Continuous Supply of Goods

[Kaustubh Karandikar]

XYZ is supplying Corrugated Boxes as packing materials to their customer. The deliveries are approx. 10 to 15 truck loads in a month. The customer is insisting XYZ to follow the provisions of ‘continuous supply of goods’ and supply the goods under a delivery challan and prepare one single tax invoice for the entire deliveries during the month. Is XYZ eligible to follow this procedure? If no, then this provision is applicable for which type of supplies?

[Rajagopalan Ranganathan]

Sir,

According to Section 2 (32) of CGST Act, 2017 “continuous supply of goods” means a supply of goods which is provided, or agreed to be provided, continuously or on recurrent basis, under a contract, whether or not by means of a wire, cable, pipeline or other conduit, and for which the supplier invoices the recipient on a regular or periodic basis and includes supply of such goods as the Government may, subject to such conditions, as it may, by notification, specify;

If you satisfy the above conditions then your supply will be treated as continuous supply. If the supply is continuous one then according to Section 31 (4) of CGST Act, 2017 in case of continuous supply of goods, where successive statements of accounts or successive payments are involved, the invoice shall be issued before or at the time each such statement is issued or, as the case may be, each such payment is received.

[Ganeshan Kalyani]

In my view your customer's request is not doable in this transaction. The provision reproduced by Sri Rajagopalan Sir is relevant.

[Shilpi Jain]

In your agreement if you mention that the boxes would be supplied at for a particular period and that the supplier will issue invoices periodically for the supply then it would become a continuous supply of goods and it would be possible to do what the customer is insisting.

So it is important to first make your contract a continuous supply of goods.

[YAGAY and SUN]

We duly endorse the views of the experts.

AI Summary

Continuous supply of goods permits periodic invoicing when a contract establishes recurrent deliveries and periodic billing.
A supply qualifies as a continuous supply of goods when, under contract, goods are agreed to be provided recurrently and the supplier invoices the recipient on a regular or periodic basis; mere multiple deliveries in a month do not suffice. If continuous supply is established, invoices must be issued before or at the time each periodic statement is issued or each payment is received. To use periodic invoicing and a single consolidated invoice, the contract must expressly create the recurrent supply and periodic invoicing arrangement.