Make a tax invoice that actually complies

The eight things a tax invoice has to show

Section 29-70(1) does not prescribe a layout. It says the document must be issued by the supplier, be in the approved form, and contain enough information for these to be clearly ascertained:

1. the supplier’s identity and ABN
2. the recipient’s identity or ABN, if the total price is $1,000 or more
3. what is supplied, including the quantity where one applies, and the price
4. the extent to which each supply is a taxable supply
5. the date the document is issued
6. the GST payable in relation to each supply
7. where the buyer issued it, that the GST is payable by the supplier
8. and it must be clear from the document that it was intended to be a tax invoice

The second one is where most invoices fail, because the threshold surprises people in both directions: under $1,000 you genuinely do not need your customer’s details, and at or over it you do.

If you are not registered for GST

Then you do not charge GST, and you must not issue a document headed “tax invoice”. The heading is not decoration — requirement eight is that it can be ascertained the document was intended as a tax invoice, and issuing one while unregistered tells your customer they can claim a GST credit that does not exist. Turn off the GST switch and this generator produces a plain invoice with no GST line, which is the correct document. The tax invoice requirements are set out in full on their own page, including the one that applies only once the total reaches $1,000.

You must register once your GST turnover reaches $75,000, and whether you have crossed it is a test against your own turnover rather than a single number — two figures decide it, and they do not carry equal weight.

Small sales, and the $75 rule

A tax invoice is not required at all where the value of the supply is $75 or less — $83 including GST — under regulation 29-80.01. It is worth knowing which way the obligation runs: the tax invoice exists so your customer can claim a GST credit. Plenty of businesses issue one for every sale anyway, which is fine; the point is that below that figure the law does not require it.

One thing this document is not. An invoice bills for work already done; a price offered before the work starts is a quote, and it must never carry the words “tax invoice”. Keep them as two documents and tie them together by number.

Nothing here is stored

The document is assembled by JavaScript running in your browser. There is no account, no upload, and no server that ever sees your customer’s name or your ABN. Printing uses your browser’s own print dialog, so the PDF is produced on your machine. Close the tab and it is gone — which also means to keep an invoice you have to save or print it.

That is a claim about your data rather than about tax, so it is one worth being able to check instead of taking on trust. What this site collects, what it does not, and what the advertising sees is set out in the privacy policy.

Sources

The requirements come from the GST Act itself, and the ABN check is the Australian Business Register’s published algorithm — the same modulus 89 test it documents, which catches a transposed digit before your customer’s bookkeeper does.