New GST Invoice Rules
Say goodbye to stacks of receipts and invoices! The process of handling GST invoices has become much easier. On the 1st April 2023, Inland Revenue introduced new regulations aimed at modernising your record-keeping systems. This means you can now move closer to operating a completely paperless business.
Physical paperwork or PDFs no longer required.
You are no longer required to maintain physical copies of tax invoices, credit notes, or debit notes. Your taxable information supply can now be entirely digital - included in your accounting software, in your transaction records or in contractual information.
The terminology has also been updated. Instead of labelling your invoices as 'Tax invoice,' the new term is 'taxable supply information.' However, you don't need to explicitly mention this on any invoices. It's simply the Inland Revenue's way of clarifying that specific information must be included on the documentation. You don't need to make any modifications to your existing invoices.
These changes were necessary to make e-invoicing legal, so without any actual paperwork or even a PDF moving around, your system-to-system invoices are still valid.
Information over and above current tax invoice requirements includes:
- the "date of the supply” — when the time of supply is triggered, rather than the current tax invoice requirement of the date on which the tax invoice is issued
- for supplies over $1,000, the TSI must include the recipient's physical address (if that information is available).
For supplies over $200 it is mandatory to issue TSI to GST-registered customers within 28 days of the date of supply, and for supplies made to non-GST registered persons you have 28 days from when the customer requests the information.
Other favourable changes include the increase of the low-value threshold from $50 to $200 where limited taxable supply information is required and the removal of Inland Revenue approval for issuing buyer-created tax invoices (replaced by written agreements between parties to confirm self-billing).
We’re here to help
If you’re not sure which records you need to keep, just give the team at Malloch McClean a call. We can chat with you about how these changes might impact your business, and how you can use e-invoicing to reduce your risk of invoice fraud. We can also discover other ways to help keep your accounting secure, tactics to get paid faster, and opportunities to make your processes even more efficient.
Malloch McClean is a Chartered Accounting firm based in Invercargill and Nelson, providing business advice and accounting solutions to organisations throughout NZ. If you'd like to talk to us about any of the subjects raised in this blog, please feel free to get in touch.