GST E-Way bills are considered to be a game-changer in the history of India’s movement of Goods. It has been successfully rolled out on April 1, 2018. It is expected to impart greater transparency and hassle-free movement of goods between the supplier and the receiver. This step has been taken with a noble intention to eliminate paper-based documents which are easy to manipulate and to ensure the timely delivery of goods. Its main intention is to reduce corruption.

Under GST, it is mandatory transporters should carry an E-Way bill when transporting goods from one place to another when certain conditions are met. Let us delve deeper into what GST E-Way bills are and how it works.

What is GST E-Way Bills? How does it work?

If the transportation of good, interstate or intrastate is worth more than INR 50,000 an E-Way bill has to be generated.

The supplier and transporters have to upload the necessary details on the GSTN portal which will then generate a unique E-Way bill. This number will be sent to the supplier, transporter, and recipient through the portal itself.

Various Situations may arise which will require generating the E-Way bills all over again like:

1. A separate bill has to be generated if the transporter chooses to transfer the goods from one vehicle to another.

2. The transporter needs to mention the serial numbers of various E-Way bills if multiple consignments are being transported.

3. Many times, unexpected situations might come up and you need to go through the procedure all over again.

Undergoing all these tasks can create a lot of confusion and can act as a catalyst to create many other problems. All this hassle can be simplified if you manage your E-Way Bills using ERP software.

• Easily generates an E-Way Bill number

In your ERP software enter all the mandatory details that will be required to generate the E-Way bill. After all the details are filled in and the GST tax invoice is ready to generate a JSON/Excel file of the invoice and upload it to the E-Way bill portal. This will automatically generate an E-Way bill with an EBN (E-Way Bill number).

• Consolidated Invoices

You can group invoices once you are done generating GST E-Way bills for individual invoices. The grouping can be done on the basis of transport mode, vehicle no, a state where the supply is made, etc., and a consolidated bill can be generated on the E-way portal to make the transporter life simple.

• Generate an E-way bill at your convenience

Sometimes there might be a situation when the goods are ready to be shipped but the transport vehicle is not. The transaction can be recorded in ERP software which can be then used to generate the E-Way bill.

This is how billing software provides the flexibility to generate GST E-Way bills as and when needed.

• Filters out the E-way Compliant invoices

Your company must be recording invoices at every stage of your value chain. This means a lot and a lot of invoices to manage. It becomes extremely difficult to determine which of your invoice will require an E-way generation and which will not. This is where the ERP can rescue you by keeping a track of all the invoices and will help you filter out the ones for which the E-Way bill is to be created.

• A savior in unexpected circumstances

Business situations are unpredictable, anything can happen at anytime. For example, it might happen that the vehicle carrying the supply of goods breaks down and a big delay is expected which means the goods will not be delivered in the time period for which the bill was generated. The possible solution is to Re-generate the E-way bill from the portal. ERP system will be useful in such a situation. It will track that particular invoice and will generate an E-way bill within a few minutes.

• Always remember to generate your E-way Bill

Now imagine a situation, the financial year is ending and your accounts department is under a lot of work pressure. In all this hustle and bustle they forgot to generate the E-way bill. The consignment is dispatched without an E-way bill. Without it, there is no chance the product will be delivered on time and you will not be able to fulfill the promise you made to your customer.

Worried? Don’t be. ERP software with GST solution will ensure that all the transactions for which the E-way bills are yet to be made are available in one place. This way you will never miss making an E-way bill.

• Generate many invoices in a single click

Generating E-way bills for every transaction is tiresome for FMGC distributing goods in small quantities. The easier option for them can be generating e-Way Bills in bulk since they dispatch goods for multiple orders at the same time. In such cases, disconnect the E-way bill from the ERP software and create sales invoices.

While dispatching goods, you can see all the transactions for which E-way bills are yet to be generated. Select all the invoices together and export them as a single JSON file and upload it on the E-way bill portal. The portal will then generate E-way bills for these invoices in a single click.

Bottom Line

With GST E-way bills becoming a mandatory practice invoicing will become a regular activity. There is no room for errors here as Invoicing and shipping will have to take simultaneously. So just don’t wait, start looking for an ideal GST software to manage your E-way Bills in an efficient manner that will curb all your additional operating costs.

Simoni Shah

Simoni Shah is working as a Software Analyst in Software Suggest, the Best business software discovery and recommendation platform. She has a decent experience in project coordination, business development and dealing with global clients.