E-Invoice & E-Way Bill

What this module does

Under GST, a B2B invoice above the notified turnover threshold must be reported to the Invoice Registration Portal before it is valid, and goods above ₹50,000 in value generally cannot move without an e-way bill. Done manually, that means re-typing every invoice into a government portal and pasting the IRN and QR code back into your billing software — slow, and a reliable source of mismatches between what you billed and what you reported.

OEMup talks to the portal directly. The document you already raised becomes the payload, and the IRN, acknowledgement number, signed QR code and e-way bill number all come back onto that same document. Nothing is typed twice, so what you reported and what you billed cannot drift apart.

If you want the regulatory background rather than the product steps — who is covered, from what turnover, and what the schema means — read the GST e-invoice guide alongside this page.

One-time setup

Go to Settings → Accounting and open the Setup E-Invoice tab. Click Edit, then fill in:

Click Save. The credentials are used to authenticate with the portal on every call, so they must stay current — if you rotate the password on the portal, update it here the same day.

Generating an e-invoice (IRN)

For a sales invoice

Open the Invoices list and click the Generate E-Invoice action on the invoice, or open the invoice and use the Generate E Invoice button. Review the details, submit, and the portal returns the IRN. The action only appears when e-invoicing is enabled for your company and the invoice does not already have an IRN.

For a credit or debit note

Open the note and choose Generate e-Invoice. Before it will run, the note must be Approved or Posted — a draft note cannot be reported, which is deliberate, since an unapproved document should not reach a government portal.

The screen shows the key fields it is about to send. Most are read-only — document number, date, type and your own GSTIN — while the buyer block and supply type are editable, so you can correct a missing GSTIN or address without going back to the customer master. Click Edit, make your changes, then Save to submit.

Credit notes are reported as document type CRN and debit notes as DBN. Supply type can be B2B, SEZ with or without payment, export with or without payment, or deemed export.

What comes back

On success the portal returns and OEMup stores the IRN, the acknowledgement number and date, the signed invoice and the signed QR code (including a QR image for printing). The document is then locked against editing, because the portal already holds the reported values.

Reviewing the payload before submitting

When generating from the note detail screen, a preview dialog shows the exact payload — a Key fields section you can edit directly, a read-only totals line, and the complete raw JSON, which is editable with a reformat button for anyone comfortable at that level. Invalid JSON is caught before submission rather than being rejected by the portal.

The dialog also warns you when a customer has no address on file, explaining that the portal will otherwise receive placeholder values. That warning is worth heeding — a missing address does not block submission, it just reports a placeholder to the government.

Cancelling an IRN

Use Cancel e-Invoice, pick a reason — Duplicate, Data entry mistake, Order cancelled or Others — and add optional remarks.

Generating an e-way bill

An e-way bill is required when goods actually move. On credit and debit notes that means sales returns (goods coming back to you) and purchase returns (goods going out to a vendor). Notes that only adjust value — a sales debit note or a purchase credit note — move no goods and are never eligible.

Part-A and Part-B

This is the distinction that causes the most confusion, so it is worth being precise:

You can therefore generate Part-A only when billing is done but the vehicle is not arranged, and come back later with Update Part B to assign the vehicle. Or, if the vehicle is already known, generate Part A + Part B in one go — which requires either a vehicle number or a transport document number, and will tell you so if you leave both blank.

Transport details

The editable transport block covers: Transporter ID (their 15-digit GSTIN) and name, Transport mode (road, rail, air or ship), Distance in km, from and to pincodes, Vehicle number, Vehicle type (regular or over-dimensional cargo), and a Transport document number for rail, air or ship consignments.

The ₹50,000 threshold and the override

By default OEMup will not generate an e-way bill for a consignment at or below ₹50,000, because the law does not require one. But logistics partners sometimes insist on a bill regardless, and refusing to produce one would leave the goods stuck.

So on credit and debit notes a checkbox appears — “Generate anyway — note is below the ₹50,000 threshold” — explaining that the consignment does not legally require one and to generate it only if your transporter needs it. Ticking it unblocks the generate button, and the confirm button label changes to make clear you are overriding.

Validity

Validity is set by the portal and returned with the bill; OEMup does not compute it. Once the valid-until date passes, the bill's status displays as Expired. Note that extending validity is not currently available in the app — an expiring bill has to be handled on the government portal directly.

Updating Part-B (assigning the vehicle)

When a Part-A-only bill exists, an Update Part B action appears. Enter the transport mode, the vehicle number (for road) or transport document number (for rail, air or ship), the vehicle type, and a short reason such as “Vehicle assigned”. The bill becomes valid for transit and the status moves to Part-B updated.

On the sales invoice side the equivalent screen offers a fuller reason list — break down, transhipment, first time or others — matching what the portal expects when a vehicle changes mid-journey. The invoice flow also supports multi-vehicle movement, for a consignment split across vehicles, and consolidated e-way bills, for several bills travelling in one vehicle. Neither of these exists for credit and debit notes.

Cancelling an e-way bill

Use Cancel e-Way Bill and choose a reason — Duplicate, Order cancelled, Data entry mistake or Others. As with IRNs, the window is 24 hours from generation, and an expired bill cannot be cancelled at all.

Cancelling the credit or debit note itself handles the sequence for you: it cancels the e-way bill, then the IRN, then reverses the accounting — with both 24-hour windows still enforced.

Common errors and what to do

Permissions

Credit and debit note e-documents are gated by the Accounting → Credit / Debit Note submodule:

• View — open the e-Invoice and e-Way Bill screens and inspect the payload.
• Update — actually generate, cancel or update Part-B.

Note that a view-only user can still open these screens and press the buttons; the request is then refused by the server. If you want a cleaner experience for such users, keep them off the note screens entirely.

On the sales invoice side there is no dedicated e-invoice permission — visibility of the buttons is driven by your company's e-invoice and e-way bill switches together with whether the invoice already carries a document.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related

• GST e-invoice guide — the compliance background behind these screens
• All module manuals
• Accounting & GST features overview