GSTN empanels EY, IRIS, 2 other firms to provide e-invoice registration

GST Network has empanelled four private companies, including EY and IRIS Business, for providing e-invoice registration services to businesses.

Businesses with turnover of Rs 10 crore and above are required to generate electronic or e-invoice for all B2B transactions.

So far, taxpayers under Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime could use only government portal NIC to register their e-invoices.

"Four private companies viz. ClearTax, Cygnet, E&Y and IRIS Business Ltd were empanelled by GSTN for providing these e-invoice registration services to all GST taxpayers of the country," GSTN said in an advisory to taxpayers.

GSTN, which provides technology backbone for GST, also said empanelment of private firms would add significant capacity and redundancy to the single e-invoice registration portal which existed earlier.

The end-to-end flow of a digitally signed e-invoice between sellers and buyers by integration with the GST system will lead to ease of compliance for the taxpayers. It will also lead to facilitation of auto-drafting and auto-populating of invoice details in the GST returns, which would lead to increased accuracy, correctness of reporting of supplies and availing of ITC by the recipients of the supply, GSTN said.

In a statement IRIS Business services, the only BSE listed firm offering e-invoice registration portal, said it will assist businesses to authenticate B2B and export invoices along with credit/debit notes.

"The digital rails for powering a USD 10-trillion economy will run through IRP portals which will facilitate e-invoicing resulting in a faster and more transparent exchange of invoices while minimising tax leakages," IRIS Tax Tech Business Head Gautam Mahanti said.

Along with core features of generation, fetching and cancellation of e-invoices, IRIS IRP also provides additional VAS features to tax payers such as seamless user journey of onboarding and registration directly from billing/accounting systems, storing invoice data for longer periods, and printing and sharing invoices with customers and vendors through the platform etc.

Under Goods and Services Tax (GST) law, e-invoicing for business-to-business (B2B) transactions was made mandatory for companies with turnover of over Rs 500 crore from October 1, 2020, which was then extended to those with turnover of over Rs 100 crore effective January 1, 2021.

From April 1, 2021, companies with turnover of over Rs 50 crore were generating B2B e-invoices, and the threshold was brought down to Rs 20 crore beginning April 1, 2022. From October 1, 2022, the threshold was further lowered to Rs 10 crore.

Indirect tax reform GST was rolled out on July 1, 2017.