Invoice Draft is a specific document with specific rules, not a style of invoice. This page covers the content it requires, the numbering, the timing, and the documents it sits next to.
The document family, in one place
Almost every mistake in this area comes from treating these as different names for an invoice. They are not; they do different things and some of them must not carry tax at all.
A tax invoice is issued on a taxable supply by a registered supplier and shows the tax separately, so the buyer can claim input credit. A bill of supply is issued where no tax is charged — exempt supplies, or a composition dealer — and must not show a tax amount. A proforma invoice is a quotation laid out like an invoice: not a tax document, no credit claimable, and it must stay out of your invoice series. A credit or debit note corrects an invoice already issued, referencing it. A receipt voucher covers an advance taken before a supply, and a refund voucher covers giving that advance back. A delivery challan moves goods where there is no supply.
If you can place the document you are about to issue in that list, you have avoided most of what goes wrong.
Draft invoices: useful, as long as they are not numbered
A draft is an invoice that has not been issued yet — being checked, waiting for an approval, or held until the goods actually go. Working in drafts is sensible practice, and the only rule that matters is that a draft must not consume a number from your invoice series.
The reason is the series. If numbers are allocated when a draft is created, every abandoned draft leaves a gap, and gaps in a consecutive series are questions you have to answer. The number should be issued at the moment the invoice is finalised, not before.
A draft is also not a document you send. A customer who receives a draft will treat it as an invoice, and then you have an unnumbered document in their accounts payable. If something needs sending before the supply, send a proforma — that is exactly what a proforma is for.
Once issued, the draft stage is over: changes are made by credit or debit note, not by editing the invoice back into a draft.
Issuing these properly, free
- Tax invoices with the complete prescribed field set, tax split per line.
- Bills of supply for exempt and composition supplies, with no tax line.
- Proformas and quotations in their own series, converting to an invoice without retyping.
- Credit and debit notes that reference the original invoice rather than editing it.
- Separate consecutive series per document type, issued centrally so a number cannot repeat.
- Tax derived from the place of supply, so CGST/SGST against IGST is never a judgement call.
- A receivables position — what is unpaid, how old, and whose.
- Export of everything to CSV, Excel and JSON, on every plan.
- ₹0 on the free plan, no card, no expiry.
Issuing the right document, in order
- Decide what the transaction is: a taxable supply, an exempt supply, an offer, a correction, or money received in advance.
- Pick the document that matches it — a tax invoice, a bill of supply, a proforma, a credit or debit note, or a receipt voucher.
- Check your registration position. If you are not registered, or are under composition, a tax invoice showing tax is the wrong document.
- Use the series belonging to that document type, and let the number be issued rather than typed.
- Fill the mandatory content — including place of supply and HSN or SAC per line, which are the two most commonly omitted.
- Issue it within the time limit that applies to your type of supply.
- Keep it, and the records behind it, for the prescribed retention period.
The numbering series, which is where most of this goes wrong
The rule is short: a consecutive serial number, unique within the financial year, not more than sixteen characters, made only of letters, numbers, hyphens and slashes. One series, or clearly separated series where you genuinely need more than one — each consecutive in itself.
A file cannot enforce any part of that. The number is typed, which means it can be repeated, skipped, or quietly rolled back when yesterday's invoice is edited into today's. Nothing notices.
The half that is forgotten is cancellation. A cancelled invoice keeps its number and stays in the series as cancelled. Deleting the row and reusing the number leaves a gap in your books and a figure in your customer's, and reconciling those two is a long afternoon with a bad outcome.
Separate series per document type is the other discipline. Proformas, credit notes and bills of supply each need their own, and mixing them is how a tax invoice series ends up with holes in it.
Timing: when the document has to exist
Issuing the right document late is its own problem, separate from issuing the wrong one. The time of supply decides when tax becomes payable, and the invoice date is one of the inputs to it — so an invoice raised whenever it is convenient can move a liability into a period you have already filed.
The limits differ by what is being supplied. For goods the trigger is tied to removal or delivery; for services it is tied to completion of the supply, within a prescribed number of days. Continuous supplies, supplies on approval and reverse-charge supplies each have their own rule.
The practical version of this is unglamorous: raise the invoice when the supply happens, not when the customer asks for it, and not in a batch at month end because that is when someone has time.
These limits have been amended before. Check the one applying to your type of supply rather than relying on a remembered number of days.
