GST Compliance and Invoice Reconciliation Processes: A Case Study on Practices, Mismatches, and Process Efficiency

Author

Poonam Kishor Chaudhari


Abstract

 Goods and Services Tax (GST), introduced in India in July 2017, replaced a fragmented indirect-tax structure with a unified, technology-driven, invoice-matching-based compliance regime. A central, recurring compliance activity under this regime is invoice reconciliation — the systematic matching of a business's purchase records against its auto-populated GSTR-2B statement to confirm that supplier-reported data agrees with the recipient's own books. This paper presents a case-study analysis of the invoice reconciliation process followed by a Pune-based GST advisory firm over a six-month period, for a sample of its client accounts. Using reconciliation working-sheet data, the study documents the reconciliation workflow, categorises common invoice-mismatch types, and tracks the monthly matched-invoice rate as a measure of compliance efficiency. The findings show that GSTIN errors and invoice-value mismatches together account for over half of all reconciliation exceptions, and that a shift from a monthly to a weekly reconciliation cadence, combined with structured vendor follow-up, improved the matched-invoice rate from 84 per cent to 95 per cent over the study period, with a corresponding improvement in the timeliness of credit realisation. The paper concludes that disciplined, high-frequency reconciliation, supported by growing automation, is central to improving GST compliance quality and reducing avoidable processing effort for businesses and their advisors.



Keywords

Goods and Services Tax; Invoice Reconciliation; GSTR-2B; Tax Compliance; Compliance Efficiency; India



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References


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