GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
e - INVOICE SYSTEM
There are two modes/methods of e-invoice generation.
There are two access mechanism for e-invoicing system.
There is an option in the https://einvoice1.gst.gov.in portal under
There is an option in the https://einvoice1.gst.gov.in portal under
Please call the GST helpdesk and raise the grievance and it will be verified and action will be taken in few days.
The common portal for generation of e-invoice is https://einvoice1.gst.gov.in
Businesses will continue to issue invoices as they are doing now. Necessary changes on account of e-invoicing requirement (i.e. to enable reporting of invoices to IRP and obtain IRN), will be made by ERP/Accounting and Billing Software providers in their respective software. They need to get the updated version having this facility.
Yes. All the registered users under GST who wish to generate IRN need to register on E-invoice system separately using his GSTIN. Once GSTIN is entered, the system sends an OTP to his registered mobile number registered with GST Portal and after authenticating the same, the system enables him to generate his/her username and password for the E-invoice system. After generation of username and password of his/her choice, he/she may proceed to make entries to generate IRN.
No, Users who are already registered on the e-way bill portal need not to again register on the e-invoice system. User can use EWB login credentials to login at e-invoice system.
This is indicating that you (your GSTIN) have already registered on the E-invoice system or e-way bill system and have created your username and password on the e-way bill or e-invoice system. Please use these credentials to log into the e-invoice system. If you have forgotten username or password, then please use the ‘Forgot Username’ or ‘Forgot Password’ facility provided on the portal to recollect your username or create new password accordingly.
This is indicating that e-invoice system is unable to get the contact details (mobile number of email address) for your GSTIN from the GST Common Portal (www.gst.gov.in). Please contact GST helpdesk 1800-103-4786 or lodge your grievance at https://selfservice.gstsystem.in/
This is indicating that the GSTIN entered by you is wrong or your GSTIN details are not available in the GST Common Portal. Please check the GSTIN entered or go to the GST portal (www.gst.gov.in) and check the details of your GSTIN under ‘Search Taxpayer’ tab.
This is indicating that you might have updated your business registration details in the GST Common Portal recently. Please ‘Update from Common Portal’, to pull the latest data from the GST Common Portal. If even after this action, wrong data is displaying, kindly update the details in GST common portal through amendment process.
The taxpayers having specified turnover and fulfilling other conditions of the notifications may register at e-invoice system and generate IRN.
In case any taxpayer, having the requirement to do e-invoicing but not enabled on the e-invoice portal, a facility is provided whereby they can make an online declaration regarding turnover and request for enabling on the portal, for the required GSTIN.
Yes. The IRP after registering the invoice, will share a digitally signed e-invoice for record of the supplier. You can download the invoice for further use and action.
This is indicating that you are trying to login to the E-invoice system with incorrect username and password. Please check the username and password being used to login to the system. If you have forgotten the username or password, then please use the ‘Forgot Username’ or ‘Forgot Password’ facility provided on the portal to recollect your username or create new password accordingly.
This is indicating that your account has been frozen because you might have cancelled your registration or your GSTIN has been de-activated in the GST Common Portal. Please visit the GST Common Portal (www.gst.gov.in) to find the status of your GSTIN under ‘Search Taxpayer’ tab. In case you are able to log in on GST portal but not log on E-invoice portal, please lodge your grievance at https://selfservice.gstsystem.in/
This is indicating that you had tried to login to the E-invoice system with incorrect username and password for more than 5 times. Hence, the system has blocked your account for security reasons and it will be unblocked after 5 minutes.
If you have forgotten the username or password, then use the ‘Forgot Username’ or ‘Forgot Password’ facility provided on the portal to recollect your username or create new password accordingly. The user needs to enter some details after authenticating the same via an OTP, then, user will be provided with the username and password.
If you have registered as Enrolled Transporter in e-Waybill system then you cannot use your credentials to login to e-Invoice portal. You should be GST registered to login to e-Invoice portal.
In such cases, firstly login to e-Waybill portal and goto Update ->'Reg.Details with GSTIN' and update your status from Enrolled transporter to GST registered taxpayer. Now , you will be able to login to e-Invoice Portal
The Invoice Reference Number (IRN) is a unique number (also known as hash) generated by the e-invoice system using a hash generation algorithm. For every document viz., an invoice or debit or credit note to be submitted on the e-invoice system, a unique 64-character Invoice Reference Number (IRN) shall be generated which is based on the computation of hash of GSTIN of supplier of document (invoice or credit note etc.), Year, Document type and Document number. This shall be unique to each invoice and hence will be the unique identity for each invoice for the entire financial year in the entire GST System for a taxpayer.
