What the law wants on a gaming café bill

What has to be on the bill, and the two that catch people out

CGST Rule 46 lists what a tax invoice has to contain. Most of it is obvious and most billing software fills it in: your name and address, your GSTIN, the date, what was sold, the rate, the tax split, the total. What follows is the part that matters on a café counter rather than the rule recited in full · read the rule itself, or ask your accountant, before you rely on any list including this one.

Two fields are where gaming cafés come unstuck. The first is the serial number. The rule asks for a consecutive serial number, unique within a financial year, and that word consecutive is doing more work than it looks. The second is the place of supply. Rule 46 asks for it, with the name of the State, on an inter-State supply. Most bills at a café counter are intra-State and do not need it, which is exactly why it is the field forgotten on the rare bill that does · ask your accountant which of yours, if any, that is.

• check_circleYour café's name, address and GSTIN
• check_circleA consecutive serial number, unique for the financial year
• check_circleThe date of issue
• check_circleThe customer's name, address and GSTIN if they are registered · for an unregistered customer, only on a bill of ₹50,000 or more, or when they ask
• check_circleA description of what was sold · station time, food, a membership
• check_circleThe taxable value, the rate, and the CGST and SGST or IGST split
• check_circleThe place of supply and the State's name, on an inter-State supply
• check_circleWhether the tax is payable on reverse charge
• check_circleA signature or digital signature

What a deleted invoice actually does

Staff delete bills for ordinary reasons. A customer changes their mind, a rig is started on the wrong name, a tab is rung up twice. Deleting feels like tidying up.

It is not tidying up. The series is required to be consecutive, so removing number 142 leaves a gap between 141 and 143 that stays there for the rest of the financial year. There is no way to close it without renumbering every invoice after it, which you must not do either.

We went looking for this because four cafés on the platform had gaps in their invoice numbering and we wanted to know whether the counter was leaking money or the software was. It was neither. At all four, the gaps matched deletions exactly: an invoice had been raised and then removed, and nothing was wrong with the numbering engine at all.

Void, do not delete

The correct move is to void the invoice and record why. A voided invoice keeps its number, carries a reason, and shows an officer exactly what happened: this bill was raised, this bill was cancelled, here is the note. The series stays consecutive because the number was never removed.

Where GST is already charged and the customer has been given the invoice, a cancellation is not a void at all. It is a credit note under section 34 of the CGST Act, with its own number series and its own entry in your return. A refund handed over at the counter with the invoice torn up leaves your books saying one thing and your filing saying another.

What this looks like at the counter

None of this needs the person on the counter to know the rule. It needs the software to make the wrong thing hard and the right thing quick: a void that asks for a reason, a credit note where a refund has tax on it, and a number series nothing can reach into.

If you are running a till that lets anyone remove a bill, the gap is already in your books. It is worth checking tonight rather than in a year.

Questions people ask

Can I delete a GST invoice if the customer has not paid yet?

No. Once an invoice is issued, the serial number belongs to the series for that financial year. Void it with a reason instead, which keeps the number and records what happened. If tax has been charged and the invoice has been given to the customer, issue a credit note under CGST section 34.

What happens if my invoice numbers have gaps?

Gaps are visible to an officer and invite the question of what was in them. You cannot renumber the series to close a gap. The practical answer is to stop the deletions, keep the voided entries, and be able to show what each missing number was.

Does a gaming café need to put the place of supply on every bill?

No. Rule 46 asks for the place of supply, with the name of the State, when the supply is inter-State. A walk-in paying at your counter is normally an intra-State supply, so most counter bills do not need it, which is why it is easy to forget on the occasional bill that does.

Do I need a GSTIN to run a gaming café in India?

Once your aggregate turnover crosses the registration threshold for your state, unless another provision of the GST law makes registration compulsory for you. Supplying services across a state line does not by itself force registration below the threshold: Notification 10/2017-Integrated Tax exempts it. If you are not registered, you must not charge GST on your bills at all.