GST Invoice Guide: GST Tax Invoice Format, Rules

A registered person must issue a tax invoice if he is supplying taxable goods or services. The tax invoice provisions in GST are central to the time of supply rules, the input tax credit system and the matching mechanism. Meaning if an invoice is captures all the relevant details such as of a business transaction including information about both the parties. It will comprise the product name, description, quantity, details of supplier, purchaser, GST Tax rate charged, discounts, terms of sale etc., then we can call such invoice as a GST invoice.

Though GST includes services as well, but the method of invoicing is different for movement of goods and for supply of services. Invoicing under GST (Supply of goods) requires the supplier of taxable goods must issue the tax invoice before or at the time of (a) Removal of goods for supply to the recipient, where the supply involves movement of goods; (b) Delivery of goods or making available thereof to the recipient, in any other case. Whereas in case of supply of services supplier of taxable services is ordinarily liable to issue the tax invoice within 30 days from the date of supply of service. Thus the period and method of invoicing is different for Goods and for services.

Finer Points to note : Removal of goods in GST law means that goods are dispatched for delivery by the supplier on himself or by any other person acting on his behalf and such goods are collected by the recipient on himself or by any other person acting on his behalf.

Let us know hover around the contents that a GST Invoice must contain and also learn if there are any other gst invoice format guidelines prescribed for the taxpayers based on their type of registration. The GST Tax Invoice must be prepared in accordance with the GST rules and the following must be mentioned on all such GST invoices :

GST Tax Invoice Format /Contents it must hold :

 

Contain details /details of What should it contain as details
Supplier’s •         Name

•         Address

•        GSTIN Number

Recipient’s •         Name

•         Address

•        GSTIN Number

Recipient’s details (if recipient is unregistered and value of taxable supply is Rs.50,000 or more) •         Name

•         Address

•         Address of delivery, along with name of State and its code.

Note : State code is the first two digits of your GSTIN number, and it is derived from the  Indian Center data of 2011 and GST has prescribed the state code from the same source.

Recipient’s details (if recipient is unregistered and value of taxable supply is Rs. 50,000 or more and the recipient requests that the following details be recorded in the tax invoice) •         Name

•         Address

•         Place of Supply, along with name of State and its code.

Note : Place of Supply in case where the deliver is to be made at address other than usual address of the recipient.

Supply •         HSN code

•         Description of goods or services

•         Unique Quantity Measurement (UQM)  or Unique Quantity Code

•         Total value of supply of goods or services

•         Taxable value of goods or services or both including discounts, abatement etc.,

•         Tax rate CGST, SGST, IGST, IGST and compensation cess of any

•         Summary of taxes in respect of taxable goods or services (CGST, SGST, IGST, UTGST separately)

•         Place of supply along with the name of the State, in the case of a supply in the course of inter-state trade or commerce

•        Address of delivery where the same is different from the place of supply.

Other details •         consecutive serial number not exceeding sixteen characters, in one or multiple series, containing alphabets or numerals or special characters-hyphen or dash and slash symbolised as “-“ and “/” respectively, and any combination thereof, unique for a financial year.

•         Date of issue of invoice

•         Whether the tax is payable on reverse charge basis

•        Signatures or Digital signatures of supplier or his authorised representative on his behalf

 

Clarifications on quoting of HSN Code in GST invoices – the number of digits required to be mentioned etc., CBEC notifications reads that “on the recommendations of the Council, hereby notifies that a registered person having annual turnover in the preceding financial year as specified in column (2) of the Table below shall mention the digits of Harmonised System of Nomenclature (HSN) Codes, as specified in the corresponding entry in column (3) of the said Table, in a tax invoice issued by him under the said rules https://www.zintego.com/.

Table

S. No.

(1)

Annual Turnover in the preceding financial year        (2) Number of Digits of HSN Code

(3)

1. Upto Rs. One Crore Fifty Lakhs Nil
2. More than One Crore Fifty Lakhs but upto Rs. Five Crores 2 Digits
3. More than Rs. Five Crores 4 Digits

 

Invoicing under Special category of persons : In the case of an export of goods or services, the invoice must carry an endorsement “Supply meant for export/supply to SEZ unit or SEZ Developer for authorized operations in payment of Integrated Tax” or “Supply meant for export/supply to SEZ Unit or SEZ Developer for authorized operations under Bond or Letter of undertaking without payment of Integrated Tax” as the case may be, and should, in lieu of the details specified contain the following details, namely: (a) name and  address of recipient ; (b) Address of delivery; (c) Name of the country of destination.

 

The other types of invoices in GST :

  • Bill of Supply : A bill of supply is similar to a GST invoice except that bill of supply does not contain any tax amount as the seller cannot charge GST to the buyer. A bill of supply is issued in cases where tax cannot be charged:
  • Registered person is selling exempted goods/services,
  • Registered person has opted for composition scheme
  • Invoice cum bill of supply : If a registered person is supplying taxable as well as exempted goods/services to an unregistered person, then he can issue a single “invoice-cum-bill of supply” for all such supplies.

 

  • Multiple invoices in one Aggregate Invoice : If the value of multiple invoices is less than Rs. 200 and the buyer is unregistered, the seller can issue an aggregate or bulk invoice for the multiple invoices on a daily basis.
  • Debit and credit note : When goods supplied are returned or when there is a revision in the invoice value due to goods (or services) not being up to the mark or extra goods being issued a Debit Note or Credit Note is issued by the supplier and receiver of goods and services and this occurs in following two situations : (a) When the amount payable by buyer to seller decreases; or when (b) When the amount payable by buyer to seller increases.

 

How many copies of GST Invoices should be issued : For supply and movement of goods – 3 copies with original marked for Recipient of goods, and duplicate for transporter, and triplicate for the supplier. And for supply of services GST invoicing has to be made in Duplicate, with original marked for Recipient of services and duplicate for the supplier of services.

 

Conclusion : Once you take the first and major step precisely with the correct invoicing in place, the overall GST process becomes relatively easier. Tally.ERP 9 is a fully automated GST solution, which along with other functionalities also ensures that your invoicing always follow the prescribed GST invoicing guidelines. And it also bifurcates the reverse charge invoices from the regular B2B invoices as it asks while creating ledger masters as whether the buyer is a Registered or Unregistered dealer. So it makes it easier to identify B2B and B2C invoices and also Tally.ERP 9 takes all the invoice input feeds to GST Returns in the same format as found in GST portal thus making the process of filing GST returns easier as well.

Comments are closed.