The NIC issued new guidelines for e-way bill on January 5, 2024, however on January 10, 2024, it retracted the advice. According to the previous advisory, starting on March 1, 2024, the businesses who fail to include e-invoice details such as IRN(Invoice Registration Number) will have their e-way bill generation blocked. But post withdrawing the advisory, it is hard to say when it will get implemented again or will there be any changes made to it
e-way bill is not a new concept, it existed even before GST under several other titles. To put it simply, it is an electronic document created for each consignment that requires transportation of goods exceeding the threshold value (for most of the states of India this threshold value is at 50,000 Rs.). Right before the shipment of goods, the supplier or the carrier must create an e-way bill through the portal, post which, a unique number and electronic document are produced for each consignment.
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Does it apply to you?
The original mandate required selected companies covered by the e-invoicing system to produce e-way bills that included information from the e-invoice. So as per the original rule, the following companies would fall under the advisory:
- Having a combined yearly revenue of more than Rs. 5 crores during a fiscal year that was handled through the e-invoicing system
- Handling goods with the consignment value crossing the threshold limit, and
- Conducting business with other businesses (B2B) and with exports (B2E).
It should be noted that under this mandate, the Business-to-Customers (B2C) transactions, non-supplies (including delivery challans), non-GST, and exempt supplies (bill of supply) are not covered by this law. Similarly, companies that are not covered by e-invoicing have the option of using direct e-way bill generating.
How will it impact businesses?
Right now, the taxpayers who have not filed their GST returns for the preceding two months or quarters are the ones unable to generate e-way bills. For implementation, information is shared between the GST system and the e-way bill system.
If the original NIC advisory is put into effect from 1st March 2024, then the e-way bill facility will also be restricted if e-invoice details are absent at the time of generation. Without e-invoice details, e-way bill production may result in the following problems :-
- Delays in product delivery can have a negative impact on company relationships.
- Moving products without e-way bill might result in penalties for businesses from the government.
- When items are moved without e-way bills, there is a chance that they may be detained or seized and then released only after paying taxes and penalties.
What should be your next steps?
Although the advisory by NIC has been withdrawn at the moment, but it is safe to say that it can be implemented in future. Even in the absence of advisory, it is important for businesses to generate e-invoices and e-way bill to stay compliant. As a business owner you must ensure that generating e-invoices and e-way bills happen simultaneously. As an ideal practice, it is best to generate e-invoice along with e-way bills for B2B transactions as this can avoid any mismatched between the two documents at a later point. The business management software with connected solution make it easy.
With TallyPrime, you don’t have to go through the trouble of separate e-invoice and e-billing generation and spend your time and efforts on other clerical tasks around it. With TallyPrime’s connected e-invoicing and e-way bill solution, you can instantly generate e-invoics and e-way bills together. You can easily create an electronic way bill online using TallyPrime by just capturing the invoice. With TallyPrime's fully integrated solution, the complexity is eliminated by automatically uploading invoice details and instantlygenerate e-way bills in required format.
