GSTN issues e-invoicing draft standard; Role of GSPs become inevitable under the new mechanism

As a masterstroke to curb tax evasion, GST Council decided in Modi 1.0 Government tenure to study the feasibility of e-invoicing system.

Under the chairmanship of newly elected Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Modi 2.0 Government tenure, GST Council has finally decided to roll out the e-invoicing system for B2B transactions from January 2020 voluntarily.

To get the industry feedback, GSTN has recently released a consultation paper on e-invoice standard, drafted in consultation with ICAI and after studying globally accepted standards implemented in various countries¹.

An IRN to be generated for every e-invoice

According to the initial discussions and directions issued by the Government, a supplier will have to generate an Invoice Reference Number (IRN) for each e-invoice issued.

Once the IRN is generated, the system will provide the details of the invoice and IRN number to the pre-notified agency, such as NIC, on a real-time basis.

The agency will validate the IRN and issue a digitally signed e-invoice to the supplier. Also, it will then pass the e-invoice details back to GSTN for auto-population of GST returns and generation of e-way bills.

Same invoice details will be visible to the buyers also which will ensure instant verification of input tax credit.

It is pertinent to note that only those invoices which carry an IRN number will be considered valid invoices for the tax purposes.

How will Vayana GSP play an indispensable role in e-invoicing?

Vayana Network is a GSTN authorised GST Suvidha Provider (GSP). We have licensed gateway access to GSTN and NIC systems over secure APIs. Through the APIs published by GSTN and NIC, we ensure robust GST and e-way bill compliance.

Generation of IRN number is an inevitable process in the e-invoicing framework as outlined above.

With Vayana GSP, you can generate the IRN numbers hassle-free in few clicks. Not only this, once the pre-notified agency validates the details and issues the e-invoice, all the details will be auto-populated in its ASP software SahiGST from where you can file the returns in few clicks.

Why is Vayana GSP trusted by thousands of customers and tax consultants?

Unlike the present GST return filing norms requiring monthly return filing, e-invoicing is transaction-intensive and merits process automation to avoid high cost and error-prone manual operations. Further, it requires a GSP which ensures near 100% uptime to process high transaction volumes. Vayana GSP is engineered for extremely high availability, scalability and security.

With the advent of GST, a number of GSPs have been promising high availability (24×7) API service. In an ecosystem of me-too GSPs, Vayana has proven the performance of zero downtime and completely auto-failover and auto-scalable infrastructure delivered through investments in cutting edge technology to set itself apart. In today’s age of data-driven services, just like access to quality telecom network is paramount, similarly, in technology-driven compliance, access to government systems through a never-failing GSP provides benefit in the long run.

Because of its impeccable features and robust security characteristics, Vayana GSP is a trusted GSP for Corporates, ASPs ,small businesses, tax consultants and GST practitioners –

1. 24x7x365 days access to GSTN and NIC – Through a fully auto-failover architecture, we ensure that the GSP never fails – it provides 24x7x365 days access to GSTN and NIC.

Once e-invoicing mechanism is implemented, one will be required to have 24×7 access to the GSTN portal, which will separate the key GSPs from others.

What telecom operator do you prefer most? – One who offers best network coverage, optimum data speed and 24×7 access, right?

Like an efficient telecom firm, we ensure that you have 24×7 access to GSTN and NIC systems, hassle-free.

2. Real-time update according to changes on GSTN or NIC portal – Because of the investments in multiple levels of redundancies, even a new release of GSP application or any updates don’t cause any downtime to the customers. With every change on GSTN or NIC portal, our application is updated real-time.

3. Auto-scalable infrastructure – Vayana GSP is the only GSP to have fully auto-scalable infrastructure. Our GSP application servers can scale up or down on capacity irrespective of the API traffic load. Also, our application is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and maintains a server farm which can scale up the data traffic received from various ASPs.

Also, our GSP can process API calls at higher speed, while other GSPs might throw up big latencies at higher traffic loads.

4. Multiple MPLS connectivity – Vayana GSP has procured two MPLS connectivity from the designated ISPs to stay connected with GSTN Data Centre 1 at Delhi and GSTN Data Centre 2 at Bengaluru, even if one GSTN Data Centre is down.

5. Partner with more than 80% SAP corporates – We are a proven leader since more than 80% of the corporates possessing SAP ASP have partnered with us to integrate their ASPs to GSTN/ NIC.

As is the industry norm, corporates prefer to work with those GSPs which are SAP-certified, and we are fully SAP certified. Also, we are amongst the first few ISO 27001 certified GSPs.

In a nutshell, as we move towards a simpler, faster GST 2.0 mechanism, GSPs are going to be more important than ever because they are the backbone of the entire GSTN structure.