Three documents for one dispatch
When a truck leaves an Indian auto components plant, three things usually have to exist before it can move.
- The ASN, or advance shipping notice, tells the customer what is coming: part numbers, quantities, invoice and vehicle. Many customers want it entered on their own portal before the goods arrive.
- The IRN, or invoice reference number, is issued when the invoice is registered as an e-invoice on the government’s invoice registration portal.
- The e-way bill travels with the goods and records what is being moved, from where, to where and on which vehicle.
The same facts, typed three times
Look at what each one needs: the invoice number, the customer, the part numbers, the quantities, the value and the vehicle. It is the same handful of facts. In many plants they are typed into the accounting system, typed again into the e-invoice portal and typed a third time into the customer’s portal.
Each re-typing is a chance for a wrong digit. A wrong digit means a rejected ASN at the customer’s gate, a credit note, or a truck waiting in the yard while someone fixes paperwork.
One dispatch record, three outputs
The dispatch itself already knows everything the documents need. So treat the dispatch as the record, and the documents as outputs of it.
- The supervisor confirms what was loaded, against the order and the stock.
- The invoice is raised from that confirmation and registered, and the IRN comes back onto the invoice.
- The e-way bill is raised with the vehicle details already captured at the gate.
- The ASN is sent to the customer in the format their portal expects.
A person still checks and confirms before anything is sent. They just don’t type it three times.
What changes on the floor
Trucks leave when they are loaded, not when the paperwork catches up. Accounts and stores stop reconciling at the end of the day, because the invoice and the stock movement came from the same record. And when a customer queries a delivery, the answer is one search, not three.