Free Receipt Generator
Proof that a payment was made: the same clean document as an invoice, settled, with the payment method recorded. Download it as a PDF — no account, no watermark.
Invoice or receipt?
They look almost identical and mean opposite things. An invoice asks for money that is owed and ends with a balance due. A receipt confirms money already received and ends with an amount paid. That single line is why this tool changes the wording rather than letting you send an invoice with the total relabelled: a receipt that says "balance due" invites your customer to pay a second time.
The form above is the one the invoice and quote pages use, with the labels set by the document type: the second party is "Received from" rather than "Bill to", the optional second date is "Paid on" rather than a due date, and a "Paid by" field stands where the invoice has "Already paid". Everything below the line items — tax, discount, shipping, notes — behaves the same way on all three documents.
Guide: Receipts, quotes, and the bottom-line label sets the three documents side by side and explains what each one asserts. This page stays with what the receipt generator computes and prints, figure by figure.
What the bottom line is called, and why
The document builder carries a fixed heading and a fixed bottom-line label for each kind. A receipt is headed RECEIPT and its final figure is called "Amount paid", against "Balance due" on an invoice and "Quote total" on a quote. The label comes from the document type rather than from a box you type into, because the three documents are usually copies of one another, and a label left over from last month's invoice is the easiest thing on the page to miss.
On a receipt the figure beside that label is the document total. There is no "Already paid" box to fill, and the builder keeps an amount paid only when the document is an invoice. A fictional plumbing job shows the difference. Two lines — a kitchen tap replacement at $240.00 and a call-out at $60.00 — built as an invoice with $100.00 received as a deposit come to a total of $300.00, show the deposit as a deduction, and end with "Balance due" of $200.00. The same two lines built as a receipt once the job is settled discard the amount-paid input — the builder records $0.00 for it — and end with "Amount paid" of $300.00.
That is the first common misreading of a receipt: expecting it to carry a balance. It cannot, because by the time a receipt is issued there is nothing left to owe on it. Money still outstanding belongs on an invoice, where the "Already paid" field subtracts what has arrived and the balance due is what remains.
A cash receipt, line by line
Cash is the case where the receipt is often the only record either side will hold. A fictional one: Hollowell Garden Services clears a garden for M. Okafor on 18 September 2026 — 6.5 hours of labour at $38.00 and 2 loads of green-waste disposal at $45.00, paid in cash on the day. The engine computes each line first, $247.00 and $90.00, and the subtotal is the sum of those two printed amounts, $337.00. No tax mode is selected, so no tax line prints and the total is $337.00.
The number field was left blank, so the builder issued RCT-20260918 — the receipt
prefix followed by the date — and the heading reads RECEIPT. The paid-by text is passed
to the template as "Cash", the second date prints as the paid-on date, and the
bottom line reads Amount paid: $337.00. A
reader with a calculator can start from the two printed lines and arrive at the same figure,
which is the property every number on the page is built to keep.
How the figures are computed
Three rules produce every total on this site, and they are the same rules on a receipt as on
an invoice. First, money is held in whole cents. Binary floating point cannot represent
decimals exactly — 0.1 + 0.2 evaluates to 0.30000000000000004 — and on
a long column those fractions of a cent accumulate into a subtotal that disagrees with the lines
above it. Integer cents make the arithmetic exact. Second, rounding happens once, at the line: quantity
× unit price is rounded to a cent immediately, half away from zero, and the subtotal is the sum
of those rounded lines, so the printed lines always add up to the printed subtotal. Third, the order
of operations is fixed: subtotal → discount → taxable base → tax → shipping → total. The discount
comes off before tax, because tax is computed on what was actually charged; shipping is added after
tax, which is a stated simplification.
A bicycle shop's card receipt walks through all three. A full service at $95.00, 2 pairs of brake pads at $24.50 each, and a gear cable set at $12.99 make lines of $95.00, $49.00 and $12.99, for a subtotal of $156.99. A 10% discount is taken on that subtotal as one figure and rounded once to the cent: $15.70 off, leaving a taxable base of $141.29. Tax added on top at 8.25% is computed on that base — not on the undiscounted subtotal — and comes to $11.66. The total is $152.95, and on the receipt that figure is the amount paid.
When the price already contains the tax
Set tax to "already included" and the engine does something different: it does not add anything. A tutor's receipt in pounds — 1.5 hours at £48.00 and a printed workbook at £18.00 — has lines of £72.00 and £18.00 and a subtotal of £90.00. With 20% already inside those prices, the total stays £90.00, and the engine reports that £15.00 of it is tax, printed under the label "VAT (included)" because the label field was left blank in this mode. The tax is found by dividing the gross by 1 + the rate and taking the difference, never by subtracting a percentage.
That is the second common misreading: taking 20% of the price instead. Rounded the same way, that gives £18.00, which overstates the tax by £3.00. Which of the three modes applies to a given sale, and at what rate, is not something this tool decides; the sales tax vs. VAT guide explains the two conventions, and the methodology page states the arithmetic.
