Bill book format: GST bill book design and free template
Short answer
A GST bill book is a pre-numbered book of tax invoice leaves, printed in three copies for goods and two for services. Every leaf must carry your name, address and GSTIN, a consecutive bill number unique for the financial year, the date, buyer details, HSN/SAC, quantity, taxable value, GST rate and amount, place of supply and a signature.
Updated 2026-10-12 · 399Apps · General GST information, not tax advice
How to get a bill book printed: step by step
Decide these before you go to the printing press — a mistake is repeated on every leaf of every book.
- 1
Pick the right title
Print "Tax Invoice" if you are a regular GST-registered business. Print "Bill of Supply" if you are a composition dealer or sell only exempt goods, and add the line "composition taxable person, not eligible to collect tax on supplies" if you are in composition.
- 2
Fix your header
Your trade name, address, phone and GSTIN go at the top of every leaf. Check the GSTIN character by character — a wrong digit printed on 500 leaves means 500 bills your buyers cannot claim credit on.
- 3
Choose the number series
Ask the press to pre-print consecutive bill numbers, no longer than 16 characters, that will not repeat in the financial year — for example 26-27/0001 onward. Use a separate series for each counter or branch if more than one book runs at once.
- 4
Lay out the item columns
Include S.No, description, HSN or SAC, quantity, unit, rate, taxable value, GST rate, and CGST + SGST or IGST, then the total in figures and in words.
- 5
Add place of supply, reverse charge and signature
Leave space for the buyer’s name, address, state and GSTIN, the place of supply, a "Tax payable on reverse charge: Yes/No" line, and the authorised signatory.
- 6
Set the copies
For goods, print each leaf in triplicate — Original for Recipient, Duplicate for Transporter, Triplicate for Supplier. For services, two copies are enough — Original for Recipient, Duplicate for Supplier.
Free bill book format (download)
One complete bill book leaf with every field above, plus a bill book register for tracking the number range and cancelled leaves in each book. It is a CSV, so it opens directly in Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice Calc and WPS Office — no signup, no email, no macros. Taxable value, GST and totals are live formulas, and a print checklist sits at the bottom of the file. Use it as-is for a few bills a day, or hand it to your printing press as the layout.
GST bill book format
One tax invoice leaf with book and bill number, copy marking, eight item lines with HSN/SAC and CGST + SGST (one-line note on switching to IGST), payment mode, and a register of bill ranges and cancelled leaves per book.
CSV · Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice
DownloadFree to use, copy, modify and share — for your own bill book, your printing press or your own site. No attribution required, no account needed. General GST information, not tax advice.
What is a bill book?
A bill book is a bound book of pre-numbered bill leaves, each with carbon or carbonless copies, printed for a business by a local press. The shopkeeper writes the bill by hand, tears off the original for the buyer and keeps the other copies in the book. Under GST, a filled bill book leaf is a tax invoice (or bill of supply) like any other, so it has to meet Rule 46 of the CGST Rules field for field.
What to print on a GST bill book
Every leaf of a GST bill book should show:
- • The title — "Tax Invoice" or "Bill of Supply".
- • Your name, address and GSTIN.
- • A pre-printed consecutive bill number, unique for the financial year, up to 16 characters.
- • Space for the date of issue.
- • The buyer’s name, address and GSTIN if registered. For an unregistered buyer, name and address are needed when the bill is ₹50,000 or more.
- • Columns for description, HSN or SAC, quantity, unit, rate and taxable value.
- • Columns for GST rate and CGST + SGST, or IGST for an inter-state sale.
- • Place of supply, and whether tax is payable on reverse charge.
- • The total in figures and in words, and the authorised signatory.
- • The copy marking: Original for Recipient, Duplicate for Transporter, Triplicate for Supplier.
GST bill book vs non-GST bill book
Which book you print depends on how you are registered. A regular GST-registered business prints a tax invoice book with the tax columns. A composition dealer prints a bill of supply book with no tax columns and the line "composition taxable person, not eligible to collect tax on supplies", because a composition dealer cannot collect GST from the buyer. A business that sells only exempt goods also prints a bill of supply.
A business that is not registered under GST has no GSTIN to print and cannot charge GST at all. Its bill book is a plain bill or cash memo, with no GSTIN, no tax columns and nothing that looks like a tax charge.
Numbering, copies and cancelled leaves
Bill numbers must run in sequence and must not repeat within a financial year. You may run more than one series — one book per counter or branch — as long as each series is unique. Most businesses put the year in the prefix (26-27/0001) so a fresh series starts every 1 April without clashing with last year’s.
When you spoil a leaf, do not tear it out. Write "CANCELLED" across every copy and leave them in the book. Regular taxpayers report each series in Table 13 of GSTR-1 (Documents issued): the first and last number, the total, and how many were cancelled. A missing leaf with no copies is exactly what a GST officer asks about. Keep used books for 72 months from the due date of that year’s annual return (Section 36 of the CGST Act).
Who a paper bill book still suits, and who it does not
If you run a small shop that writes a handful of bills a day, sells mostly to walk-in buyers and has a CA who enters the bills at month end, a printed bill book is cheap and works. If you write dozens of bills a day, sell to GST-registered buyers who want a PDF, or are re-typing every leaf into Tally or Excel to file GSTR-1, billing software saves that second entry and the totalling mistakes.
One hard limit: if your aggregate turnover is above ₹5 crore, your B2B invoices must be e-invoices with an IRN from the Invoice Registration Portal. A handwritten bill book leaf cannot be one, so a business at that size can keep a bill book only for B2C sales.
How 399Apps helps
Nidhi Books (by 399Apps) replaces the bill book with a numbering series you set once — your own prefix and a financial-year token — and assigns the next number only when an invoice is issued, so drafts never leave a gap. A cancelled invoice stays in the list marked Cancelled, the way a spoilt leaf stays in the book, and every bill has a printable PDF with a UPI QR.
Bill book format — frequently asked questions
What is the format of a GST bill book? +
I am a composition dealer — what should my bill book say? +
How many copies should a bill book have? +
I spoilt a bill book leaf — can I tear it out? +
Do I have to give a bill for every small sale at my shop? +
Can I download a bill book format in Excel for free? +
GST billing, returns & e-invoicing — done automatically
Nidhi Books raises GST-compliant invoices and prepares GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B exports, with unlimited users flat ₹399/month per app. Free for 14 days.