E-invoicing aka Electronic Invoicing is an electronic authentication mechanism under GST. As per the e-invoicing mandate, every business (having turnover above 10 Cr.) is required to register all of its B2B and export invoices with the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) to get a unique identification number known as the Invoice Reference Number (IRN). Thus, an e-invoice is a document with an IRN and a digitally signed QR code printed on it.

IRN (Invoice Reference Number) is a registration number provided by the government under the e-invoicing mandate to prove the authenticity of any invoice generated by businesses. The e-invoicing mandate which was introduced in India in October 2020 mandates businesses to get their invoices registered with the Government designated system i.e. Invoice Registration Portal (IRP). To explain in simple terms, when an invoice is sent to the IRP, it gets a number unique for that particular invoice using the hash algorithm under e-invoicing.

The government has provided three different options to businesses to generate IRN: 1. Generate IRN with Excel Utility Tool 2. Generate IRN through API integration via E-invoice Portal 3. Generate IRN through GST Suvidha Provider (GSP) like IRIS GST

NIC stands for National Informatics Centre. It is under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and is the technology partner of the Government of India.

IRP stands for Invoice Registration Portal. It’s a portal that acts as a registrar where businesses need to send their invoices for registration and obtain a unique identification number for every invoice called the Invoice Reference Number (IRN). The very first and the government’s official IRP is – NIC. The e-invoice portal currently in use is https://einvoice1.gst.gov.in/.

Private IRPs are private companies that can help companies generate IRN. To accommodate more businesses under e-invoicing, recently the government has officially authorised 4 private IRPs i.e. 4 GSPs (GST Suvidha Providers) from across the country. IRIS is one of the authorised private IRPs who along with the NIC can help companies generate IRN.

No, an e-invoice is mandatory to have an IRN and a digitally signed QR Code without which it will be considered invalid.

Every e-invoice has an IRN and a digitally signed QR Code. IRP-generated QR code is digitally encoded that gets converted to a scannable image and can be processed by applications such as IRIS Peridot, IRP released app; which has the capability to apply the publicly available digital signature and decode the QR Code.

A B2B e-invoice QR Code is not just another QR Code, but a standard and digitally signed one. This digitally signed QR code can be generated only by IRP and hence adds authenticity to the document. The QR code contains select information of invoice, IRN and its generation date.

You need to send all your B2B and export invoices to the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) to get an IRN and a digitally signed QR Code.

The e-invoicing mandate has been introduced in India in a phased manner based on the Aggregate Annual Turnover (AATO) of the companies. Currently, e-invoicing is applicable for all the companies with an AATO of Rs. 10 Cr. and more. Here’s a reference table for you with the e-invoice applicability dates and GST notification number.

No, you can prepare just an invoice from your billing software. To prepare an e-invoice, you need to obtain an IRN (Invoice Reference Number) from an authorised IRP like IRIS IRP.