GST E-Invoicing Phase 3: Rs 50-Crore Turnover Threshold To Apply From April 1

India is set to roll out the third phase of mandatory electronic invoicing under the goods and services tax regime from the start of the next financial year.

Registered businesses having turnover above Rs 50 crore will have to mandatorily issue electronic invoices for notified business-to-business transactions from April 1, according to a government notification.

This system was first implemented in October for entities having a turnover above Rs 500 crore, while those with more than Rs 100 crore were covered in the second phase. So far, e-invoicing has seen a smooth implementation without any critical failure in the GST portal.

E-invoicing was originally proposed in Budget 2019 as a measure to curb invoice-related frauds and enable real-time tracking of invoices. The Covid-19 pandemic delayed its initial implementation and prompted the government to revise turnover thresholds.

It involves the use of a dedicated web portal — the common goods and services tax electronic portal and the invoice registration portal. Businesses generate primary invoices through their in-house ERP solutions. The ERP data is then transferred in a fixed format to the electronic schema — forms prescribed by the GST department — before the goods are dispatched to the purchaser.

Mandatory details like supplier and receiver’s names, address, registration number, date and time of supply, invoice date, applicable rate of GST and HSN number for the goods, among others, must be provided for generation of the electronic invoice.