From 1st January 2021, companies with a turnover of over Rs.100 Cr have to switch to E-Invoicing for all B2B transactions. It had already been mandated for Rs. 500Cr + turnover companies in October 2020 and is expected to be further rolled out to all B2B businesses, irrespective of size, during the next 12 to 18 months.
E-Invoicing makes Invoice reporting real-time, and not a post facto activity. It will help in curbing evasion and fictitious input credit claims. It also ensures standardization – a format that can be uniformly read and understood by all stakeholders involved in the transaction. While this new system may seem like an additional operation for businesses, in reality, it is a step towards simplifying the process.
Let us see how.
What is an E-Invoice?
First things first, an E-Invoice is not a virtual invoice. It is an invoice that is ‘reported’ or ‘registered’ on the GSTN’s Invoice Registration Portal before sending it to the buyer. The portal issues an Invoice Registration Number (IRN) and a QR code that needs to be printed on the invoice before it is sent to the buyer.
How is this useful for a business?
The IRN number is required for generating E-Way bills for those transactions involving the transportation of goods. Many details are already filled in making the process simpler.
E-Invoices save time and effort in GST return filing since the relevant data is already pre-populated at the time of filing, saving time and effort.
The details from the E-Invoice are also updated on the Buyer’s Inward Supply register ensuring no mismatch. This will help MSMEs who often suffer because buyers fail to acknowledge invoice receipt dates (sometimes willfully) and delay the process of payments.
How do I generate E-Invoices?
E-Invoicing can be done directly on the GSTN E-Invoicing portal using the tool provided there. However, this would be cumbersome and time-consuming if there are a large number of invoices involved. Also, this would not be suitable for companies already using billing or ERP software.
The more efficient (and simple way) is to use a GST recommended GSP (GST Suvidha Provider) like Vayana as your E-Invoicing partner to interface with the IRP. Vayana offers several solutions to help you make the transition to E-invoicing with minimal changes to your existing systems.
With Vayana’s Enriched API service you can continue using your existing billing system and Vayana takes care of the rest. The data is validated, encrypted and transmitted securely to the IRP, the IRN is collected and this is sent back to you in a ‘ready to print’ format that already includes the IRN and QR code.
Vayana also offers a lightweight Desktop application for businesses that generate a limited number of invoices. All one has to do is save invoices in a Dropbox-like folder. Vayana will pick them up and return them in a complete, printable form.
If you already use an ERP system or an ASP, Vayana offers Pass Through API services. Here your ASP must manage the data encryption, decryption, authentication and session directly.
Why should I choose Vayana an E-Invoicing partner?
- Seamless Integration into your existing systems and direct generation of compliant invoices. Over 75% of SAP customers prefer Vayana as their GSP
- Highly Available – we have served over 1 billion APIs with ZERO downtime since its inception.
- Data Security – Best in class security across technology platforms & processes. Encrypted transmission, ISO 27001:2013 certified, PCI-DSS certified. We do not store taxpayer data.
- Transparency – What you see is what you get. There are no hidden charges, no confusing bills. Objective and Competitive Pricing. Dashboard for performance tracking. Our system sends out automatic reminders to manage the workflow and ensure compliance is done on time
- Handling Scale – We are India’s largest GSP. We handle over 2,00,000 SMEs from partner ASPs and served over 1 billion APIs with zero seconds of downtime
We would be delighted to share more detail with you. Please do write in at enquiry@vayana.com.