The quote shouldn't wait till you're back at the office.

A GST quotation should carry the same core details as the tax invoice that will follow it: your GSTIN and the buyer's, a description and HSN or SAC code for each item, the taxable value, and the tax split as CGST plus SGST for a sale within your state, or IGST for a sale to another state. Just as important is when it goes out. In field sales, the quote that arrives the same day as the visit is the one that gets forwarded to the buyer's boss. The one that arrives on Thursday competes with whoever got there first.

This guide covers what to put on a GST quotation, how the tax split works, why quotes from the field get delayed, and how to close that gap.

Not tax advice: this is a practical guide for sales teams. Check your invoicing and GST treatment with your accountant.

Is there an official GST quotation format?

No. GST law sets out what a tax invoice must contain, in Rule 46 of the CGST Rules (CBIC invoice rules). We found no equivalent rule for quotations: a quote is a commercial offer, not a tax document.

That doesn't make the format a free-for-all. If the quote is accepted, an invoice follows, and that invoice has to meet the rules. A quotation built on the same fields means the buyer's purchase team sees the same numbers twice, and accounts doesn't have to rework anything when the order comes in.

What a GST quotation should include

Use the tax invoice as the template (CBIC overview of Rule 46). For a B2B quote, that means:

1. Your company name, address and GSTIN.
2. The buyer's name, address and GSTIN, if they're registered. On an invoice, a missing or wrong buyer GSTIN is a real problem for the buyer's input tax credit, so get it right at the quote stage.
3. A quote number and date. These aren't required by GST for a quote, but without them the follow-up call starts with “which quote?”
4. Description, quantity and unit for each item.
5. HSN code (goods) or SAC (services). On B2B invoices, businesses with turnover up to ₹5 crore in the previous year must show at least 4 digits, and those above ₹5 crore must show 6 (Notification 78/2020 – Central Tax). Use the same digits on the quote.
6. Taxable value per line, after any discount.
7. The GST rate and the tax split (see below).
8. Place of supply, the buyer's state, which decides the split.
9. Total amount, with the tax shown separately rather than buried in one number.
10. Your terms: validity, delivery, payment.

CGST, SGST and IGST: the split in one paragraph

Indian quotations show tax broken out, not as one figure. When you and the place of supply are in the same state, it's an intra-state supply and the tax is split equally into CGST (central) and SGST (state), so an 18% rate shows as 9% CGST plus 9% SGST. When the place of supply is another state, it's an inter-state supply and the whole rate is charged as IGST (CBIC IGST flier). The total is the same either way. What changes is which lines appear, and a quote with the wrong split looks careless to a buyer's accounts team.

Why quotes from the field go out late

The pattern is familiar to anyone who has sold on the road:

• The visit goes well. The buyer asks for a price “by tomorrow”.
• The salesperson can't quote on the spot. The template is a Word or Excel file on the office PC, and the current price list lives with someone else.
• The details are on a visiting card in a pocket. The buyer's GSTIN, address and contact person get retyped later, sometimes wrongly.
• A discount needs a yes. The salesperson offered 5% to close. The owner has to approve it, and the owner is at another meeting.
• The quote goes out two or three days later, from a template that may not match the latest price list. By then the conversation has cooled.

None of this is about effort. The quote just lives somewhere the salesperson isn't.

Closing the gap: quoting from where the deal happens

The fix is to keep the quote next to the deal, in a tool the salesperson has on their phone.

Capture the buyer properly, once. Point the phone at the buyer's visiting card, and the company record is created with its details, including the GSTIN when it's printed on the card, with a duplicate check first. That's how the visiting card scanner in Field CRM works, and it means the GSTIN on the quote comes from the card, not from memory.

Build the quote inside the CRM. In Field CRM, GST quotations are built on your own letterhead with your standard terms, numbered per account from Q-00001. Field CRM picks the split automatically from the buyer's state: CGST plus SGST for a buyer in your state, IGST for a buyer in another. It's mobile-first and runs in the browser, so the salesperson isn't waiting for the office PC.

Route discounts for approval, not phone calls. Discounts go through an approval workflow, so the margin decision stays with the right person and the salesperson isn't left guessing.

Send it, then follow it up. The finished quote prints or saves as a PDF, ready to send the way the customer prefers. Because it's tied to the company and the deal, it shows up in the pipeline rather than in someone's sent folder. On the Advance plan, quotation reports show count and value by status.

What Field CRM doesn't do is decide your tax treatment. Your rates and codes are your responsibility and your accountant's.

A same-day quote checklist

Before your next visit, check you can do all of this from a phone:

1. Create the buyer's record, with GSTIN, without retyping the card.
2. Pick items from the current price list, with HSN/SAC and rate already set.
3. See the correct split (CGST + SGST, or IGST) for the buyer's state.
4. Apply a discount and get it approved without a phone call.
5. Send a numbered PDF on your letterhead before you leave the customer's premises.

If any step needs the office, that's where your quotes are losing days. For a broader test of field CRMs, see the five-minute buyer's test.

In short

There's no official GST quotation format, but there's a sensible one: mirror the tax invoice, with both GSTINs, HSN/SAC, taxable value, the right CGST/SGST or IGST split, and place of supply. The bigger win is timing. A quote that goes out from the field on the day of the visit catches the buyer while they still care.

Frequently asked questions