8 Questions to Ask before Finalizing Your GST Filing Software

What is the need for a GST Filing Software?

With continuous improvement in ‘Ease of Doing Business’ in India, business houses are flourishing beyond boundaries, diversifying into new sectors and numerous MNCs are setting up their shops in the country. While this is quite promising for economic progress; companies need to be increasingly cautious about their compliance reporting. And GST, the biggest tax reform of the country, is envisaged to simplify tax management for companies and government equally. But this can be achieved only by putting the right systems in place from the start. Now with the advent of e-invoicing and its impact on ITC, businesses need to be all the more careful. So, as a company, what are the few questions that you need to ask before finalizing a GST Filing Software for your compliance reporting?

GST, we would say, is not a complex, but an inter-linked taxation system. It does not work in silos; it is a collaborative approach to reconcile.

What your vendor is reporting,
What your purchase register is saying
What if your vendors are generating e-invoices
If you are supplying to an e-commerce operator- what he is reporting as TCS (Tax Collected at Source),
If you are transferring goods between locations, what you are reporting in your EWB (EWay Bill)
The TDS (Tax Deducted at Source) reported, and
The ISD (Input Service Distribution) by the Corporate Headquarters to various internal departments located in different locations.
To make things easier (or worse), this is all a monthly exercise. And you cannot rectify your GSTR 3Bs.

And in the end, this all should match!

Why?

So that the Input Tax Credit that you have claimed is 100% reconciled and you do not end up paying any more taxes at the end of the year.

To summarise it all

GST includes complicated return forms interlinked with each other.
It is a monthly activity with multiple forms having different due dates.
GST is still involving, making it hard to keep up with every update.
There are multiple validations that happen at the GSTN level that authenticates your business transactions at the most granular level.

The GSTN seeks error-free and reliable GST filings by businesses. However, considering the approach, this entire process, if done manually is time-consuming, error-prone, and complicated.

However, choosing a good Cloud-based software that can automate your work is what businesses should look for. A GST filing software assists the taxpayer at various stages like data import from existing ERPs, transforming ERP data into GSTN-format, preparation of various returns, fetching GSTN data, GST filing, E-sign, and a multitude of insights into business with the populated GST data.

So, here we bring a compendium of 8 questions that you should ask before buying GST Filing Software:

8 Questions to ask before finalizing your next GST filing software

How secure is the software?
The GST software while assisting the filing process should ensure the company’s confidential data is processed in a secure environment and protects user data from any misuse or mishap.
Does it validate Invoices, Accounts, and GSTIN?
The basic algorithm of the software should be able to verify and validate any mistakes or invalid entity in the Invoice values and GSTIN number based on the standard format. This can help in minimizing discrepancies during GST Reconciliation. Also, one aspect peculiar to big companies is their vendor network. With a huge base of vendors and ITC permissible with a registered taxpayer only, businesses want to ensure that they are dealing with a registered taxpayer only. Hence, GST software should be able to help the businesses with the compliance health of their vendors.
How precise is its Reconciliation process?
When multiple stakeholders are working on invoice data, it is prone to errors. However, this should not hamper the overall reconciliation process. For eg, businesses many times do not capture invoice number or capture in different formats at different locations. Hence, t is very crucial for your GST software to be able to match invoices to its counterparty, not only by using advanced algorithms but empower users to define tolerance limits to ignore mismatches of certain kinds. Under GST, Reconciliation is one of the most important steps and this where true potential and need of a GST Filing Software can be understood.
How many invoices can it manage?
Businesses today have a widespread share of their marketplace. And thus have huge stacks of invoices that need to be managed and filed under GST. Hence, a good GST software is one that is able to handle such gigantic data uploads without crashing or failing repeatedly.
Is it easy to use?
Needless to say, GST software is required to be able to simplify the GST filing process and vice versa. Thus, the UI of the software should be designed in a manner that even a person with basic computing knowledge can get the work done in no time. On the other hand, for processes requiring a complicated procedure, the software should be able to guide the user through it.
How flexible is the software?
Most of businesses today work on ERP software. And working on 2 different systems, ERP and GST Filing Software can sometimes complicate the work process. Under such circumstances, the GST software should be able to integrate with the ERP software and enhance the performance.
Do they have a reliable support team?
What if your return filing is due today and you are stuck with some functionality of the software, what will you do? Call customer service and ask for help. Thus, your GST software should also provide you with a prompt and knowledgeable crew of customer support to help you any time of the day.
Is the GST vendor registered as GSP?
GSP stands for GST Suvidha Providers, as chosen by the government of India. These GSPs are authorized by the government to provide the common folks to file their returns without any hassles. The GSPs have passed certain criteria above others to get this recognition. This is around security, ease of the GST Filing Software, technological advancement, business continuity, and such other aspects. Hence, it is easy to trust the leaders than to experiment with the noise around.

IRIS GST Software

IRIS GST Software is premium product from the house of IRIS GST, an authorized GST Suvidha provider in India. IRIS Sapphire offers you:

Collaboration: We understand, businesses do not work in silos. It takes a village to run the business and everyone in the team has their own contribution. Cloud-based software, IRIS Sapphire gives you a platform for your auditors, preparers, and reviewers to collaborate and prepare error-free returns for GST filing.
Cognizance: The GST data is humongous and as granular as it can be. And we believe, if used judiciously, this can give great business insights, raise anticipatory red flags and provide perspectives that can be used to scale businesses. So, IRIS Sapphire slices and dices your GST data to give you easy-to-digest 40+ pocket reports.
Compliance: And yes, we help you in easy GST compliance as well. IRIS Sapphire can transform your ERP data into GST validated format in minutes, You can generate EWay Bill with IRIS Topaz, authenticate your vendors using IRIS Peridot and even integrate GST APIs directly with your systems. It supports GSTR1, GSTR 2X, GSTR 3B, GSTR6, GSTR 7, GSTR 8, ITC 04, and annual return filing through GSTR 9. Built on AWS, it is as secure and scalable as it can be. A committed customer support team ensures smooth GST filing for all our customers.

IRIS GST software makes you:

Business Ready – with a quick overview, summary, and insights on the go.
Reconciliation Ready – with Smart and Advanced reconciliation based on algorithms put inside.
Filing Ready – File your monthly returns directly through the GSTN software.
Communication ready – Connect with your vendors and settle your invoice.

To know more about IRIS GST Filing Software – book our free demo today.