A minimum 6-digit HSN code is compulsory for taxpayers with an AATO of Rs. 5 crores and above from December 15, 2023
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E-Invoicing aka Electronic Invoicing is an electronic authentication mechanism under GST. Under the mechanism, all the B2B invoices generated by a business (agg. turnover > ₹50 CR in a F.Y.) will have to be authenticated on the GSTN portal, electronically. Furthermore, to manage these invoices, the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) will issue a unique identification number – Invoice Registration Number (IRN) for every invoice.
The mandate, that is introduced in phases, came into effect from 1st October 2020 for companies with turnover > ₹500 CR and from 1st January 2020 for companies with turnover > ₹100 CR. And now, the mandate gets extended to companies with > ₹50 CR turnover from 1st April 2021.
The businesses need to be prepared for e-invoicing implementation. While mainly perceived as technical change and low impact for business users, the organisations need to take some key decisions for integrating e-invoicing in their routine business operations without major disruptions.
We have prepared a comprehensive e-book that aims to cover the contours of e-invoicing in India, impact on businesses and IT systems, the key decisions to be taken and some recommendations for being future-ready.
An eInvoice under GST refers to any invoice generated through any accounting or billing software, which is reported and authenticated by the GSTN.
The invoice registration Portal (IRP) is the dedicated portal assigned by the GSTN for invoice reporting. In order to ensure authenticity, the IRP issues a unique Invoice Reference number (IRN).
No, only the taxpayer’s who have an aggregate turnover of INR 100cr or more need to generate an eInvoice.
No, Businesses will continue to generate e-invoices on their internal systems – whether ERP or their accounting / billing systems or any other application. The e-invoicing mechanism only specifies the invoice schema and standard so as to be inter-operable amongst all accounting/billing software and all businesses.
The invoice schema has to be maintained and invoices generated using this schema by the taxpayer himself. The GST portal or Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) will NOT provide facility to generate invoices. IRP is only to report the invoice data.
No, same e-invoice schema will be used by all kinds of businesses. The schema has mandatory and non-mandatory fields. Mandatory field has to be filled by all taxpayers. Non-mandatory field is for the business to choose. It covers all most all business needs and specific sectors of business may choose to use the non-mandatory field as applicable for their business or the Business eco-system.
The eInvoice shall be generated on the seller’s system, not on the government portal. However, once the eInvoice is validated and uploaded into the GST ANX-1 it will be visible to the counter party in his ANX. Thereafter it will be visible and available for the entire financial year and archived.
On the other hand, invoice data on IRP will be available for 24 hours only.
The businesses will generate the invoice at their system and hence that will not impact the servers of IRP. The capacity of the system at IRP shall be built so as to handle the envisaged loads of simultaneous upload based on data reported in GSTR1 for last two years. Subsequently, multiple invoice registrars will be made available that will be able to distribute the load for invoice registration.
Since the invoice generation is to happen at the business end, this can be built into the ERP or invoicing system of the seller. Most of such software provides this facility in the name of item master, supplier master, buyer master etc.
The transporter details can be entered in the E-Way bill system only.
The mandatory fields are those that MUST be there for an invoice to be valid under e-Invoice Standard. The optional ones are those that may be needed for the specific business needs of the seller/business. These have been incorporated in the schema based on current business practices in India. The registration of an e-invoice will only be possible once it has ALL the mandatory fields uploaded into the Invoice registration Portal (IRP).
A mandatory field not having any value can be reported with NIL.
The maximum number of line items per eInvoice is 100.
Yes, each field specification has been provided with the type of characters that are to be entered and its length as well.
This will be notified by the Government at the time of rollout.
Yes, the seller can display the currency. Default currency will be INR.
The IRN (hash) will be generated by GST System using GSTIN of supplier or document creator, financial year and the unique serial number of the document/invoice. The IRN can also be generated by the seller. The serial number of invoice will be unique for a GSTIN for a Fin Year and the same has to be captured by Supplier’s ERP.
Supplier has to keep the IRN against each of its invoice. It will be advisable to keep the same in the ERP as invoice without IRN will not be a legal document.
