Under GST regime, businesses are seeing a large number of changes and are adapting to the new GST Invoice format and rules. GST will eliminate taxes on inter-state movement and instead taxes will be applicable based on destination and will be reported on each transaction. This brings us to the most important point where all the GST registered buisnesses have to issue the right format of GST invoice.

Why is tax invoicing under GST important?

Under GST, a tax invoice not only acts as an evidence of supply of goods and services, but is also important to avail Input Tax credit (ITC).
GST is chargeable at the time of supply. Invoice acts as an important indicator for the time of supply of goods or services.

Fields under GST compliant tax Invoice

GST compliant tax invoice is a bill which has to capture following mandatory fields:-

• Name, address and GSTIN of the supplier
• Invoice number and date
• Customer name
• Shipping and billing address
• Customer and taxpayer’s GSTIN
• HSN code
• Place of supply
• Taxable value and discounts
• Rate and amount of GST tax i.e. CGST/ SGST/ IGST
• Item details i.e. description, unit price, quantity

Fields under GST compliant Bill of Supply

A bill of supply shall be issued by the supplier containing the following details:

• Name, address and GSTIN of the supplier
• A consecutive serial number, in one or multiple series, containing alphabets or numerals or special characters like hyphen or dash and slash symbolised as “-” and “/”respectively, and any combination there of, unique for a financial year
• Date of issue
• Name, address and GSTIN or UIN of the recipient
• HSN Code of goods or Accounting Code for Services and its description
• Value of supply of goods or services or both taking into account discount or abatement, if any
• Signature or digital signature of the supplier or his authorized representative

What are Debit Notes?

Debit notes are raised in cases where there is a tax invoice issued, but the taxable value of the goods therein changes after such issuance. Similarly, there can be a tax invoice issued but a number of tax changes after such issuance. In both these cases, a seller has to intimate the purchaser about such change.
All the changes made in a transaction are important under GST. Hence, dealers and assesses have to follow a tough regime of uploading and updating every single transaction.

Since debit notes are a major change to an invoice, they have to be reported separately in the GST returns.
Debit notes can be raised in GST under two situations:

• When the amount of taxable value of the goods changes after issuance of invoice
• When there are tax changes after issuance of invoice

What are Credit Notes?

Credit notes are issued when there is a downward revision in prices of goods or services supplied. It offers a reduction in the value of the invoice and thus, reduces the liability of the purchaser. It is often inflicted with a return of goods to the supplier. It always has a negative impact on the accounting balance in the books of the seller.

Credit notes have to be issued by a taxable person, where there is a shortage of products supplied and for which there is no payment balance to be paid by the purchaser. Since it has a commercial impact, the same has to be informed or declared in GST returns in a given month.
Credit notes can be issued in the following cases:

• In case of goods returned by the recipient
• Incorrect tax is applied by the supplier

Timeline for issuing Invoices (Supply of Service)

Tax invoice should be issued within 30 days from the date of supply of the service. However, in case the supply is being provided by a bank or any financial institution, then the time limit is extended to 45 days.

Copies of Tax invoices to be issued

Supply of Goods
The invoice shall be prepared in triplicate, in case of supply of goods, in the following manner:
• The original copy being marked as ORIGINAL FOR RECIPIENT
• The duplicate copy being marked as DUPLICATE FOR TRANSPORTER
• The triplicate copy being marked as TRIPLICATE FOR SUPPLIER

Supply of Services
The invoice shall be prepared in duplicate, in case of supply of services, in the following manner:
(a) The original copy being marked as ORIGINAL FOR RECIPIENT
(b) The duplicate copy being marked as DUPLICATE FOR SUPPLIER

The serial number of invoices issued during a tax period shall be furnished electronically through the Common Portal in Form GSTR-1.
Are you able to manage GST compliant Invoices with minimal manual intervention through your Billing software? Either case, you need a new generation Billing software to smoothly transition through GST regime.

Talk to Tax experts and know more about one of the best Billing software available in the market-uGST Billing software https://ugstbilling.udyogsoftware.com/