This week we bring you some important updates made to the e-way bill portal and relevant changes to HSN reporting which will impact all GST taxpayers. The department also notified all the changes which were announced in the GST Council meeting last week. Good to see the speed with which the notifications have come through so taxpayers can benefit from them.

Following changes were made to e-way bill software by NIC

1. E-way bill facility will be blocked for a GSTIN only for defaulting supplier GSTIN now and not for the defaulting recipient or transporter GSTIN.
2. Where mode of transport is Ship, it has now been updated as Ship / Road cum Ship. Now users can enter vehicle number in case the goods are moved by Road initially, and for movement by Ship, the Bill of lading Number and date may be entered.
3. Suspended GSTINs are now allowed for E-Waybill generation. Similarly, the recipient and transporter GSTINs which are suspended are also allowed for generation of e-waybill.

Some improvements have also been made in MIS reports

1. For E-way bills which are about to expire, an Excel download option is provided.
2. In the Outward Supplies report an additional column for mode of generation is provided.

Change in HSN Summary in GSTR-1

1. GSTN has started auto-populating the ‘Description’ from the ‘HSN/SAC’ entered in the HSN Summary that is reported in GSTR-1. Even if the users provide their own description against the particular HSN/SAC, the same will be overwritten by the description as per the HSN master list. Therefore GSTN is not allowing to edit the description in the HSN summary to be filed in GSTR-1.
2. There is a new column for rate of tax
3. Total Value column has been removed

Please note that all of the above changes related to HSN Summary are applicable from the May 2021 period onwards.