E invoicing has been a successful rollout in many countries including Italy, Singapore, Mexico, France. And now in India, after a lot of discussion, the tax reform of e invoicing under GST was implemented in India in October 2020. E invoicing is said to be the next big step under indirect tax administration after the introduction of Goods and service tax in 2017. It will bring about significant change in the management of invoices. The impact of e invoice will not just affect tax invoice but will also impact e way bills, input tax credit, GST returns preparation & filing and other business operations like supply chain, logistic etc.
According to Shri Ajay Bhushan, the Finance Secretary, E invoicing is the new chapter in the direction of Ease of doing business and paying taxes in India.
GimBooks, an end to end solution to help companies manage their e invoicing requirements and comply with India’s e invoicing reform. The technological solutions offered by GimBooks will improve the GST compliance experience of businesses by managing and storing the invoices and providing automation options for GST returns and e way bills.
Increasing challenges on Businesses
The e invoicing enforcement announcement has created urgency among businesses to comply with legislative reforms & has increased technological challenges on Businesses.
Companies having turnover more than 500 crores have to generate tax invoices under Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and have to register the transaction under government’s invoice registration portal. After the verification of the invoice, it is digitally signed by GSTIN which generates Invoice Reference Number (IRN) and QR code. These e invoices are maintained by the businesses and shared with the business stakeholders.
Businesses will need to comply with e invoicing obligations and update their ERP and accounting systems to effectively manage their GST Reporting.
E invoice Format & Schema
How does an e invoice look like & What will be the data contained in e invoice?
Here is an example of an e invoice format:
As per the draft format generated by the GSTIN, an e invoice will contain-
- E invoice Schema - It consists of technical field name and the description. It will also clarify which fields are mandatory and few explanatory notes.
- Masters - It will define a set of inputs for certain fields like UQC, invoice type, supply type etc. It is already pre-defined by the GSTIN itself.
- E invoice template - the template will be based on the GST rules and enables readers to understand the terms used in the sheet.
The mandatory fields are marked in green and the optional fields are marked in yellow.
Now, you might have understood what an e invoice looks like.
Automate E invoicing and GST compliance with GimBooks
GimBooks allows businesses to generate bulk e invoices for their transactions and automate GST returns & e way bills.
This enables businesses to:
1.Simplified E invoice Management
Generate bulk of e invoices with GST Identification Number and enable professional and customized e invoices in very less time.
2.Manage inventory
GimBooks allow you to check and manage the inventory instantly. Check the important documents like the inventory list anytime anywhere using GimBooks.
3. Reduce Business Risk
GimBooks provide a complete GST compliance suite to automate GST returns, filing, e way bills, and reconciliations. It makes the process simpler and faster.
4. Transparent and fast experience
No more flawed or missing information with built in validation of invoice data during e invoice creation. GimBooks makes the invoicing process simple, quick and convenient.
5. Payment Reminders
Secured invoicing portal allows you to automate daunting tasks like sending payment reminders. Increase your cash flow by getting the payments instantly. Let us do the chasing.
6. Live tracks of Business records
E invoicing under GimBooks enables real time tracking of invoices. It enables you to keep a track of when the invoice was sent and received.
GimBooks GST e invoicing solution provides businesses with a platform that automates the process of generating and filing invoices quicker, simpler and efficiently with the cloud based GST compliance solutions.
Use GST compliance automation technology to scale your business.