According to Rule 48(4) of the CGST Regulations, notified classes of registered persons are required to produce invoices and upload them (in the form GST INV-01) to the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) in order to receive an Invoice Reference Number (IRN). The invoice copy that is issued by the notified supplier to the buyer following the aforementioned “e-invoicing” process, among other things, contains the IRN (with QR Code), and is referred to as a “e-invoice” in GST. The interchange of the invoice document (structured invoice data) between a supplier and a buyer in an integrated electronic format is made possible by the standard e-invoice schema (INV-01).

Businesses can benefit from e-invoices in a variety of ways, including automatic GST reporting and e-way bill preparation (where required). E-invoicing will also make standardisation and interoperability easier, which will reduce conflicts between parties to transactions, improve payment cycles, lower processing costs, and generally increase business efficiency.

As invoice generation will take place on the business end, this can be incorporated into the seller’s ERP or invoicing system. This feature is offered by the majority of such software under the names item master, supplier master, buyer master, etc.

No, the same invoice number cannot be used to create a new invoice once an IRN has been cancelled. The IRP will reject the same if it is used again.

Small businesses may be exempt from GST e-Invoicing if their annual turnover falls below the threshold specified by the government.

The GST e-Invoicing system is designed with security in mind. Data transmission and storage follow strict security protocols to protect sensitive business information.