Credit notes, debit notes, and fixing a wrong invoice
An issued tax invoice is not something to edit. If the value was too high, or goods came back, the correction is a credit note that references the original invoice. If it was too low, a debit note. Both carry their own numbers and both appear in your return.
There is a deadline on the credit note that matters: the adjustment has to be declared by the return for the relevant month of the following financial year, or by the annual return, whichever comes first. Past that, the note exists commercially but the tax cannot be adjusted.
Software that lets you quietly retype an invoice raised last month is not doing you a favour.
Reverse charge, exports and the supplies that behave differently
Not every supply is a straightforward taxable sale. Some notified supplies put the tax liability on the recipient rather than the supplier. Exports and supplies to an SEZ can be made under a bond or LUT without payment of tax, or with tax and a refund claimed afterwards. Composition dealers cannot charge tax at all and must say so on the bill.
Each of these changes what the invoice has to say — the reverse charge marking, the LUT reference, the "composition taxable person" declaration. They are not exotic cases; most businesses hit at least one.
The fields are on the invoice in Billixo whether or not you use them, so the day you need one you are not looking for a workaround.
The AI, and what it is actually for
The useful application of AI to billing is not a chatbot. It is the twenty minutes a day spent retyping things that already exist on paper.
- Scan a supplier bill. Photograph it; the lines, the GSTIN, the tax and the totals come back as a draft you check rather than a form you fill.
- Find the HSN code. Describe the product in plain words and get a code to confirm, instead of scrolling a list of eleven thousand.
- Ask about your own numbers. "What is outstanding over sixty days?" answered from your data, not a manual.
- Write the reminder. A polite, specific chase for an overdue invoice, ready to send on WhatsApp.
Nothing is sent anywhere until you ask for it, and the platform runs on whichever model it has been configured with — including one hosted on your own server.
Who this actually suits
It fits a business that raises between a handful and a few hundred invoices a month and would rather not think about GST between the 10th and the 20th: traders, distributors, retail counters, workshops, agencies, consultants, contractors and manufacturers who sell on invoice.
It fits less well if you need deep manufacturing costing, multi-currency consolidation, or payroll — those are different products, and pretending otherwise wastes your evaluation time.
If you are not sure which side of that line you fall on, the free plan answers it in an afternoon at no cost. Start free now.
The price, plainly
Free is ₹0 and stays ₹0. The paid plans are bought for a fixed term, paid once, with no auto-renewal and no card kept on file — when a term ends the account drops back to Free until you decide to buy again.
There is no per-invoice charge, no per-user surprise on the free plan, and no feature that is technically included but practically throttled. What the plan says you get is what you get.
Compare the plans on the home page, or just start free now and look at the ceiling from the inside.
Where your data lives
On the server this platform is installed on. Every record carries a company identifier and every query is scoped to the signed-in account at the framework level, so one business cannot read another’s data by any route, including a crafted one.
Sign-in is rate limited, sessions can be restricted to one device per user, and passwords are stored hashed. Exports are available on every plan, free included: if you ever want to leave, your data leaves with you.
Frequently asked questions
Is a proforma invoice a legal invoice?
No. It is a quoted offer laid out like an invoice. It creates no tax liability, supports no input credit claim, and must not be numbered in your tax invoice series. The real tax invoice is raised when the supply actually happens.
Can I edit an invoice after issuing it?
No. Once it has gone to the customer you issue a credit note or a debit note referencing the original. Editing the original leaves two versions of one invoice number in two sets of books, and the mismatch surfaces at reconciliation — usually in the following month.
Do I need a separate number series for each document type?
Yes, in practice. Each series has to be consecutive and complete within the financial year, so a proforma or a credit note that consumes a tax invoice number leaves a gap you then have to explain. Give each document type its own prefix.
Are the invoices valid for GST?
Yes. Every invoice carries the fields Rule 46 requires — GSTIN, HSN/SAC on each line, place of supply, the correct CGST/SGST or IGST split, and a consecutive invoice series that restarts each financial year.
Can I move my existing customers and products in?
Yes. Bulk import from CSV or Excel on any paid plan, and export back out in CSV, Excel or JSON at any time, including on Free. Most people bring their party and item lists across in one pass and carry outstanding invoices as opening balances.
See it working on your own bills
The fastest way to judge billing software is to bill with it. Photograph one supplier invoice, raise one sales invoice, and look at the PDF your customer would receive.
Open the software demo → — free account, no card, about a minute to set up.
More details on the home page → — what it does, what it costs, and where the limits are.
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