There are two modes for generation of IRN
No, only unique invoice from a taxpayer will be accepted by the e-invoice system. E-invoice system will check in Central Registry of GST system to ensure that same invoice from same supplier pertaining to same financial year is not being uploaded again for generating one more IRN.
Once the e-invoice system has validated and registered an IRN, it will be made available to the taxpayer for reference on e-invoice system for only 24 hours.
If state name is not auto-populated, then select the correct state and continue IRN generation.
The pre-requisite for generation of e-invoice is that the person who generates e-invoice should be a registered person (active) on GST portal and e-invoice system or e-way bill system. The documents viz., tax invoice or Debit Note or credit Note will be reported by the person who is generating the e-invoice. If a user is generating Bulk invoices, then he/she should have a valid JSON file as per the e-invoice schema to upload on the e-invoice system or he/she has to integrated with API interface and generate the IRN.
Anyone can verify the authenticity or the correctness of e-invoice by uploading the signed JSON file or Signed QR Code into e-invoice system. The option ‘Verify Signed Invoice’ under Search option can be selected and the signed JSON file can be uploaded and verified. Similarly, the QR Code Verify app may be downloaded and used to verify the QR Code printed on the Invoice.
The digitally signed invoice is one which has been digitally or electronically signed by the IRP after receiving the invoice details from the supplier. That is, the government is authenticating the genuineness of the invoice details submitted/registered by the taxpayer.
The different supply types that can be reported are B2B: Business to Business, SEZWP: To SEZ with Payment, SEZWOP: To SEZ without Payment, EXPWP: Export with Payment, EXPWOP: Export without Payment, DEXP: Deemed Export
The IRN, once generated cannot be modified or deleted. However, if IRN is generated with wrong information, it can be cancelled. Once cancelled, the same document (with same document number) can’t be reported again for generation of IRN. The cancellation is required to be done within 24 hours from the time of generation.
If there is a mistake, incorrect or wrong entry in the e-invoice, then it cannot be edited or corrected. Only option is to cancel that invoice/IRN and report a new document (with new number) and generate a fresh IRN.
The digitally signed QR code of the invoice is one which has been digitally or electronically signed and prepared the QR Code by the IRP after receiving the invoice uploaded by the supplier. That is, the government is authenticating the genuineness of the invoice, by preparing the important information of the invoice in QR Code form and signing it so that its authenticity can be verified offline by anyone using offline tools. This will be helpful for tax officers checking the invoice on the roadside where Internet may not be available all the time. The web user will get a printable form with all details including QR code. The QR code will consist of the following e-invoice parameters:
The IRP will generate a QR code containing the unique IRN (hash) along with some important particulars of invoice including digital signature so that it can be verified by an Offline App.
IRP system will provide this ‘Signed QR Code’ as part of the response to the request made by the taxpayer for the IRN generation.
The Signed QR Code can be verified by anyone using the offline app provided on the IRP portal. Content of the signed QR code can be easily verified by the tax payers or Tax Officials to ascertain whether the invoice is registered with the IRP and is digitally signed by the IRP itself. By validating the content of the QR code data with the digitally signed content (which is part of the QR code itself) one can check the authenticity of the document contents. If the content of the QR code is tampered with, the signature verification fails and the e-Invoice will become invalid.
The QR code will consist of the following e-invoice parameters:
The Signed QR Code has to be printed by the tax payer on the invoice copy issued to buyer.
However, Printing of QR code on separate paper is not allowed.
Printed QR code shall be clear enough to be readable by a QR Code reader
Size and its placing on invoice is upto the preference of the businesses.
Printed QR code shall be clear enough to be readable by a QR Code reader
Size and its placing on invoice is upto the preference of the businesses.
There are two methods for this.
Many of the businesses have multiple places of business or head office and branch at different locations or work remotely from the principal place of business. Generating IRN with a single login may be a challenge for them. To overcome this challenge business can create multiple sub-users. A sub-user can use the same login credentials created originally and perform the actions as per the access that is given to them. For example, a sub-user may be allowed to generate IRN and restricted to accept IRN.
