Quotes and tax invoices with GST: what the paperwork must show

If you are registered for GST, every tax invoice has to make seven things clear: that it is a tax invoice, who you are, your ABN, the date, what you sold with its quantity and price, the GST, and which lines the GST applies to. Once a sale reaches $1,000 it must also identify the buyer. If you are not registered, you charge no GST and the document is an invoice, never a tax invoice. A quote is not a tax document at all, but it should show the total a customer will pay, GST included, because an accepted quote is what the invoice will be held to.

Do you have to charge GST at all?

Only once you are registered, and registration is compulsory past a threshold. The ATO's Registering for GST page says you must register when your business has a GST turnover of $75,000 or more, or when you start a new business and expect to reach that in the first year. Once you are required to register you need to do so within 21 days, and you need an ABN first. Below the threshold, registering is optional for most businesses; the page lists the exceptions, taxi and ride-sourcing drivers among them.

The page is blunt about waiting too long. If you were required to register and did not, "you may have to pay GST on sales made since the date you were required to register", even if you did not include GST in the price of those sales. It suggests checking each month whether you have reached the threshold or are likely to.

GST itself, in the ATO's words on How GST works, is "a broad-based tax of 10% on most goods, services and other items sold or consumed in Australia". Some sales are GST-free, which matters for invoices with mixed lines.

What must a tax invoice show?

The ATO's Tax invoices page says a tax invoice for a taxable sale of less than $1,000 must include enough information to clearly determine seven details, and that a sale of $1,000 or more also needs the buyer's identity or ABN.

Detail	Sale under $1,000	Sale of $1,000 or more
That the document is intended to be a tax invoice	Required	Required
The seller's identity	Required	Required
The seller's ABN	Required	Required
The date the invoice was issued	Required	Required
A brief description of the items sold, with quantity (if applicable) and price	Required	Required
The GST amount (if any) payable	Required	Required
The extent to which each sale on the invoice is a taxable sale	Required	Required
The buyer's identity or ABN	Not required	Required

Two notes from the same page. The GST amount can be shown separately or, if it is exactly one-eleventh of the total price, as a statement that says "Total price includes GST". And an invoice that meets the larger-sale requirements can be used for smaller sales too, so the simplest habit is to put the customer's name on every invoice.

An invoice number, payment terms and bank details are not on the ATO's list. The government's How to invoice guide recommends them as good practice, and they are what gets you paid.

When do you have to provide one?

When the customer asks. The ATO says: "If a customer asks for a tax invoice, you must provide one within 28 days, unless it is for a sale of $82.50 (including GST) or less." It does not have to be on paper; the page says you can issue a tax invoice by emailing a PDF, provided it contains all the required information.

What if some lines carry GST and some do not?

Then the invoice has to say which is which. The ATO's page says a tax invoice that includes taxable and non-taxable items must clearly show which items are taxable, and must also show each taxable sale, the amount of GST to be paid and the total amount to be paid. In practice that means GST decided line by line, not as a flat tenth added at the bottom.

What changes if you are not registered for GST?

The title and the tax. business.gov.au describes two kinds of invoice: tax invoices, which GST-registered businesses use, and regular invoices, for businesses that are not registered, which show no tax. It says no law sets out what goes in a regular invoice, lists your business name, ABN, a description, the amount and how to pay as common practice, and is firm on one point: use the word "invoice", and "you must not use 'tax invoice'".

What should a quote show?

No tax law prescribes a quote, but two government sources say what belongs on one. business.gov.au's Prepare quotes page says a written quote should include at least your business name, ABN and contact details, the customer's name and contact details, a clear description of the work, itemised and total costs with GST if applicable, payment terms, start and finish dates, a quote expiry date and space for the customer's acceptance. It adds a sentence worth remembering: "If a customer accepts your quote, it becomes a legally binding contract."

On the price itself, the ACCC's Price displays guidance says businesses must display the total price as a single figure, including any taxes, and that a business displaying prices only to other businesses does not need to include GST in the total. So a quote to a household should lead with the GST-inclusive total, and a quote to another business can show the price before GST, provided it says so. Showing the subtotal, the GST and the total on every quote serves both readers.

A quote that states its total clearly is also easier to chase; see how to follow up a quote without becoming a nuisance.

How does HarvestFlow Grow put this on the page?

HarvestFlow Grow is a CRM that carries a sale from the quote to the invoice, so the details above are entered once. This is what it does, and what it leaves to you.

The quote comes from the deal. A deal holds line items with a product, a quantity, a unit price and a discount. Generate quote turns them into a numbered PDF with a total and a validity date, under your business's name, address and logo. Prices are entered before tax, and the document shows the subtotal, the GST and the total. The detail is on the deals and pipeline page.

GST is decided line by line. Each line is ticked for GST or not; untick a line that carries none, and the quote and the order follow.

Your ABN and the title depend on your registration. Your ABN prints when you have said you are registered for GST, and then the invoice is titled a tax invoice.

The invoice follows the order. When a deal is won, a draft order is created from its lines. Generate invoice lists each line with what is left to bill, so part of an order can be invoiced now and the rest later, and nothing is billed twice. Invoice numbers run in your own series, and a number is taken only when an invoice is issued. The whole path is on the quotes, orders and invoices page.

What it does not do. It is not accounting software, and your books stay where you keep them today. It cannot tell you whether you should be registered, or whether a particular sale is GST-free. And its AI can gather the lines of a quote from a customer's message, but no quote, order or invoice is generated, numbered or sent by the AI; where that line sits, and why, is in what an AI CRM does, and what it should never do without you. Check your first invoice against the table above before you send it, as you would with any software.

General information, not tax or legal advice. For your own situation, the ATO pages above and your accountant are the right places to take it.