Changes in the e-invoice Validations Architecture

Posted on by CMA Bhogavalli Mallikarjuna Gupta

e-invoicing is implemented in India from 1st Oct 2020 for taxpayers having turnover above ₹ 500 crores and now the threshold has been reduced to ₹ 50 crores from 1st April 2021. The pace at which the Indian businesses have adopted is remarkable and all the credits to NIC for putting in place robust infrastructure which as ensured seamless experience to the taxpayers without any major glitches. The e-invoicing system is also undergoing constant changes from time to time based on the dynamic requirements of the taxpayers and their feedback. Some of the changes are announced and architectural changes have been made and they are

a) The existing Authentication API ver 1.03 is replaced with ver 1.04 from 10th April 2021

b) Two new attributes have been added to the response JSON for “Get GSTIN Details” & “Sync GSTIN Details” and the newly added attributes are

i) Date of Registration

ii) Date of De-registration

c) IRNs cannot be generated if the Supplier or Recipient GSTINs are in “Suspended”, “Provisional” or “Inactive” or “Cancelled” status. This validation will ensure that IRNs are not generated for such recipients and will minimize the taxpayers exposure to that extent.

d) If the Registration status of the Supplier or Recipient is in “Cancelled” status, the document date should be between the Date of Registration and Date of De-registration. This validation will ensure that business is not impacted and the supplier will know the status of the recipient at the time of issue of invoice only and enable him to take commercial decisions accordingly.

e) If the recipient is an SEZ Unit or SEZ developer, supply types “SEZWP” or SEZWOP” are only enabled and rest of the supply types are disabled to provide better user experience with proper and meaningful validations.

f) The validation for the number of digits for the HSN code is also enhanced to meet the latest regulatory changes. The minimum number of HSN codes has been increased to 6 digits for taxpayers above ₹ 5 crores.

g) While generating E Way Bill, Vehicle Type (‘VehType’) can be set to ‘O’ (Over Dimension Vehicle) if the Transportation mode (‘TransMode’) is set as ‘4’ (Ship).

Even though the above validations are few but they are really taxpayer friendly by way of providing better user experience and also minimizing the exposure towards the errant taxpayers thereby safeguarding the genuine taxpayers. The increase in validation for HSN codes for taxpayers having turnover above ₹ 5 crores to 6 digits means that e-invoicing sooner or later will be applicable to taxpayers who are having turnover above ₹ 5 crores.