Most of the times, the tax payer or authorized person himself cannot operate and generate IRN’s. He will be dependent upon his staff or operator to do that. He would not like to avoid sharing his user credentials to them. In some firms, the business activities will be operational 24/7 and some firms will have multiple branches. Under these circumstances, the main user can create sub-users and assign the roles to them. He can assign generation of IRN or report generation activities based on requirements. This facility helps him to monitor the activities done by sub-users. However, the main user should ensure that whenever employee is transferred or resigned, the sub-user account is frozen / blocked to avoid misuse of credentials.
For every principal/additional place of business, user can create maximum of 10 sub-users. That is, if tax payer has only (one) principal business place (and no additional place of business), he can create 10 sub-users. If tax payer has 3 additional places and one principal place of business (i.e. 4 places), then he can create 40 (4 X 10) sub users.
The e-invoice system gives an option to the taxpayer to freeze the sub-user i.e. Disable the sub-user from using facilities on the e-invoice system.
Step 1: Click ‘Freeze Sub-user’ under the option ‘User Management’ on the left-hand side of the dashboard
Step 2: Select the sub-user you want to Freeze, the below screen opens up. Now click on ‘Freeze’ button appearing at the bottom of the screen. On clicking the ‘Freeze’ button, the sub-user will no longer be able to access any facilities on the e-invoice system.
The registered person can generate the IRN from his account from any registered business place. However, he/she needs to enter the address accordingly in the e-invoice form. He/she can also create multiple sub-users and assign to these places and generate the IRN accordingly.
The user is allowed to generate report on daily basis. Because of criticality of the system for performance for 24/7 operation, the reports are limited to be generated for a day. The user can change date and generate the report for that date. Hence, the user is advised to generate report daily and save in his system.
Multiple modes can be used for reporting invoices to IRP: • Bulk Upload , • API based, • Mobile app based, • GSP based.
Steps to generate Bulk e-invoice: • Step 1: Login on the e-invoice portal using the username password and entering the captcha code. • Step 2: Select ‘Bulk Upload’ under 'E-Invoice' appearing on the left-hand side of the dashboard. • Step 3: Choose the saved JSON file from your system and click 'Upload’. After processing the JSON file the system generates list of e-invoice or error message.
Through this facility, user can upload multiple invoices and generate multiple IRNs at one go. This facility can be used by the taxpayers, who can prepare bulk requests for IRN in a JSON file from their automated system, and upload it on the e-invoice system and generate IRN in one go. This avoids duplicate data entry into e-invoice system and avoids data entry mistakes also.
To use the bulk generation facility, one has to prepare the IRN requests through JSON file. This can be done in two ways – registered taxpayer can prepare the JSON file directly from his automated system. If he is unable do so, he can use excel based bulk generation tool available on the e-invoice portal. The invoice and other details need to enter as per the format and JSON file can be generated. This JSON file needs to be uploaded in the e-invoice portal for generation of multiple IRNs. For more details, please refer to the ‘user manual of the bulk generation’ and ‘bulk generation tools’ under “Tools” section at E-invoice portal and follow the instructions.
Benefits of the bulk generation facility are as follows: • Generation of multiple IRN in one go • It avoids duplicate keying in of the invoices to generate IRN • It avoids the data entry mistakes while keying in for generation of IRN
API interface is a site-to-site integration of two systems. Using this, the taxpayer can link his IT system with E-Invoice system to generate IRN directly from his IT solution without keying in the details for e-invoice form in the Portal. This reduces duplicate data entry and eliminates the data entry mistakes.
API interface is a site-to-site integration of website of taxpayer with the E-invoice system. API interface can be used by large taxpayers, who need to generate bulk INR’s per day. However, the taxpayer should meet the following criteria to use the API interface: • His invoicing system should be automated with IT solutions. • He should be ready to change his IT system to integrate with E-invoice system as per API guidelines. • His system should have SSL based domain name. • His system should have Static IP Address. • He should have pre-production system to test the API interface.
Please go to the site https://einv-apisandbox.nic.in/ for all the details of API Integration
The integration between e-invoice system and registered person's system can be done through APIs. For availing this facility, the registered person should register the server details of his/her systems (through which he wants to generate the IRN using the APIs of e-invoice system) with e-invoice system. For further details, please go through the user manual.
The GSP list is available in Search -> GST Suvidha Provider
There are two access credentials for APIs. Both credentials/keys required to access the APIs.
On the sandbox portal, there is an option to login. Click on that and register and login and test the APIs as per the procedure provided there.
