The two mandates in one paragraph
E-invoicing means that once your aggregate turnover crosses ₹5 crore, every B2B invoice, export invoice and credit/debit note must be reported to a government Invoice Registration Portal (IRP), which returns an Invoice Reference Number (IRN) and a signed QR code — without which the invoice is not legally valid. E-way bills are older and apply regardless of turnover: before goods worth more than ₹50,000 move on a vehicle, an e-way bill must be generated carrying the consignment and transport details. A manufacturer above the threshold deals with both on every dispatch; one below it still deals with e-way bills daily. (Thresholds and rules are as notified at the time of writing and have changed repeatedly — confirm the current position with your CA.)
E-invoicing: the ₹5 crore threshold, IRN and QR
E-invoicing arrived in stages — ₹500 crore turnover in October 2020, then ₹100 crore, ₹50 crore, ₹20 crore, ₹10 crore, and ₹5 crore from 1 August 2023. The test is aggregate turnover in any financial year from 2017-18 onwards: cross it once and the mandate applies from the notified date, permanently. For a growing SME manufacturer, that means e-invoicing is not a question of if but when — and the crossing often happens mid-year, with little ceremony and no grace period for unpreparedness.
Mechanically, the flow is: your system produces the invoice data in the notified schema; it is reported to the IRP; the IRP validates it (GSTINs, duplicates, structure), generates the IRN — a unique hash of your GSTIN, document number and year — and returns it with a digitally signed QR code. You issue the invoice with the IRN and QR printed on it. The reported data then flows onward, auto-populating your GSTR-1 and the buyer's GSTR-2B — which is precisely why buyers above and below the threshold alike now chase suppliers for e-invoice compliance: their input tax credit visibility depends on it, as our GST compliance guide explains.
Two operational details deserve respect. Larger taxpayers (currently those with turnover of ₹10 crore and above) must report invoices to the IRP within a 30-day window — so "we will register last month's invoices later" is not a strategy. And cancellation of an IRN is only possible within 24 hours, after which corrections travel through credit notes. Both details punish sloppy invoice processes and reward systems that get the document right the first time.
What e-invoicing means for a manufacturer's workflow
For a manufacturer, the mandate lands on the last link of the quote-to-cash spine: the invoice raised against a dispatch. If that invoice is composed by hand — Word templates, Excel, memory — every field the IRP validates is a chance to fail: a stale buyer GSTIN, a 4-digit HSN where 6 digits are required, a rounding mismatch between line taxes and totals. Rejections mean trucks waiting at the gate while somebody re-keys.
If the invoice descends from an ERP document chain, those fields were never typed at invoice time at all. The buyer's GSTIN comes from the party master; HSN and rate come from the item master; the taxable value and CGST/SGST/IGST split are computed by tax configuration; dispatch address and quantities come from the delivery challan. The invoice is IRP-ready because everything upstream of it was already correct — which is the entire argument for master-driven documents.
E-way bill: the ₹50,000 movement rule
The e-way bill predates e-invoicing (April 2018) and catches far more businesses, because the trigger is not your turnover but the value of the consignment moving: generally above ₹50,000, interstate always, and intrastate in most states — several states apply different intrastate thresholds or exemptions, which is worth mapping with your CA for the states you ship in.
The document has two parts. Part A carries the invoice-side data: GSTINs of consignor and consignee, place of dispatch and delivery, document number, HSN, value. Part B carries the transport data: vehicle number or transporter ID. Validity is distance-based — broadly one day per 200 km slab — after which the bill lapses and must be extended or regenerated. In-transit inspections check the e-way bill against the physical goods and the invoice; mismatches can mean detention of the vehicle and penalties, which is why the three documents must be built from the same data.
Manufacturer movements that need e-way bills
A factory generates more qualifying movements than most owners expect. The table maps the common ones:
| Movement | Travels on | E-way bill? |
|---|---|---|
| Finished-goods dispatch to a customer | Tax invoice + delivery challan | Yes above the value threshold |
| Material sent to a job-worker (and its return) | Delivery challan | Yes — job-work movements have specific rules; interstate job-work sends generally need one regardless of value |
| Branch / plant transfer | Delivery challan (or invoice between GSTINs) | Yes above threshold |
| Purchase return / rejection sent back | Delivery challan / debit note | Yes above threshold |
| Machinery sent out for repair | Delivery challan | Often — value-dependent |
| Local low-value delivery | Invoice / challan | Generally no below ₹50,000, subject to state rules |
The pattern to notice: half of these movements have no tax invoice — they travel on delivery challans. A billing tool that only knows invoices cannot support them; an ERP whose stores engine treats challans, transfers and returns as first-class documents can.
