You Cannot Make A Single Incorrect Entry in Accounts Under GST

Taxpayers would maintain all account and records electronically, certain requirements in the rules could be cumbersome, especially for smaller taxpayers. The new draft rules for accounting and record-keeping require maintenance of trail of each deleted or edited entry in electronic records.

As per Rule 1 Sub rule (3) of DRAFT GST – ACCOUNTS AND RECORDS Rules dated 19-4-2017

“Every registered person, other than a person paying tax under section 10, shall maintain accounts of stock in respect of each commodity received and supplied by him, and such account shall contain particulars of the opening balance, receipt, supply, goods lost, stolen, destroyed, written off or disposed of by way of gift or free samples and balance of stock including raw materials, finished goods, scrap and wastage thereof.”

As per Rule 1 of Sub Rule (3) of DRAFT GST – ACCOUNTS AND RECORDS Rules dated 19-4-2017

“(9) Any entry in registers, accounts and documents shall not be erased, effaced or overwritten, and all incorrect entries shall be scored out under attestation and thereafter correct entry shall be recorded, and where the registers and other documents are maintained electronically, a log of every entry edited or deleted shall be maintained“.

While this is supported by major enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, complying with this may be a major challenge for desktop software, which allow removal of entries or details. This may pose compliance challenge for small businesses which may be using a readily-available, basic accounting software. Further scoring out every single under attestation will add to a lot of unneccesary compliance for small traders. Lets see what remains and changes in the final rules to be implemented

Sub Rule (14) Says-  Every registered person supplying services shall maintain the accounts showing the quantitative details of goods used in the provision of each service, details of input services utilised and the services supplied.

So Now Even the Service Providers would have to maintain records similar to what the manufacturers were maintaining in Non GST Regime.

CA Ankit Gulgulia (Jain)