Same state as your customer, it is CGST plus SGST, half each. Different state, it is IGST at the full rate. Working this out by hand at the counter, on a busy day, is where errors creep in.

Rounding each line instead of the total. Round once, at the end.

If you are doing this by hand regularly, work the tax out with a GST calculator first and copy the figure across, rather than doing it in your head while a customer waits.

Print a blank format instead of buying a book

Every format on this site prints blank. Press Blank format on the GST invoice page and you get the invoice with every required field labelled and ruled lines to write on — your business name and GSTIN already printed at the top if you have entered them, and nothing else filled in.

Print a stack, keep it at the counter, and write on it as you would a bill book. The difference is that the fields are the ones GST actually asks for.

For anything you have time to type, fill the form instead and the tax, the totals and the amount in words are worked out for you.

And if the sale has not happened yet and you are only quoting a price, what you need is a quotation, not an invoice. Invoice, Quotation, Challan or Receipt? explains which document fits which moment.