Invoice uploading opens on GSTN

The GST Network (GSTN), the entity responsible for the information technology backbone of the goods and services tax (GST), opened its system on Monday for invoice uploading.

It is not mandatory to start the uploading but “it’s live”, said Prakash Kumar, chief executive officer (CEO) of GSTN. This was earlier permitted but only for a select few such as Suvidha providers, tax consultants and some officials.

Kumar said invoices could be uploaded through Suvidha providers or by assessees themselves. For this purpose, GSTN had launched an Excel template on June 30, beside offline tools. Archit Gupta, CEO of ClearTax, one of the Suvidha providers, said taxpayers might find it difficult to locate the page where invoices have to be uploaded. “We also observed that only JSON files are supported. Businesses maintaining Excel sheets for invoices need to convert these to JSON format,” he said.

Praveen Khandelwal, secretary general of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), says it will take a couple of days for traders to understand the format. CAIT members did not know of the development and were apprised through WhatsApp, he said. To give time for assessees, the GST Council has allowed them to file date-wise sale returns for July by August 20 and invoice-based returns by September 5. Assessees may upload their invoices till then. Saloni Roy of consultancy Deloitte said, “Not many taxpayers attempted uploading invoices on Monday. They are still in the wait and watch mode till the portal becomes smoothly functional.”

However, GSTN chairman Navin Kumar appealed to assessees not to wait for a last-time rush. “We encourage businesses, particularly MSMEs (micro, small and medium) and larger businesses that generate large numbers of invoices to start uploading the data to the portal straightaway and not wait until September, when the July return will be due,” he said.