Quotation format guide — Excel, Word, GST quotation.

What is a quotation?

A quotation (also called a quote or estimate) is a formal price proposal sent to a prospective buyer before the sale is agreed upon. It lists the goods or services, quantities, unit rates, applicable taxes (GST breakup for Indian businesses), payment terms, and a validity period.

Unlike an invoice, a quotation is not a tax document — it does not create a liability for GST, and the recipient cannot claim ITC on it. Its purpose is to give the buyer a clear, professional picture of the cost before they commit.

Quotation format in Excel

Excel is the most common starting point for small businesses creating quotations. A well-structured Excel quotation template includes separate columns for item description, HSN/SAC code, quantity, rate, discount, taxable value, GST rate, GST amount, and line total. Formulas handle the arithmetic so you only fill in the inputs.

The limitation of Excel: as your business grows, you end up copy-pasting quotations, re-typing the same items, and manually creating invoices from accepted quotes. Cloud software like TatvaBooks lets you convert a quotation to an invoice in one click — no re-entry.

Or skip the spreadsheet — generate quotations in TatvaBooks and convert to invoices in one click, with line items, HSN codes and GST carrying over automatically.

Quotation format in Word

Word templates work well when the quotation is more descriptive — service proposals, project bids, consulting engagements where each line item needs a paragraph of scope description rather than a single row. The trade-off is that Word has no built-in calculation — you compute totals separately and type them in, which is error-prone for itemised GST breakups.

For goods-heavy businesses with many line items, Excel or cloud software is better. For services with detailed scope descriptions, Word works if you double-check the numbers.

GST quotation format

A GST quotation includes your GSTIN, the buyer's GSTIN (for B2B), HSN/SAC codes on each line, and the tax breakup — CGST + SGST for intra-state or IGST for inter-state. While not legally required on a quotation, showing the GST breakup is essential for professional B2B proposals:

• The buyer sees the exact landed cost, not a vague “+ GST extra”.
• When the quotation converts to an invoice, the tax is already agreed upon — no disputes.
• The buyer's purchase team can verify the HSN codes and rates before approving.

Price quotation format

A price quotation emphasises the pricing structure — useful when you are quoting for bulk orders, tiered pricing, or long-term contracts. Beyond the standard quotation fields, include:

• Volume-based pricing tiers — e.g. ₹100/unit for 1-100 units, ₹90/unit for 101-500 units.
• Delivery charges — listed separately so the buyer sees the product cost vs logistics cost.
• Payment milestones — for large orders, tie payments to delivery stages.
• Price validity — commodity prices fluctuate; state how long the quoted price holds.

How to write a professional quotation

A quotation that converts is clear, complete and easy to say “yes” to. Here are the sections every professional quotation should include.

Quotation vs proforma invoice

These two documents are often confused. Both are pre-supply documents and neither is a tax invoice. The key difference is when they are used and what they signal.

For more on the proforma invoice format, see our proforma invoice section on the invoice format page.

From quotation to invoice — one click in TatvaBooks

The biggest pain with Excel and Word quotations is what happens after the client says yes. You open a blank invoice, re-type every line item, look up HSN codes again, recalculate GST, and hope the numbers match. In TatvaBooks, the workflow is:

1. Create a quotation with itemised pricing, HSN codes and GST breakup.
2. Share as PDF with the client for approval.
3. Convert to tax invoice in one click — all line items, rates and taxes carry over.
4. The invoice posts to your books — GST flows into GSTR-1 workings, stock adjusts if inventory is tracked.

The quotation stays linked to the invoice for a complete audit trail. No spreadsheets, no re-typing, no mismatched numbers.

Frequently asked questions