e-Invoicing Validation Rules

As e-invoicing is a fairly new concept under GST, a taxpayer will encounter various challenging situations while generating an e-invoice.

Latest Updates on e-Invoicing

26th December 2022
The CBIC has clarified that there is no proposal before the GST Council and no plans of the government to implement the next phase of e-invoicing for those businesses with turnover over Rs.5 crore from 1st January 2023.

11th October 2022
The GST Council may implement the next phase of e-invoicing for businesses with an annual turnover of more than Rs.5 crore from 1st January 2023. The system may get extended to businesses with a turnover of over Rs.1 crore by the end of the next fiscal year.

1st August 2022
The e-Invoicing system for B2B transactions has now been extended to those with an annual aggregate turnover of more than Rs.10 crore up to Rs.20 crore starting from 1st October 2022, vide notification no. 17/2022.

This article discusses, in brief, the various errors that a taxpayer may encounter and how can he avoid those errors.

1. Use of unique invoice numbers- A taxpayer is supposed to use unique invoice numbers for each invoice in a financial year. Note that every e-invoice can be generated against a unique invoice number. Even for making corrections to a current invoice, a new invoice must be raised with a unique number.
2. Sorting B2B invoices- E-invoicing applies only to B2B (business-to-business) transactions. So, a taxpayer should sort all B2B invoices for generating e-invoices. If a taxpayer chooses the category of a transaction as B2C (business-to-consumer), then such invoices won’t be considered, and IRN won’t be generated for such invoices.
3. Invoice number should not start with certain characters- The invoice number should not start with 0, / and -. If these characters are used, the request will be rejected.
4. Two IRNs cannot be generated for the same invoice number- If a taxpayer has already generated an IRN for a particular invoice number, then IRN cannot be generated again on the same invoice number. If a taxpayer tries to do so, the request will be rejected.
   If an IRN is cancelled for a specific invoice number, the same cannot be regenerated on the same invoice number. A new invoice number should be used. 
5. Verify the recipient’s GSTIN- A taxpayer shall verify whether the recipient’s GSTIN is registered and active on the GST portal on the invoice’s date of preparation.
6. Verify the first two digits of the GSTIN with the state code- A taxpayer must verify whether the first two digits of the GSTIN match with the state code entered in the supplier/recipient details section while uploading an invoice. If the supply type is ‘export’, then the recipient code will be 96.
7. Verification of PIN code- The master database of the e-invoicing system has a state master which validates the PIN codes against the states. If a particular PIN code does not exist, it will match the first three digits of the PIN code with the PIN code to the state mapping pattern as defined by the postal department. Only after proper validation, an IRN will be generated.
8. An SEZ unit cannot generate an e-invoice but an invoice can be generated with the SEZ unit as the recipient.
9. In case of reverse charge- In reverse charge invoices, the supplier is required to generate IRN. Reverse Charges can be marked as “Y” in the case of B2B and SEZ invoices. But, the tax is to be paid in a reverse manner.
10. Document date is before the filing date- Suppose the invoice document date is before the reporting date to the IRP. Consider that the GSTR-1 is already filed by that date, then the e-invoice will not be declared to that period’s GSTR-1.
11. Blank spaces where a specific master code list needs to be followed- A white space/blank space is counted as a GST system character. For instance: If a state code has been entered as ‘7 ’ instead of ‘7’ or ‘07’ while generating e-invoices, the same will not be auto-populated accurately in the GSTR-1.

India’s Fastest and Most Advanced 2B Matching

Maximise ITC claims, use smart validations to correct your data and complete 2B matching in <1 minute

Start Matching