How is The E-invoicing System Beneficial For Businesses

E-invoice is a part of the government’s endeavor to making the Indian tax filing system a complete digital mechanism. E-invoice generated by all the registered businesses will help the government to determine the taxability of the businesses.

There are certain delusions related to the working of E-invoice mechanism:

Delusion: IRN generation takes time which might distract a business from other progressive accomplishments.

Reality: The Invoice Generation Portal will issue Invoice Reference Number (IRN) within 100 milliseconds. IRN generation task would be divided into multiple IRP units making tasks quicker.

Delusion: It is mandatory for a business to issue invoices through the GST portal.

Reality: Businesses can continue issuing invoices through their firm software. They are just required to generate Invoice Reference Number (IRN) for every single invoice issued through their firm software.

General Concepts of E-Invoice

1. GSTN Team Workshop Presentations related to E-Invoice are available on the link: https://www.gstn.org/e-invoice/pdf/e-invoice_presentation_for_workshop_20-12-2019-V3.pdf

2. Updated FAQs related to E-invoice generation, working and structure is available on the link: https://www.gstn.org/e-invoice/pdf/website-FAQ-compilation-v6.pdf

3. APIs and their protocol of functioning with IRP is available on the link: https://www.gstn.org/e-invoice/pdf/E-Invoice-to-IRP-proposed-handshake-API.pdf

4. The JSON sample of e-invoice payload sent IRP is visible on the link: https://www.gstn.org/e-invoice/pdf/eInvGenIRNSampleJSON.pdf

5. The JSON schema for e-invoice is visible on the link: https://www.gstn.org/e-invoice/pdf/eInvGenIRNJSONSchema.pdf

More About E-Invoice System

The tax administration has announced the commencement of the E-invoice System on a voluntary basis from January 2020.

GST Council Meeting has allowed the commencement of the GST E-Invoice System on a voluntary basis so as to examine the outcomes and the scope of improvement in the system. Under the e-invoice mechanism, the transactions would be reported in a phased manner (real-time basis) through a digital invoice. A general standard has been fixed keeping in mind the suggestions from traders and industrialists as well as ICAI. A standard is a must for any arrangement to flourish and operate symmetrically in every region of the country. The data entered by any businessman in his in-house software is readable by all the concerned individuals. This eliminates the need to make fresh data entry as the information comes pre-loaded. 

The aim behind introducing the new electronic invoice mechanism with the inter-connected interface is the readability and convenience of not entering the data again and again (thus eliminating the chances of errors/mismatch).

Commencement of the New E-Invoice System was approved by the council in its 37th Council Meeting and not much later the same was introduced on the GST portal. The new system needs an explanation so that a common man who is also a taxpayer gets the hack of the system as soon as possible.

This particular write-up is an effort to make every Registered Taxpayer aware of the E-Invoice concept - the way it works, its requirements, how a taxpayer has to deal with this new system? It is expected that the write-up is a piece of information for the taxpayers, tax consultants and all the software firms who are implementing changes in the software as per new compliance standards. 

For details on the concept and FAQs on 'E-Invoicing' or 'electronic invoicing', please click here. https://www.gstn.org/e-invoice/doc/Final-publishing-e-invoice-with-FAQs-v2.zip

For downloading schema & template of 'E-Invoicing', please click here. https://www.gstn.org/e-invoice/doc/eInvoice-Template-for-publication.zip