Every line on a GST invoice needs a code that says what was sold. Goods use HSN, services use SAC. Both are just standardised numbers so that a bearing sold in Rajkot is described the same way as one sold in Coimbatore.
How many digits do you need
The number of digits required depends on your turnover. Smaller businesses report fewer digits, larger ones report more. Your CA can tell you which band you are in, and it is worth asking rather than guessing, because reporting too few digits is a notice waiting to happen.
The mistake almost everyone makes
Picking a code once, for one invoice, and then copying it forever.
A business that both supplies material and installs it is making two different supplies. Those are usually not the same code, and often not the same tax rate. Putting everything under one code is convenient until the day somebody checks.
Service codes are easier than people expect
SAC codes for common services are stable and short. Once you have identified the two or three that cover what you actually sell, they rarely change. The work is doing it properly once.
Store it on the item, not on the invoice
This is the whole trick. If the code lives on the product or service in your system, every invoice gets it right without anybody thinking about it. If it lives in somebody's memory, it is right until that person is busy.
The same applies to the tax rate attached to it. Enter it once, against the thing being sold, and the invoice builds itself correctly every time after that.
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