Invoice vs. receipt vs. quote

The three documents on this site are nearly the same page of paper: same layout, same addresses, same column of line items, same arithmetic underneath. What separates them is a claim about money. An invoice requests payment that has not been made. A receipt confirms payment that has. A quote prices work that has not been agreed to yet. Everything else follows from which of those three claims you are making.

An invoice requests payment

An invoice is issued by the seller, normally once the goods are delivered or the work is done, and it says: this amount is owed, here is what it covers, pay it by this date. It carries a document number so both sides can refer to the same paper months later, an issue date, and usually a due date that says when payment is expected. The invoice generator ends with a balance due, and its second date is the due date.

A receipt confirms payment already made

A receipt asserts the opposite of an invoice: nothing is owed, this much was paid, on this date, by this method. The seller issues it after the money has moved; the buyer keeps it. On a cash job it is often the only record either side will hold, with no bank statement behind it, which is why the payment method is worth stating rather than assuming. The receipt generator ends with an amount paid and has a Paid by field for it.

A quote prices work not yet agreed

A quote goes out before anything happens. It is the seller telling a prospective customer what the job would cost if they went ahead — the only one of the three that describes a hypothetical. Its second date is a valid-until date rather than a due date, because a price given in March need not still be on offer in November. The quote generator ends with a quote total, which is a price, not a demand.

How much a quote commits you to varies. Whether an accepted quote forms a binding contract at that price depends on the jurisdiction, and on what the quote itself says: a document reading “fixed price, valid 30 days” and one reading “estimate only, subject to survey” are read differently under the same law. Some trades treat a quote as fixed and an estimate as approximate, but that is a convention rather than a legal test. If the figure is large enough that being held to it would hurt, the conditions written into the notes — capped at 600 characters here — tend to matter more than the word at the top of the page, and they are worth checking against the rules where you trade.

Why the bottom line carries the whole distinction

The final line is not cosmetic. A receipt reading “balance due” invites your customer to pay a second time. A quote reading “balance due” demands money that is not owed yet. The error is easy to make, because these documents are often copies of each other: a receipt built from last month's invoice keeps the invoice's total label unless someone changes it. Each generator here sets the wording from the document type instead. The arithmetic above the line is identical in all three — subtotal, discount, tax, shipping, total — and is set out on the methodology page.

The usual sequence

• Quote — the seller prices the work. Nothing is owed.
• Acceptance — the customer agrees to go ahead.
• Work or delivery — the thing being paid for happens.
• Invoice — the seller requests payment. Balance due.
• Payment — the money moves.
• Receipt — the seller confirms it arrived. Amount paid.

Plenty of transactions skip steps. An over-the-counter sale is payment and receipt, with no invoice or quote. Deposit work runs the loop twice: quote, deposit invoice, deposit receipt, then the work and a final invoice for the remainder. Where part of the money has already arrived, the “Already paid” field subtracts it, so the balance due is what is genuinely outstanding.

Where a proforma invoice fits

A proforma invoice looks like an invoice and is not acting as one. It is sent before the sale is final — to let a customer raise a purchase order, to accompany goods through customs, or to ask for payment in advance — and it does not record a completed sale. Tax systems generally treat it as a preliminary document rather than the invoice that supports an accounting entry, though what counts as a valid invoice differs by country. In substance it sits closer to a quote than an invoice; the real invoice follows once the sale is done. This site does not produce one: use a quote for work not yet agreed, or an invoice with advance-payment terms in the notes.

Deciding which one you need

One question usually settles it: has the money moved? If it has, issue a receipt. If it has not but the work is agreed, issue an invoice. If neither the money nor the agreement exists yet, issue a quote. What a document must contain to satisfy a tax authority is a separate question: required labels, registration numbers, and numbering rules vary by country and sometimes by state, and this tool applies none of them for you. What to put on an invoice covers the fields most systems expect, but the answer that binds you is your own jurisdiction's, not this page. Nothing here is tax or legal advice.