GST has advanced in India with the advent of e-invoicing and e-way bill systems. Just as the e-invoicing mandate has evolved over the years, the e-way bill system has also gone through several changes and upgrades.

For companies who have crossed the e-invoicing turnover limit, a unique Invoice Registration number (IRN) is issued for each invoice as a result of the taxpayers' obligation to register their invoices on the official e-invoicing portal authorized by the government, known as the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP), in accordance with the e-invoicing mandate.

As a step ahead, the Government has streamlined the generation of E-way Bill with E-Invoicing. Additionally, IRP can be used to create E-way bills in addition to IRN for documents that meet the requirements. The IRP system will thus return either an IRN or an E-way Bill Number, or both, depending on the data that was sent.

You can know more about the Invoice Reference Number and a simple and efficient way to generate it using IRIS IRP.

How are e-invoices and e-way bills linked?

The e-way bill is essentially divided into Parts A and B. Part A consists of the basic details of the associated e-invoice. It includes the following details.

1. Invoice Number
2. Recipient Address
3. Recipient GSTN
4. Supplier GSTN
5. HSN Code

Part B consists of the important details of transportation as follows.

1. Mode of Transport
2. Transporter ID
3. Vehicle Number (If transport mode is by road)
4. Distance

Generating E-way Bill With IRN

There are two ways in which e-way bills can be generated by leveraging the invoice reference number of an associated e-invoice under GST. It can either be generated simultaneously with the e-invoice or after generating the e-invoice.

1. Generating the E-Invoice and E-Way Bill Simultaneously
2. E-Invoice generated first, E-way bill later

A) Generating the E-Invoice and E-Way Bill

Similar to the current e-way bill system, only Part A will be generated if you send only the transporter ID and the distance in addition to the invoice details. Here, the E-way Bill number and the date of generation will be sent by the Invoice Registration Portal to the taxpayer with a signed B2B QR Code and an Invoice Reference Number.

Invoice Details + Transportation Details

If, in addition to the invoice details, you send the e-way bill details like distance, transport mode, transporter ID, vehicle details if the mode of transport is by road, to the IRP, then it goes to the taxpayer with the associated IRN and a Signed QR Code. Part B here is also generated.

B) Generating E-Way Bill after the E-Invoice

Here, you will have to generate the e-way bill by entering the e-invoice details. Similar to the first method, if you enter simply the transporter ID and the details of your invoice, the IRP will only auto-populate Part A. However, if you also input the transportation details, the IRP will auto-populate both Part A and Part B.

There are primarily three facilities provided by the Invoice Registration Portal when it comes to e-way bill generation:

• Generating an E-Way Bill With IRN
• Bulk Generation of E-Way Bills
• Print E-Way Bill

Is there a criteria for EWB generation?

There are a few conditions to be met before generating an e-way bill through the Invoice Registration Portal.

1. The HSN of at least one item in the E-way bill details must belong to the goods detailed in the e-invoice.
2. E-way bill related details are validated.
3. If the E-Way Bill is generated later, then the IRN must be active.
4. Vehicle number should match the E-Way bill format.
5. Vehicle number should exist in the Vahan database.

Canceling an E-Way Bill

E-way bill cancellation, like IRN cancellation, must be done within 24 hours of its generation. If a taxpayer wishes to cancel an IRN, then the associated e-way must be canceled first.

If the 24-hour window is missed, then the IRN must be deleted in the GSTN system, since the IRP has then sent the data to the GSTN system, or by issuing a credit note. It is, however, recommended to issue a credit note. The reason is that the IRN will still be active in the IRP if cancelled only in the STN system.

If you want to know more about IRN cancellation in detail, you can click the link and read the blog.

IRIS IRP is the Govt. recognized Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) for businesses to prepare invoices 

With IRIS IRP, you can prepare a single e-invoice via our tool or bulk generate IRN through the excel utility, pull IRN in your ERP via API Integration or custom print invoices using an awesome cloud platform!