General Aspects of Accounts & Records Maintenance under GST Act

Check out Taxmann's GST Practical Guides | Accounts & Records Maintenance under GST Act which provides insights into accounts & records maintenance under GST Act, covering practical requirements, document maintenance, and accounts management. This book will be helpful for tax practitioners and legal professionals. It is amended by the Finance Act 2023 and is developed by the Goods & Services Tax Practitioners' Association of Maharashtra.

The provisions related to accounts & records are mandated under section 35 and section 36 of the CGST Act, 2017. Nonetheless, there can be areas where book-keeping may have to travel beyond the contents mandated under the aforesaid provisions for better compliances. Hence, some additional areas which can also be included towards record maintenance which are recommendatory in nature could be the following:

• Accounting plays an abetting role for the registered person in clarifying issues raised by the tax authorities at a later stage. Hence adequate care shall be taken by the registered person while accounting, especially, for litigated matters, high value transactions, complex agreements etc.
• Principles followed under the GST law and as prescribed under the  Accounting Standards may not be on similar  lines.  Therefore,  adequate reconciliations and such other  explanatory statements can be maintained explaining differences, if any.
• Details of the Harmonised System of Nomenclature (HSN) in case of goods and Service Accounting Codes (SAC) in case of services shall be recorded for the transactions at all possible levels of book keeping.
• Special attention to be given towards recording of the place of supply, registration details of the vendors/suppliers and customers/recipients.
• Adequate records for additional procedures prescribed for supplies involving ISD, SEZ, EOU etc., to be maintained.
• Recording of the inward supplies shall be done as inputs, input services and capital goods. Further, identification of attributability of the inward supplies with the respective outward supplies i.e., taxable,  non-taxable,  exempted, NIL rated, zero rated etc., shall also be recorded.
• Units of measurements for the quantitative details, wherever required shall be carefully recorded, especially, for manufacturing activities.
• Comprehensive registers for e-way bills,  credit notes, debit notes also be maintained.
• Adequate documents to be maintained for cross border transactions involving foreign exchange.
• Proper documentary evidence to be preserved for transactions involving non-monetary consideration, free supplies, gifts, goods lost, stolen, destroyed or written off.
• Worksheets for the valuation issues, input tax credit reversals, reverse charge, interest calculations, refund calculations,  annual reconciliations etc.,  be prepared.

For industries like construction sector, the project-wise and apartment wise databases  also be maintained.