Restaurant Bill Format with GST: Fields, Sample and Invoice Numbering

This guide is for restaurant, cafe and fast food owners in India who are setting up billing for the first time, changing software, or have been told by their accountant that the printed bill is missing something. By the end you will be able to check your own bill against a field list, decide at which moment the invoice number should be assigned, and set a numbering series that survives a new financial year and a second branch.

What a restaurant bill format with GST should carry

A restaurant bill does two jobs. For the guest it is a receipt. For you and your accountant it is a tax invoice, the document your GST returns are built from. The GST invoice rules list what a tax invoice must show, and food safety rules add the licence number. In practice a restaurant tax invoice needs these 11 fields.

1. Restaurant name: the legal or trade name as it appears on your GST registration, not only the brand on the signboard.
2. Address: the address of the branch that served the meal.
3. GSTIN: the 15-character GST registration number.
4. FSSAI number: the 14-digit food licence or registration number of that premises.
5. Invoice number: unique and consecutive within the financial year.
6. Date: and the time as well, which helps when a guest queries a bill later.
7. Items: description, quantity, rate and amount for each line.
8. Taxable value: the item total after any discount and before tax.
9. CGST and SGST: the rate and the amount of each, on separate lines.
10. Round-off: the few paise added or removed to reach a whole rupee.
11. Total: the amount payable, ideally with the payment mode beside it.

Useful extras that are not tax fields: table number, captain name, order type (dine-in or parcel) and the number of items. They cost one line each and save arguments when a bill is disputed.

Two points need your accountant. First, restaurant service has a service accounting code, and whether it must print on your bills depends on your turnover. Second, a restaurant registered under the composition scheme issues a bill of supply and does not show GST as a separate charge, so the format in this guide applies to regular GST registration. Confirm your registration type, your rate and the code requirement with your accountant before you finalise the print format.

Provisional bill vs tax invoice in a restaurant

Most restaurants print the bill twice without thinking about it. The first print goes to the table in a folder so the guest can check the items. The second is the final receipt after payment. These are two different documents and they should not carry the same number.

The provisional bill is a draft. The guest may ask for an item to be removed, add a dessert, ask for a discount or decide to split the bill. If the draft already consumed an invoice number, every such change leaves you with a cancelled number, an edited invoice or a gap in the series, and your accountant has to explain each one.

The tax invoice is the settled document. It is created when payment is taken, it gets the next number in the series, and after that it should not be edited. A correction after settlement is made by cancelling the invoice with a reason, never by quietly changing it.

So the clean routine has two steps: print a provisional bill marked as such, with no invoice number, and assign the number only at settlement. Good restaurant POS software enforces this order so the cashier cannot skip it during a rush. The same rule keeps the table marked as occupied until the money is in, which matters for table management as much as for tax.

Sample restaurant GST bill format

Here is a sample for a dine-in order at a South Indian restaurant in Rajkot charging 5% GST, with prices exclusive of tax. The name, GSTIN and licence number are placeholders. The header block comes first.

Then the item lines and the totals.

How CGST, SGST and round-off appear on the bill

A sale inside your own state is taxed in two equal halves, central and state. A 5% rate therefore prints as CGST 2.5% and SGST 2.5%, each with its own amount. One combined line that reads "GST 5%" is a common shortcut on older print formats and it is worth correcting.

The sum here is ₹470.00 plus ₹23.50, which is ₹493.50. The bill rounds to ₹494 and shows the 50 paise as its own line, so the arithmetic on paper always adds up. If a discount is given, show it above the taxable value, because tax is worked out on the amount after the discount. If your prices include GST, the bill still shows the same lines, with the taxable value worked backwards from the price. The post on GST inclusive vs exclusive menu prices has that arithmetic.

Restaurant invoice numbering per branch and per financial year

The rule is short: every tax invoice carries a consecutive serial number that is unique within the financial year. The number may contain letters, digits, a slash and a hyphen, and the rules limit it to 16 characters in total, so keep prefixes short. You are allowed to run more than one series.

