Advocate Fee Bill Generator (India)

About the Advocate Fee Bill Generator (India)

A fee bill from an advocate has to say who is billed, for which matter, which fees and which expenses, and what happens about GST. This tool makes the bill on your letterhead and keeps a numbered bill register on your own device. The items are professional fees (appearances, drafting, conferences, a retainer), clerkage and other charges, and expenses paid for the client (court fee, stamp paper, certified copies), which are shown apart from your fee, at cost. The advances received and the balance due are worked out, and so is the TDS if your client deducts it from your fees. The amount is written in words, as Indian bills write it.

GST is stated, not guessed. Legal services to a business entity are under reverse charge where serial number 2 of Notification 13/2017-Central Tax (Rate) covers them (an individual advocate’s representational services before a court, tribunal or authority, a firm of advocates’ legal services): the client pays the tax and the bill says so. Legal services to a person who is not a business entity, to an advocate or a partnership firm of advocates, or to a business entity with turnover up to ₹20 lakh in the last year are exempt (Notification 12/2017-Central Tax (Rate), Sl. No. 45). Tax is charged on the bill only when you choose that and have entered your GSTIN. The page suggests a treatment from the kind of client, names the notification on the bill, and leaves the decision to you.

Bills are numbered when they are issued, in one series for each financial year, within the 16 characters a tax invoice number may have. A cancelled bill keeps its number. Fees agreed and received are not kept a second time: load a case from the Advocate Case Diary and its payments become the advances of the bill. The free preview shows the bill with a mark across every page; a Pro pass unlocks the PDF, printing and the text. The register itself, its CSV files and its backups are never locked.

Common uses

• Advocates and law firms in India who bill in a word processor or a spreadsheet and want numbered, consistent bills.
• Chambers that bill business clients under reverse charge and individuals under the exemption, and want the bill to say which.
• Advocates who keep their fee ledger in the case diary and want the advances on a bill to come from it.
• Registered firms that charge GST and need CGST, SGST or IGST worked out and printed correctly.

How GST is treated on the bill

You choose one of four treatments for each bill. Reverse charge: serial number 2 of the table of Notification 13/2017-Central Tax (Rate) names the supplier, an individual advocate (a senior advocate included) or a firm of advocates, and the recipient who pays the tax, any business entity located in the taxable territory. For an individual advocate the entry reads “representational services before any court, tribunal or authority, directly or indirectly”, including where the contract was entered into through another advocate or a firm of advocates; for a firm of advocates it reads “legal services”. The explanation to the notification treats the business entity that is the litigant, applicant or petitioner as the person who receives the legal services. The exemption notification defines “legal service” as any service provided in relation to advice, consultancy or assistance in any branch of law, in any manner, including representational services before any court, tribunal or authority. Exempt: serial number 45 of Notification 12/2017-Central Tax (Rate) exempts legal services by a partnership firm of advocates or an individual advocate other than a senior advocate to an advocate or partnership firm of advocates, to any person other than a business entity, or to a business entity with an aggregate turnover up to ₹20 lakh (₹10 lakh in special category States) in the preceding financial year, and the same for a senior advocate except the services to an advocate. GST charged: legal services are heading 9982 (group 99821) and taxed at 9% central tax and 9% State tax (Notification 11/2017-Central Tax (Rate), serial 20), so 18% in all; the tool offers it only if you have entered a GSTIN, and works out IGST when the place of supply is in another State. No GST statement prints nothing about GST.

Whether a client is a business entity, how much turnover it had, and whether your own firm is a firm of advocates in the sense of these notifications are matters of fact that you know and the page does not: it names what you choose and warns of the combinations that do not fit. Notifications are amended; read the current text on the CBIC site before you rely on a bill, and ask your tax adviser when in doubt.

Expenses paid for the client

Rule 33 of the CGST Rules lets a supplier leave out of the value of a supply the costs it pays as a pure agent of the recipient, if three conditions hold: you act as the client’s pure agent when you pay the third party on the client’s authorisation; the payment is separately indicated in the bill; and what you procure is in addition to the services you supply on your own account. A pure agent is one who has a contract with the recipient to act so, does not hold title to or use what is procured, and receives only the actual amount spent. The rule’s own illustration is a corporate services firm that handles the legal work of incorporating a company and recovers from the company the registration fee and the fee for approving its name, paid to the Registrar of Companies and levied on the company itself: a disbursement, not part of the value of the firm’s supply. This tool shows such expenses apart from your fee, at cost, and does not tax them. Mark as “Other charge” anything you charge for that is not an expense paid at cost for the client.

Numbers, cancelled bills and corrections

A tax invoice number is consecutive, may use letters, digits, a hyphen and a slash, is unique for a financial year and has at most 16 characters (CGST Rules, rule 46(b)). The register gives a number only when a bill is issued, so drafts leave no gaps: “FB/26-27/0001” is the prefix, the financial year (April to March) and a running number, and a new financial year starts again at 1. An issued bill is not edited. To correct one, cancel it (its number stays in the register, and the bill prints as cancelled) and make a new bill from “Copy as a new draft”. The register totals the issued bills of a financial year, with the tax charged and the balance due.

Your clients’ data stays on this device

The register is kept in this browser’s storage (IndexedDB) on this device and is never uploaded. With a passcode, every record is stored encrypted with AES-256-GCM under a key that only your passcode opens (PBKDF2-SHA-256, 600,000 iterations, as the OWASP Password Storage Cheat Sheet recommends). The encrypted backup moves it to another device. A lost passcode or passphrase cannot be recovered by anyone. The case diary is only read, on this device, when you ask for its cases.

Limitations

• India only: amounts are in rupees, with GST and Indian State codes. Services to a client outside India (exports) are not covered.
• The page does not decide the GST treatment or whether you are a firm of advocates in the sense of the notifications; it prints the treatment you choose, with the notification behind it. The reverse charge entry for an individual advocate names representational services before a court, tribunal or authority: for advice or drafting alone, ask your tax adviser whether it applies. The page warns about this but cannot know your services.
• It is not a GST e-invoice: there is no invoice reference number or QR code. Advances received are not taxed separately.
• TDS is a rate you set; it is worked out on the fees and charges, not on GST or on expenses shown separately.
• One device: the register does not sync. Move it with the encrypted backup. The case diary is read, never changed, and its amounts are copied only when it keeps them in rupees.

Privacy

On this device; its files download once

Clients, matters, bills and bank details stay in this browser on your device (IndexedDB), encrypted when you set a passcode. Bills are made on the device and backups are encrypted on the device. Nothing is uploaded; the case diary is read only on this device.