Restaurant bills, written the way your customers expect
Walk into almost any family restaurant, dhaba or small eatery and the bill still arrives on a page torn from a bill book: the restaurant's name printed at the top, the dishes written in the waiter's hand, a quick column of numbers and a total circled at the bottom. Customers trust that format because they have seen it all their lives. The trouble is the work behind it — adding up a long order at a busy table, working out tax, keeping the writing neat and making sure the carbon copy is legible for your own records.
This restaurant bill generator keeps the familiar handwritten look and takes the arithmetic off your hands. You type the dishes, quantities and rates; the amounts, subtotal, GST, service charge, discount and grand total are calculated as you go, and the total is written out in words. When you are done you can print it, save it as a PDF sized for an A4 sheet, an A5 bill book page or an 80 mm thermal roll, or send it as an image on WhatsApp.
Restaurant bill format: what goes where
A good restaurant bill format reads from top to bottom in the same order a customer checks it. Every template on this page follows that order, and you can rename or remove any line you do not need.
- Header: restaurant name, a one-line description (such as "Pure Veg · North & South Indian"), address and phone number. If you are registered for GST, your GSTIN goes here too.
- Bill details: bill number, date and time, table number, number of guests and the name of the waiter or captain. A takeaway or delivery bill can replace the table number with "Parcel" and the customer's phone number.
- Item table: serial number, dish name, quantity, rate and amount. Half and full portions are easiest to read when written as separate lines — "Paneer Tikka (half)" and "Paneer Tikka (full)".
- Totals: subtotal, any discount, GST (split into CGST and SGST in India), an optional service charge or tip line, round-off and the grand total.
- Amount in words: "Rupees One Thousand Thirty Only" — it prevents a total from being altered and is still expected on handwritten bills.
- Footer: payment mode (cash, card or UPI), a thank-you line and the cashier's signature or the restaurant stamp.
How to write a restaurant bill, step by step
- Choose a template. The red bill book and carbon-copy styles look like a traditional order pad; the counter slip is narrow like a thermal-printer receipt; the tax invoice style suits restaurants that show GST in detail.
- Enter your restaurant's details once. Click the name, address and phone number on the bill and type over them. Your bill is saved in this browser, so your header is still there next time.
- Add the order. Click any dish to change it, use Add item for more lines, and type quantities and rates. Each line amount is quantity × rate, worked out for you.
- Apply tax, discount and charges. In Bill settings, switch on tax and enter your GST rate, and add a discount (percentage or a fixed amount) or a packing charge for parcels.
- Check the total and the words. The grand total and the amount in words update with every change — no need to re-add the column.
- Sign and download. Add a drawn signature or the restaurant stamp, then download a PNG, JPG, PDF or Word file, or print.
Restaurant bill with GST: rates and rules in India
Whether GST appears on your bill — and the restaurant bill GST rate you use — depends on your registration and where you serve food. These are the common cases; GST rates and notifications change from time to time, so confirm the current position with your accountant or on the CBIC website before you print a new bill book.
- Stand-alone restaurants (including takeaway and home delivery) charge 5% GST — 2.5% CGST plus 2.5% SGST — without input tax credit.
- Restaurants inside hotels where any room is priced above ₹7,500 a night charge 18% GST, with input tax credit.
- Restaurants under the composition scheme pay tax on their turnover themselves and cannot add GST to the customer's bill. Their bill is a "bill of supply" and should say "Composition taxable person, not eligible to collect tax on supplies".
- Orders through food delivery apps — for these, the app collects and pays the GST, so the restaurant's own bill to the app is handled differently from a dine-in bill.
- Small bills: a registered restaurant does not have to issue a tax invoice for a supply under ₹200 to an unregistered customer who does not ask for one, but it must then make a consolidated invoice for those sales at the end of the day.
A GST bill also needs a unique, consecutive bill number (up to 16 characters), the date, your GSTIN, the description of the supply and the tax amounts. Restaurant service falls under SAC 9963, which some restaurants print on the bill.
How to calculate GST on a restaurant bill
GST is worked out on the value of the food after any discount. Here is a restaurant bill example for a family dinner, calculated the same way the generator does it:
| Item | Qty | Rate (₹) | Amount (₹) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paneer Butter Masala | 1 | 240 | 240 |
| Dal Tadka | 1 | 160 | 160 |
| Butter Naan | 4 | 45 | 180 |
| Jeera Rice | 1 | 140 | 140 |
| Sweet Lassi | 2 | 70 | 140 |
| Subtotal | 860 | ||
| Discount 10% | − 86 | ||
| CGST 2.5% on 774 | 19.35 | ||
| SGST 2.5% on 774 | 19.35 | ||
| Round off | + 0.30 | ||
| Grand total | 813 | ||
In words: Rupees Eight Hundred Thirteen Only. To reproduce it, add two tax rows in Bill settings — CGST at 2.5% and SGST at 2.5% — and a 10% discount; the generator applies the discount first and then the tax, giving ₹812.70. To round to the nearest rupee, add a ₹0.30 charge named "Round off" (or a discount line when rounding down).