One series per branch

Each branch bills on its own counter, often on its own local system, so each branch should have its own series. If two branches share one GSTIN, their numbers must not collide, and a short branch code in front of the number is the usual way to keep them apart: RJK/26-27/000001 for Rajkot and JAM/26-27/000001 for Jamnagar. Each of those is exactly 16 characters, which is the reason the codes are three letters and not the full city name.

Restart on 1 April

The financial year runs from 1 April to 31 March. Most restaurants restart the series at 1 on 1 April and put the year in the number, so invoice 1 of this year can never be confused with invoice 1 of last year. Restarting daily or monthly is possible only if the date is built into the number, and it makes the register harder to audit. A yearly restart is simpler.

Starting number when you begin mid-year

If you change billing software in November, you have already issued invoices this year. Suppose the old system stopped at 4,812. Set the new system to start at 4,813, so the year has one unbroken series across both systems. Starting again from 1 in the same year, under the same prefix, creates duplicate numbers. If you prefer a fresh count, use a new prefix for the new system and tell your accountant the date of the change.

Gaps and cancelled invoices

A cancelled invoice keeps its number and stays in the register, marked cancelled with a reason. Numbers should never be reused or deleted. A register with a few cancelled entries is normal. A register with missing numbers invites questions.

Common mistakes on restaurant GST bills

• GSTIN printed but the FSSAI number missing, or the licence number of a different branch.
• Head office address on the bill of every branch.
• Invoice number assigned at the first print, so every edited or abandoned bill leaves a gap.
• One "GST 5%" line with no CGST and SGST split.
• Round-off hidden inside the total, so the lines do not add up.
• Discount shown after tax, which overstates the tax.
• Series not restarted, or restarted with no year in the number.
• Service charge added without telling the guest. It is voluntary for the guest and should be removable at the counter.
• The document says "Estimate" or carries no title on what is meant to be the final tax invoice.

How Dhandhaan handles this

Dhandhaan is the restaurant POS and billing software built by JK Tech Hub in Rajkot. Billing in it is deliberately two steps. "Print Bill" produces a provisional bill and the table stays occupied. "Settle" takes the payment, assigns the final invoice number and frees the table. No number is used up by a bill that is still open.

The receipt header carries the GSTIN and FSSAI number. The GST rate is set per item (for example 5% or 18%), each item's price can be inclusive or exclusive of GST, and CGST and SGST print as separate lines. Invoice numbers are sequential per branch and restart each financial year, and a starting number setting covers a mid-year start.

For the accountant there is a GST summary by rate and an invoice register that exports to Excel or PDF. It costs ₹12,999 a year for a single branch and ₹23,999 a year for multi-branch, with no charge per bill. Hardware is bought separately.

What we learned building restaurant billing in Gujarat

We built Dhandhaan for a multi-branch South Indian and fast food restaurant business in Gujarat that was moving off a hosted POS. Three lessons from that build shaped the bill format.

The first was about timing. The cashiers were used to printing a bill and treating it as final. During testing we saw how often a printed bill changes before payment: an extra coffee, a parcel item added on the way out, two families deciding to pay separately. Assigning the number only at settlement keeps those changes out of the invoice register.

The second was the mid-year start. The business could not wait until April to switch, so each branch needed to continue from its last number on the old system. That is the reason the starting number setting exists.

The third was the header. In a multi-branch business each outlet has its own address and its own food licence number, and one branch's details on another's bill is the kind of mistake nobody notices for months. On installation day we print a test bill from every printer and read the header line by line.

How to decide on your own bill format

Take one printed bill from your counter tonight and tick the 11 fields. Then ask three questions. Does the invoice number appear only after payment? Does each branch have its own series with the year in it? Can your accountant get an invoice register for the month without anyone typing it?

If any answer is no, fix the print format first, since that is usually a settings change. If your current system cannot separate the provisional bill from the tax invoice, treat that as a reason to plan a change before the next financial year, when a clean series start is easiest. Show the final format to your accountant once before you go live.

Related reading and next step

• GST inclusive vs exclusive menu prices for restaurants
• Restaurant day end report and cash closing routine
• How to switch restaurant billing software without downtime
• Multi-branch restaurant management software
• Accounting and GST billing software

To see the provisional bill, the tax invoice and the invoice register on a live system, book a demo or ask for a quote through the contact page or on WhatsApp at +91 7265004040.