Not mandatory. However, if a signed eInvoice is sent to IRP, the same will be accepted. The eInvoice will be digitally signed by the IRP after it has been validated. The signed e-invoice along with QR code will be shared with creator of document as well as the recipient.
Once it is registered, it will not be required to be signed by anyone else.
The eInvoice has a provision for capturing discount at line item level. The discounting at line item level is to be mentioned only when and if it is applicable in the particular transaction.
There will NOT be a place holder provided in the e-invoice schema for the company logo. This is for the software company to provide in the billing/accounting software so that it can be printed on his invoice using his printer. However, the Logo will not be sent to IRP. In other words, it will not be part of JSON file to be uploaded on the IRP.
Yes, it will be possible to provide all these details in the placeholders provided in the schema.
Yes, the supplier will issue his own system’s invoice, in the standard e-invoice schema that has been published. Invoice number is a mandatory item under GST and hence for e-invoice. IRN (Hash) can be provided after the e-invoice has been successfully reported to the IRP.
As stated earlier, an E-Invoice will be valid only if it has IRN.
Yes, there is a mechanism and placeholders to provide discounting on item level as well as total discounts on the invoice value.
Yes, it will be allowed to link the credit/debit notes as hitherto fore.
Yes, eInvoice system has a reverse charge mechanism reporting as well.
Invoices have to be uploaded on IRP one at a time. The IRP will be able to handle a large sequence of invoices for registration and validate them. Essentially bulk upload will be required by large taxpayers who generate large number of invoices. Their ERP or accounting system will have to be designed in such a way that it makes request one by one. For the user, it will not make any difference.
Yes, that will be notified by the Government. Without registration of e-invoice the same will not be valid. Required changes will be made in the law. Once uploaded to the invoice registration portal (IRP), it will be registered immediately, on real-time basis.
Yes, the IRP System after registering the invoice will share back digitally signed eInvoice for record of supplier. It will also be sent to the email address of recipient provided in the e-invoice.
Yes, it is possible for both the seller as well as the buyer to print the invoice, using the QR code as well as signed e-invoice returned by the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP).
The eInvoice can’t be partially cancelled. It has to be fully cancelled. The e-invoice mechanism enables invoices to be cancelled. This will have to be reported to IRN within 24 hours. Any cancellation after 24hrs could not be possible on IRN, however one can manually cancel the same on GST portal before filing the returns.
Amendments to the e-invoice are allowed on GST portal as per provisions of GST law. All amendments to the e-invoice will be done on GST portal only.
For transportation of goods, the e-way bill will continue to be mandatory, based on invoice value guidelines, as hitherto fore. This aspect will be notified by the Government when this mechanism will be notified.
Yes, the einvoice schema also caters to the export invoices as well. The e-invoice schema is based on most common standard, this will help buyer’s system to read the e-invoice.
Yes, it allows the declaration of export invoices / zero rated supplies.
The end to end workflow will be provided by at the time of rollout of the e-invoice system.
Yes, the e-invoice mechanism is expected to be rolled out in phases from 01st Oct 2020. Initially, the e-invoice mechanism is allowed for tax payers above Rs. 500 CR turnover. Subsequently, it is to be enabled for all tax payers in a phased step-wise manner. Details of these will be published subsequently.
Read more on E-invoicing
A minimum 6-digit HSN code is compulsory for taxpayers with an AATO of Rs. 5 crores and above from December 15, 2023
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) mechanism is soon going to be a part of the login to GST Portal to enhance security.
Invoice Reference Number or IRN as it is usually called is a registration number provided by the government under the e-invoicing mandate to prove the authenticity of any B2B invoice generated by the businesses.
Clearing the fog about a major misconception surrounding the E-invoice generation, it is not mandatory for a taxpayer to generate E-invoice through the government’s tax portal.
To start generating e-invoices, there are certain preparatory activities. Organizations can get started with these in parallel to getting their internal system and processes ready for e-invoices. In this article, we share all the important tasks that one needs to undertake before starting their e-invoicing journey.
Read all the latest E-invoicing notifications and updates here. All the notifications from the implementation of e-invoicing are covered in this article.