Functions in e-Invoicing

This guide will help you learn about the various actions you’ll be able to perform in Zoho Books as part of e-Invoicing.

Statuses of e-Invoicing in Zoho Books

Here are the various statuses related to e-Invoicing in Zoho Books.

Status Description
Yet-to-be Pushed The transaction is yet to be pushed to the IRP for e-Invoicing.
Pushed The transaction was pushed to the IRP successfully, and a QR code and IRN has been generated for it.
Push Initiated The transaction is being pushed to the IRP as part of a bulk push action.
Cancelled The e-Invoiced transaction has been cancelled in both Zoho Books and the IRP. The IRN associated with it is no longer valid.
Marked as Cancelled The e-Invoiced transaction has been marked as cancelled in Zoho Books alone. You’ll have to cancel it in the GST portal to make the IRN invalid.
Failed The transaction could not be pushed to the IRP.

The e-Invoicing system requires the following transactions to be pushed to the IRP. An IRN will have to be generated for each of these transactions:

Insight: This guide explains how to push invoices to the e-Invoicing portal from Zoho Books. However, Credit Notes and Debit Notes can also be pushed in a similar manner.

Create Invoices

The Government has mandated a set of fields that are required for an e-Invoice. Some of these are available when creating new invoices. The other mandatory fields, will be available for that invoice if you’ve already entered them in Zoho Books (e.g. in the Customers or Items modules )

Here’s a list of some of the mandatory fields:

Module Mandatory Fields
Organisation (Seller) Details
  • Legal Name
  • GSTIN
  • Address*
Customer (Buyer) Details
  • Legal Name
  • GST Treatment
  • GSTIN
  • Billing Address*
Transaction Details (Invoice, Credit Note, Debit Note)
  • Number (e.g. Invoice#)
  • Date (e.g. Invoice Date)
  • Total (e.g. Invoice Total)
Item Details
  • Item Type
  • HSN/SAC Code
  • Selling Price
  • GST Rate

Note: Addresses must include: Street1, City, Zip/Postal Code, and State

The other mandatory fields depend upon the business needs of the supplier. For example, the Dispatch From address is mandatory if it’s different from the seller address. The Shipping address is mandatory if it’s different from the buyer address.

Push Invoices to the IRP

Invoices in Zoho Books can be sent to the e-Invoicing portal with the click of a button. If you have enabled transaction approval, then the invoices must be approved before you can push them to the IRP. If you’ve set up multi-level approval, then you can push invoices only after they’ve been approved by the final approver.

Note: You have to push an invoice to the IRP successfully before sending it to the customer.

Here’s how you can push invoices to the IRP:

How e-Invoicing works in Zoho Invoice

e-Way Bill Details

If you have enabled e-Way Bills in Zoho Books, then you can choose to push the e-Way Bill details to the IRP, along with your invoice. This way, you can save time and generate an e-Way Bill as well as an IRN for your invoice. When you click Push to IRP, you can decide which details you want to send to the IRP.

How e-Invoicing works in Zoho Invoice

If the invoice is pushed to the IRP successfully, then an IRN (Invoice Reference Number) and QR Code will be generated by the IRP. This IRN is unique to each invoice and will be used to identify it for the entire financial year in the GST system. You can click Copy IRN above the invoice preview to copy this IRN if needed.

If you want to include this QR code and IRN in your invoice, you can do so by editing the invoice template. Here’s how:

How e-Invoicing works in Zoho Invoice

Alternatively, you can also configure this option from the Templates section in Settings.

Pro Tip: To help with bulk actions, you can filter the invoices based on their e-Invoicing status in Zoho Books. To do this, go to the Invoices module and click All Invoices. From the list, you can either select Pushed for e-Invoicing or Yet-to-be pushed for e-Invoicing to view the corresponding list.

Bulk Push Invoices

You can save time and push multiple invoices to the IRP at once, using bulk actions in Zoho Books. Here’s how:

How e-Invoicing works in Zoho Invoice

Now, pushing the selected invoices to the IRP will be initiated. When successful, a QR code and IRN will be generated for all of them.

If any of these these invoices failed to be pushed to the IRP, you will be notified of it and an error summary will be sent to your (the user who initiates the push) email address that’s registered in Zoho Books.

Insight: Once an invoice has been pushed to the IRP and an IRN has been generated for it, you will not be able to edit any of its mandatory fields.

Cancel e-Invoices

You might want to cancel an e-Invoice if you’ve entered any incorrect values or for any other reason. This can be done in Zoho Books easily.

Warning: If you cancel an e-Invoice, the IRN associated with it will no longer be valid, and you’ll have to create a new IRN for the invoice.

Cancelling an e-Invoice depends upon the time lapsed since the IRN was generated: * Cancelling within 24 hours * Cancelling after 24 hours

Cancelling an e-Invoice within 24 hours

If you cancel an e-Invoice in Zoho Books within the first 24 hours of generating an IRN for it, then it will be cancelled in the IRP also automatically.

To cancel an e-Invoice:

How e-Invoicing works in Zoho Books

Cancelling an e-Invoice after 24 hours

After 24 hours of pushing an invoice to the IRP successfully, the IRN generated will no longer be available in the IRP. So cancelling in Zoho Books will not cancel it in the IRP automatically.

Instead, you can mark the e-Invoice in Zoho Books as cancelled, and then go to the GST portal to cancel the IRN manually.

Here’s how you can do this:

Next,

How e-Invoicing works in Zoho Invoice

Once an e-Invoice has been cancelled/marked as cancelled in Zoho Books, its status will change to Void. If needed, you can clone this invoice, make the necessary changes, and then push this new invoice to the IRP.

Note: When an e-Invoice has been cancelled, you cannot generate a new invoice using the same invoice number.

Configure Preferences for Other Modules

Now let’s take a look at how you can set up other preferences for other modules.

Recurring Invoice Preferences

If you have set up recurring invoices, the invoices generated from the profile will be pushed to the IRP automatically, depending on the Recurring Invoice Preferences which you’ve configured. If your preference is:

How e-Invoicing works in Zoho Invoice

Insight: These options will differ accordingly if you have enabled transaction approval or digital signature.

Estimate Preferences

If you’ve configured the estimate preferences to convert accepted estimates to invoices automatically, then these invoices will be pushed to the IRP depending on your set preference. If your preference is:

How e-Invoicing works in Zoho Invoice

If you have any doubts or need any help with e-Invoicing in Zoho Books, you can reach out to us at einvoicing-support@zohofinance.com. We’ll be there to assist you.

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