The data your ERP must carry
Strip away the portals and both mandates reduce to a data checklist. Your system must hold, on the documents themselves:
- Party data: your GSTIN and the buyer's, with state codes driving the CGST/SGST-versus-IGST split — from the party master.
- Item data: HSN per line at the digit-depth your turnover requires, quantities, UOMs — from the item master's HSN-GST mapping.
- Value data: line-wise taxable values, tax amounts by component, document totals that reconcile to the paisa.
- Movement data: dispatch-from and ship-to addresses, distance, transporter or vehicle details for Part B — from the dispatch/challan documents.
- Identity data: serially controlled document numbers, dates, and references linking invoice ↔ challan ↔ order, so a gate inspection matches paper to truck.
When these live in one database — the order, the challan and the invoice descending from each other — the two portals become endpoints of a clean chain. When they live in Excel, every dispatch is an act of manual assembly.
Where manufacturers get caught out
Four recurring failure modes from the field. Job-work blindness: material moves to and from job-workers on challans without e-way bills because "it isn't a sale" — the rule cares about movement, not sale. The mid-year crossing: turnover crosses ₹5 crore in October, the e-invoice mandate arrives, and invoicing is still a Word template; retrofitting under deadline is far costlier than being data-ready early. Expired validity: a bill generated Friday evening for a Monday truck lapses en route because nobody matched validity to the actual journey. Mismatched documents: the invoice says 480 pieces, the challan says 500, the e-way bill says either — and an inspection finds all three. Every one of these is prevented by documents that share one source of truth.
How Fast ERP supports both
Fast ERP approaches both mandates the way this guide recommends: by making the documents right at the source. Party GSTINs with bulk import, item-HSN-GST bulk mapping and central tax configuration make every invoice IRP-ready by construction; dispatch entry and delivery challans carry the e-way-bill data — consignee, addresses, values, transport details — for movements with or without an invoice; and pre-dispatch inspection ensures what the paper says is what the truck carries. Invoices post to Tally as sales vouchers, so the books, the returns and the portal submissions all describe the same transaction. The full chain — enquiry to order to challan to invoice — is covered in the pillar guide; where this fits your buying decision is covered in the India SME buying guide and the honest pricing guide.
Approaching ₹5 crore — or tired of gate-time surprises?
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Frequently asked questions
Who must generate e-invoices in India?
E-invoicing applies to GST-registered businesses whose aggregate annual turnover has crossed ₹5 crore in any financial year since 2017-18, for B2B invoices, exports and credit/debit notes. The threshold has been lowered repeatedly — from ₹500 crore at launch in 2020 down to ₹5 crore from 1 August 2023 — so confirm the current limit with your CA. B2C invoices are outside the mandate, though a dynamic QR code requirement applies to very large taxpayers.
What is an IRN and how is it generated?
The Invoice Reference Number is a unique hash issued by the government's Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) when your invoice JSON is reported to it. The IRP validates the data, returns the IRN with a signed QR code, and the invoice is legally valid only when issued with that IRN and QR printed on it. The invoice data itself comes from your ERP or billing system — the IRP only registers what you send.
When is an e-way bill required?
An e-way bill is generally required before moving goods worth more than ₹50,000 per consignment — interstate always, and intrastate in most states (some states set different intrastate limits). It carries invoice details in Part A and vehicle/transporter details in Part B, and is valid for a distance-based period (broadly one day per 200 km slab). Job-work movements and certain goods have special rules, so manufacturers should map their regular movement types with their CA.
What data must my ERP carry for e-invoice and e-way bill?
Everything both documents are built from: your GSTIN and the buyer's, item-wise HSN codes, taxable values and CGST/SGST/IGST amounts, invoice number and date, dispatch and delivery addresses, and for the e-way bill the transporter and vehicle details. In Fast ERP this data is native to the invoice and dispatch documents — GSTIN masters, item-HSN-GST mapping and e-way-bill data on delivery challans — so generation portals receive complete, consistent data.
Does a delivery challan need an e-way bill?
Movement without a tax invoice — job work, branch transfers, returns, exhibition goods — travels on a delivery challan, and above the value threshold it still needs an e-way bill referencing that challan. This catches many manufacturers out because job-work movements are frequent. An ERP that treats the delivery challan as a first-class document with party, item, value and transport data makes these movements as compliant as invoiced dispatches.