E-Invoice

An E-Invoice, or electronic invoice, is a digital document that is exchanged between a supplier and buyer and validated by the government tax portal. E-invoicing is the proposed system where business-to-business (B2B) invoices are digitally prepared in an e-invoicing format and authenticated by the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) or any other Tax Authority. This system ensures that a common format is followed by all businesses before reporting invoices to the authority portal Electronic Invoicing is a procedure that aims to convert the issuing of paper invoices as well as credit and debit notes into an electronic process that allows the exchange and processing of invoices, credit, and debit notes in a structured electronic format between the buyer and seller To put an end to this endless trail of paperwork, the Tax Authority introduced the new return system. Tax departments internationally are eager to make the e-invoicing system a success for two reasons: Invoices can be read by the central system With e-invoicing, fields will be pre-populated while filing returns, thus avoiding discrepancies during data entry and reconciliation.

Generating an e-invoice

Taxpayers will generate invoices like they normally do, except reporting will now be done electronically. Taxpayers will have to follow the e-invoice schema and submit mandatory details accordingly. Here is a list of mandatory and optional parameters: Transaction details like tax scheme, supplier type Document details: type, number and date Supplier information like legal name, GSTN / VAT address, location, PIN code and state code. Buyer information like legal name, GSTN number, address, location, state code and PIN code Dispatch from address details (mandatory if it is different from supplier details)Shipping details (mandatory if it is different from buyer address)Item related details like service/ goods, HSN code, total amount, GST rate, Assessable amount, total item value.If the items are being moved in batches, then add batch number. Invoice details include assessable values and total invoice value. Besides the mandatory parameters, the Council also listed optional parameters, which are subject to change based on the needs of the business. Once theinvoice fields have been finalized, a taxpayer has to decide if the accounting or billing software is capable of creating a JSON file, which can then be upload to the Authority.

Benefits of electronic invoicing

• Enhance business ecosystem with enriched fair competition and consumer protection through provision of a unified process for validating and auditing invoices.
• Increased compliance with tax obligations through enhanced verification of business transactions.
• Reduce commercial concealment by increasing requirements related to invoice tracking and data retention.
• Enriching the consumer experience and digitizing the consumer-supplier relationship.
• Reduce hidden economy transactions.