Shipping, and quantities that are not whole
Shipping is the one figure added after tax. Kiln & Co. sends J. Lindqvist
3 ceramic planters at
$22.00 and 2
bags of potting mix at $7.50: lines of
$66.00 and
$15.00, subtotal
$81.00. "Sales tax" at
6% is $4.86, computed on
the goods alone. Shipping of $9.95 is then added, for a
total of
$95.81, paid by Bank transfer, ref 8891 and numbered RCT-0142 as typed. Some jurisdictions tax freight and this tool
does not model that; where it applies, enter shipping as a line item instead, so it falls inside
the taxable base.
Quantities are held to four decimal places, so billed time does not drift: proofreading at 2.3333 hours and $60.00 an hour comes to $140.00. A sub-cent unit price is rounded to a printable price before it is multiplied, for the same reason: photocopies entered at 0.125 print at $0.13 each, and 350 of them make $45.50. The printed price times the printed quantity is the printed amount, and the two lines sum to $185.50.
Record how it was paid
The paid-by field is the part people leave blank and later wish they had not. "Cash", "Visa ending 4242", "bank transfer, ref 8891" — months later this is what lets either side reconcile the receipt against a statement. For cash it matters most of all, because the receipt is the only record the payment happened. The builder keeps the text only on a receipt, trims it, and discards it when the field is blank, so the templates have nothing to print for it.
What the generator checks before it builds
The builder is deliberately permissive about the parties and strict about the money, because a missing address is an inconvenience and a wrong total is a dispute. Both names are required; the address blocks are free text and optional. Every line needs a description, and a blank one is refused in the engine's own words: "Every line needs a description." Prices and quantities cannot be negative, so no line can subtract from the document; the refusal reads "Unit price cannot be negative." A document holds up to 200 lines, and the engine says so itself when 201 are added: "A document holds at most 200 lines." A tax rate runs up to 100% and a discount up to 100%, each with at most four decimal places; beyond the ceiling the refusal is "The tax rate cannot exceed 100%." A discount can take a document to zero and no further: a replacement filter at $40.00 supplied under warranty with a 100% discount shows a discount of $40.00 and a total of $0.00.
Dates must be real calendar dates, and the paid-on date cannot precede the receipt date: "The second date cannot be before the document date." Notes are capped, and the cap is stated when it is crossed: "Notes are limited to 600 characters." Prices accept a dot or a comma as the decimal mark, ignore a currency sign typed into the box, and are limited to two decimal places; quantities and rates take four. The 10 currency symbols are labels printed on the document — no conversion is performed and no exchange rate is applied, so every figure stays in the currency you entered.
What this generator does not do
It is a document generator, not an accounting system and not tax advice. It does not file anything, track payment, chase late payers, apply per-jurisdiction tax rules, validate tax numbers, handle multi-currency conversion, or number your documents sequentially across sessions. It does not decide which tax treatment applies to your sale, and it does not know what a receipt must carry where you trade — the arithmetic is fixed, the labels are yours. It stores nothing: the document is assembled and drawn into a PDF on your own device, and closing the tab discards it. The guides cover the surrounding questions — which document to issue, how to number them, and why the bottom-line label changes — and the methodology page sets out every rule above in full.
Questions
What makes a receipt different from an invoice?
Timing and meaning. An invoice is a request for money that is owed; a receipt is confirmation that money has already been received. A receipt therefore shows an amount paid rather than a balance due, and records how it was paid. Sending the wrong one tells your customer either that a settled bill is outstanding, or that an unpaid one is settled.
What should a receipt include?
Who paid, who received it, what for, how much, when, and by what method. The payment method matters more than people expect: it is what lets either side match the receipt against a bank or card statement months later.
Is this valid as proof of payment?
A receipt is evidence, not a legal instrument — what makes it credible is that it is accurate, dated, identifies both parties, and matches a real payment record. This tool produces a clear, complete document; whether your jurisdiction requires particular wording, a tax number or sequential numbering is a question for your accountant.
Can I make a receipt for a cash payment?
Yes, and it is the case where a receipt matters most, because cash leaves no other trail. Put "Cash" in the paid-by field, keep the numbering sequential, and keep your own copy — for cash, your receipt often is the only record either side has.
Why is there no "Already paid" field on a receipt?
Because a receipt's amount paid is its total. The document builder keeps an amount paid only on an invoice, where it is subtracted to leave a balance due; on a receipt the figure is discarded, and the bottom line is the lines less any discount, plus any tax added on top and any shipping. Money still outstanding belongs on an invoice, with what has arrived in its Already paid field.
What number does a receipt get if I leave the field blank?
A prefix of RCT and the receipt date: a receipt dated 18 September 2026 with the number left blank becomes RCT-20260918. Type your own to keep a sequence running, because nothing is stored between sessions and the tool cannot count for you.
Can a receipt show tax?
Yes, in the same three ways as an invoice: no tax line, tax added on top of the prices, or tax already contained in them. Added tax is computed on the subtotal after any discount and printed as its own line; included tax is extracted by dividing by one plus the rate, and the total does not change. The label is yours to type — Sales tax, VAT, GST — and which treatment applies to your sale is not something this tool decides.
Does the "Paid on" date have to be filled in?
No, it is optional. If you fill it in, it cannot be earlier than the receipt date — the builder refuses with "The second date cannot be before the document date." — and it prints as the date payment was received rather than as a due date. The receipt date itself is required and must be a real calendar date.
A document generator, not accounting or tax advice. It does not store anything — download the PDF before closing the tab.