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Quotation vs Proforma vs Invoice: Which Document When
Three documents, three different legal weights. Sending the wrong one is not a formatting mistake — a proforma filed as an invoice, or a quotation treated as a bill, creates real tax and payment confusion.
Quotation = an offer. Proforma invoice = an indicative bill for advance payment or approvals, explicitly not a tax invoice. Tax invoice = the real thing: it creates the tax point, supports the buyer's input credit, and enters your GSTR-1. The chain runs in that order, and each step converts into the next.
| Quotation | Proforma invoice | Tax invoice | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Offer a price, usually with a validity date | Request advance payment; support approvals/customs | Record the supply and the tax |
| Tax standing | None — figures are estimates | None — must say "not a tax invoice" | Full — Rule 46 document |
| Serial rules | Your own series | Your own series | Consecutive, ≤16 chars, unique per FY |
| Buyer can claim ITC | No | No | Yes |
| Appears in GSTR-1 | No | No | Yes (via the export) |
| Converts to | Proforma or tax invoice | Tax invoice | Receipt (payment), credit note (correction) |
When each one is the right send
Send a quotation when the deal is not agreed yet — price discovery, comparisons, tenders. Put a validity date on it: an undated quote is an open-ended price promise. Our quotation maker keeps the validity visible even after conversion, so an expired price never quietly becomes an invoice.
Send a proforma when the deal is agreed but the supply has not happened — advance payment requests, a buyer's internal approval, export paperwork. The proforma from our generator prints "not a tax invoice" on its face, because the most common proforma failure is a recipient filing it as one.
Send the tax invoice at the time of supply. From here the chain continues: a receipt records the money, and a credit note — never an edited invoice — records any correction, mirroring the original split.
Why one engine matters
If the quote is made in one tool and the invoice in another, the numbers drift — a discount applied differently, a split decided differently — and the client sees two documents that disagree. Here all three run on the same engine and the same client book, so a converted document inherits lines and totals exactly; the conversion itself is the audit trail.