E-invoice API sandbox portal is tool to test the APIs with step-by-step procedure and understand the flow of the APIs. It helps to prepare the payload request with encryption and understand the responses with decryption, etc. It is reach with various information on API usage, schema, mapping, masters, etc. It also has sample codes to understand to build the APIs for consuming.
There are two access credentials for APIs. Both credentials/keys required to access the APIs.
Client ID and Client Secret are available for GSPs, E-commerce Operators and Company (PAN) with aggregate turnover more than Rs 500.00 Crores
GSTIN, enabled for the e-invoicing system, can generate the API username and password for its GSTIN, after logging into the https://einvoice1.gst.gov.in portal.
GSTIN has been enabled to generate multiple API usernames. That is, GSTIN can generate one username for each GSP or direct access. If GSTIN has tie-up with 2 GSPs and also has direct access through it server, then it can have three different usernames; One for direct access and two for two GSPs.
Yes, If the GSTIN is generating the e-way bills on the web portal or through API, then he/she can use those credentials for e-invoice generation accordingly. That username of E-way bill of web portal can be used for e-invoice web portal and API username of E-way bill can be used for API generating the e-invoicing using API.
Once the test summary report is approved, the client id and client secret is sent as SMS to the registered mobile number of the GSTIN. If it not received, you can login to the e-invoice portal and get re-sent.
Yes. It is possible, however, you have to use your correct credentials to access your IRN.
The master codes are available under Search -> Master Codes.
Yes, if you are eligible for e-Invoicing, all the invoices of B2B and Exports need to be registered.
No, there is no time limit for delivery of goods or generation of e-waybill for the e-Invoice.
Yes, if you are eligible for e-Invoicing, all the invoices including RCM invoices issued by the Supplier need to be registered.
Type of GST (whether IGST or CGSTS/SGST) is determined by POS (Place of Supply). If the Supplier state is same as POS, then it is CGSTS/SGST else IGST for B2B transactions.
The e-Invoice for services may be generated like any other invoice, by mentioning related SAC code and the total price in unit rate and the quantity may be mentioned as one.
Ideally, the e-invoice must be generated after preparing the manual invoice and before issuing it to the customer. The system presently allows to register invoices for the previous periods also.
Freight charges may be entered as line items in case there is a GST component or else they may be entered under ‘Other charges’.
No, it is not required. e-Waybill is required only if at least one of the items in the invoice has Goods and the value of invoice exceeds Rs 50 thousand.
Yes, they can be entered. Please refer the schema of the invoice at https://einv-apisandbox.nic.in/version1.03/generate-irn.html#JSONSchema for more details.
No, there is no time limit to prepare the credit notes or debit notes against the e-Invoice.
No, shipping bill number or date is not mandatory for preparing e-invoice.
No, e-Invoice is applicable only if the notified turnover is crossed in the previous years.
Invoice sent to the customer must contain the IRN number and the QR Code. Along with this you may send the regular invoice also.
The e-invoice portal https://gepp.einvoice1.gst.gov.in helps the suppliers in registering the invoices without the necessity for ERP system. This is a browser based and user friendly portal by which the e-invoices can be generated. The application may also be downloaded on to the mobile.
Yes, its applicable. If the customer is of type SEZ, then e-Invoice may be generated using transaction type as SEZWP / SEZWOP by the Supplier.
Ideally, e-invoice must be generated after making the manual invoice and before issuing the invoice to the customer. Presently, system allows for the invoices to be registered for previous period also.
Presently, system allows for the invoices to be registered for previous period. So, if you have missed uploading, then you may still generate e-Invoice for the previous period invoices.
No, supplier cannot upload the digitally signed invoice to the portal. The e-invoice system will digitally sign the e-invoice details uploaded to the portal and return the signed invoice and QR code to the Supplier.
You may visit https://einvoice1.gst.gov.in/Others/CBT and https://gepp.einvoice1.gst.gov.in/downloads/Welcometogepp.mp4 to understand the e-Invoice system and GePP-On system.
There is no specific place for printing the QR Code, IRN and Acknowledgement number on the invoice. However, they should be visible and in case of QR code, it should be possible to scan it.
e-waybills may be generated for all the modes of travel such as Road, Train, Air and Ship. In case of train, you may enter the railway receipt number and date instead of vehicle number.
Document number in e-Invoice should not be starting with 0, / and -. You should pass the document number without such characters.
All invoices to be registered on the portal should contain the values in INR, however there are some optional fields in the schema in which the foreign currency may be included.
Please refer the schema at https://einv-apisandbox.nic.in/version1.03/generate-irn.html#JSONSchema