GST, Invoicing and Paperwork for Corporate Gifts

This guide is written for the person who has been handed a gifting requirement and is now responsible for the paperwork rather than the gift. It covers what to confirm before a PO goes out, and which questions are worth asking a supplier early because they are expensive to discover late.

It is not tax advice. Where a decision depends on how your organisation classifies an expense, that is a question for your own finance team — and any supplier who answers it confidently is answering a question they cannot see all of.

Confirm these four things before the PO#

The supplier is GST-registered, and you have the GSTIN. Ask for it in writing rather than taking it from a website footer. A supplier who cannot produce one immediately is a supplier whose invoice will not support a claim.

The invoice will be raised to the correct entity. Group structures make this a real problem: the entity that places the order, the entity that receives the goods and the entity that needs the invoice are not always the same. Fixing it afterwards means a credit note and a reissue.

The invoice format matches what your finance team needs. Specifically, whether you need an HSN-wise breakdown per line item. Hampers are the common trap here — see below.

Who pays freight, and whether it is invoiced separately. For multi-address dispatch this can be a material line rather than a rounding error.

Why hampers are invoiced line by line#

A mixed hamper is not one product. Sweets, drinkware, textiles and stationery attract GST at different rates, so a hamper containing several categories cannot honestly be invoiced at a single blended rate.

The practical consequence: ask for the quotation itself to be broken down by line, not just the invoice. A quote given as one number per hamper is one you cannot check, cannot compare against another supplier, and cannot hand to finance without going back for a breakdown.

If a supplier resists breaking the quote down, that is worth noticing. It is usually a sign the composition is not fixed yet.

E-way bills and multi-address dispatch#

For consignments above the applicable value threshold, an e-way bill is required for movement of goods. For a single bulk delivery to one office, this is routine.

For a gifting order split across a hundred home addresses, it is worth confirming explicitly who generates the documentation and how it maps to individual consignments, because the answer differs by supplier and by courier arrangement. This is the single most common source of surprise on a work-from-home gifting order.

Questions worth asking upfront#

A short list that saves a round trip later:

• What is your GSTIN, and can you share a sample invoice format?
• Will the quote be broken down by line item with HSN codes?
• Is freight included, and is it invoiced separately for multi-address orders?
• What are your payment terms, and is an advance required before production?
• Who is my single point of contact once the PO is raised?

That last one is not paperwork, but it is the one that determines how the other four get resolved when something moves.

Payment terms and advances#

Custom branded goods almost always require an advance, and the reason is straightforward: once a logo is debossed onto five hundred notebooks, they cannot be sold to anyone else. A supplier asking for an advance on branded production is behaving normally; one asking for full payment before artwork sign-off is not.

Agree the trigger points in writing — what is due on PO, what is due on artwork approval, what is due on dispatch — before production starts rather than during it.

What we do#

Curato is GST-registered and every order is fully invoiced, itemised by line. Quotes are broken down the same way, so the invoice matches the quote you approved rather than arriving as a new document. Multi-address dispatch is standard, tracked per recipient, and documented per consignment.

If your finance team has a required format, send it with the brief and the quote will come back in it. That is a much shorter conversation before the order than after it.

For the wider picture — budgets, minimums and lead times — the corporate gifting guide covers the commercial side, and how it works covers the process from brief to delivery.