Service charge and tips
Under the Central Consumer Protection Authority's 2022 guidelines, a restaurant in India cannot add a service charge to the bill automatically or by default, cannot collect it under another name, and cannot refuse entry or service to a customer who does not want to pay it. Customers can ask for it to be removed and can complain to the National Consumer Helpline (1915). The Delhi High Court upheld these guidelines in 2025. If a guest chooses to tip, show it as a separate line — the generator's charge rows let you enter a tip as a fixed amount or a percentage, clearly labelled, so the customer sees exactly what they are paying for.
Outside India, the rules differ. In the United States, tax is set by the state and city and a tip line is normally left blank for the guest to fill in; in the UK and much of Europe, an optional service charge is usually printed with the word "discretionary". Change the currency in Bill settings and rename the tax and tip lines to match.
Restaurant bill format in Word or Excel vs. this generator
Many restaurant owners search for a restaurant bill format in Word or a restaurant bill format in Excel, download a template, and then spend time fixing formulas and fonts. This generator does the same job without a file to manage:
Need the bill in Word? Click Word under the bill to download it as a .docx file, at the same A4, A5 or 80 mm thermal size as the PDF. It opens in Microsoft Word and Google Docs. The bill is placed in the file as a picture, so make any changes here and download it again.
- No formulas to break — totals, tax, discount, round-off and the amount in words are always correct.
- A handwritten look that a typed Word file cannot give you, with ink colours, bill book paper and a carbon-copy finish.
- Print-ready sizes — A4 and A5 PDFs, or a restaurant bill format for thermal printer rolls: a PDF exactly 80 mm wide.
- Works on a phone, so a small restaurant can make a bill at the counter without a computer.
If you keep your accounts in Excel, download the bill as a PDF for the customer and note the bill number, date and total in your sheet.
Food bill format for parcels, home delivery and catering
A takeaway or delivery bill — often called a food bill — uses the same format with a few changes. A food bill with GST follows the same tax rules as a dine-in bill from the same restaurant. Replace the table number with the customer's name and phone number, add a packing charge line, and write the delivery address under the bill details. For a party order or small catering job, add a line for advance received; the generator shows the balance due automatically. If you take orders by phone, sending the bill as an image on WhatsApp before the food leaves the kitchen avoids disputes about the amount at the door.
Restaurant bill book or a digital bill?
A printed restaurant bill book with carbon copies is still common because it needs no electricity and the copy stays with you. Its weak points are maths mistakes, unreadable writing and lost books. A good middle path is to keep the bill book look but make the bill here: you get a neat handwritten-style bill, the totals are right, and you can download a copy for your records every time. Keep copies in date order and number your bills consecutively — it makes month-end accounting and GST returns much easier.
Tips for clear, professional restaurant bills
- Use dish names your customers recognise — the same names as your menu, not kitchen shorthand.
- Show quantity and rate for every line, so a guest can check the bill without asking the waiter.
- Print the time for dine-in bills; it helps when a table orders more than once.
- Show tax separately rather than hiding it in item prices, if your menu prices are before tax.
- Keep the bill number running across days and do not reuse numbers, even for cancelled bills — mark those "Cancelled" instead.
- Write the amount in words on larger bills and corporate bills; it is expected and harder to alter.
Who uses this restaurant bill maker
Small and family restaurants that want a neater bill than a hand-filled book; new restaurants that need bills before their billing software is set up; cloud kitchens that send bills on WhatsApp; food stalls at fairs and events; hospitality and hotel-management students practising bill formats; and designers creating restaurant mockups or props. If you run a different kind of food business, the cafe bill, dhaba bill, bar bill and hotel bill templates have fields made for those places, and the handwritten bill generator lists all 36 bill types.
A note on using restaurant bills honestly
A restaurant bill is a record of a real sale. Make bills for meals your restaurant actually served, with the amounts the customer actually paid. Creating a bill for a meal that did not happen — for example to claim food allowance or reimbursement — is fraud, and employers increasingly check bills against restaurants' records. Practice bills and design mockups are fine; just do not present them as genuine.