July to October, as it usually goes
It is the second week of September. Returns for individuals closed at the end of July, non-audit business returns were due at the end of August, tax audit reports are due on the 30th and GSTR-3B for August is due on the 20th. A handful of company clients still have not shared board-approved accounts for the AGM, your articles are chasing bank statements over WhatsApp and one partner is keeping a spreadsheet of who has filed what.
None of this is unusual. In a September 2025 representation, an ICAI regional council called the July-to-October compliance calendar “particularly crowded”. A CA compliance calendar will not make the season lighter. What it can do is make sure nothing in it comes as a surprise.
The year at a glance: key deadlines for Indian CA firms
These are the standard statutory dates most small and mid-sized practices plan around. Treat them as the recurring skeleton of the year, not a substitute for the notifications: the CBDT, the CBIC and the MCA extend or shift dates often, so check the current position every season before you promise a client anything.
Director KYC moved from an annual filing to once every three years from 31 March 2026, due by 30 June of the relevant year, with a separate update within 30 days whenever a director's contact details change. That removes one September rush but adds a three-year cycle to track for each director.
- Every month: TDS and TCS deposit by the 7th (30 April for March), GSTR-1 by the 11th and GSTR-3B by the 20th. Taxpayers under the QRMP scheme file GSTR-3B quarterly by the 22nd or 24th, depending on their state
- 15 June, 15 September, 15 December and 15 March: advance tax instalments
- 31 July, 31 October, 31 January and 31 May: quarterly TDS statements. From FY 2026-27, under the Income-tax Act, 2025, Form 138 and Form 140 replace Form 24Q and Form 26Q
- 31 July: returns with no business income and no audit, such as ITR-1 and ITR-2, for AY 2026-27
- 31 August: non-audit business and professional returns, such as ITR-3 and ITR-4, for AY 2026-27 after the amendment to section 139(1)
- 30 September: tax audit reports, and the AGM deadline for most companies. AOC-4 follows within 30 days of the AGM and MGT-7 within 60 days
- 30 May and 30 October: the LLP annual return (Form 11) and statement of accounts (Form 8)
- 31 October: returns for audit cases, with 30 November for transfer pricing cases
- 31 December: GST annual returns (GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C) for the previous financial year
Official source: GST Portal, Income Tax e-Filing, Ministry of Corporate Affairs
Why spreadsheets and memory fail during filing season
Most small firms start with a spreadsheet, and for good reason: it is free, flexible and everyone already knows how to use it. The trouble is that it breaks at exactly the moment you need it most, and the result is a partner asking the same question every evening: what is still open, and who is on it?
- It does not remind anyone. A due date in a cell only helps the person who happens to open the file that day
- Status is binary. Done or not done hides the states that matter in September: waiting on the client, prepared, in partner review, filed but not yet acknowledged
- Copies multiply. One sheet per partner, one downloaded to a laptop, one forwarded on WhatsApp, and none of them agree
- Documents live elsewhere. The sheet says the bank statement arrived, while the file itself is on an article's phone
- Extensions mean rework. When a date moves, someone has to edit the same deadline across dozens of rows
What a good compliance calendar should do
Whether you build it in software or by hand, a compliance calendar that survives filing season has a few properties in common. If yours is missing more than one of these, that is usually where the late nights come from.
- Client-wise: every obligation belongs to a named client and engagement, not to one long generic list
- Owned: each deadline has one person responsible, and the whole team can see who that is
- Staged: statuses follow the real workflow, from documents requested to filed with acknowledgement
- Early: reminders arrive in time to chase documents, not on the due date itself
- Connected: the deadline, the client's documents, the working papers and the invoice sit together
- One view: a partner can see the whole firm's week on one screen
How to set up client-wise deadline tracking
Here is a practical way to build it before the next season, in whatever tool you use. The first year takes a partner an afternoon or two; every year after that is mostly a matter of rolling dates forward.
- List every client and mark which obligations apply: monthly or quarterly GST, TDS, the right ITR form, tax audit, and ROC or LLP filings
- Create one engagement per client for each recurring stream of work, such as monthly GST or the annual tax audit
- Add the year's due dates as tasks under each engagement and give every task an owner
- Set an internal target ahead of each statutory date, for example documents requested ten days before and the draft ready three days before
- Use the same statuses across the firm so a glance tells you whether work is blocked on the client or on the team
- When a return is filed, attach the acknowledgement to the engagement so the proof sits with the work
- Review the next seven days every week, and update the affected tasks once when an extension is notified
Where QubitPilot fits, and where it doesn't
QubitPilot is practice-management software for CA firms and advocates, and client-wise deadline tracking is one of the jobs it is built for. Each client engagement is a record with its own tasks, due dates, documents and billable time. Tasks are assigned, discussed in a thread and reminded by email before they fall due, and every deadline appears in one calendar for the firm. A firm-wide reminder also goes out three days before the standard GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B dates.
In the middle of the season, the AI assistant can answer a question like “what is due in the next seven days, and which invoices are overdue?” from your own records, and a scheduled automation can review what is coming up and propose tasks, which wait for your approval before anything changes. Invoices carry GST, and client GSTINs are verified live against GSTN data.
It is just as important to say what it does not do. QubitPilot does not file returns, connect to the GST, income tax or MCA portals, or sync with Tally, and it does not work out each client's statutory due dates for you. You set up the deadlines that apply to each client, and QubitPilot keeps the team on top of them.
Read more: QubitPilot for chartered accountants, Workflow automations, Billing and invoicing
Make next season boring
The best compliance calendar is the one nobody has to think about in September, because the dates went in back in April and the reminders do the chasing. Start with your ten largest clients, put their deadlines on one client-wise calendar with an owner for each, and add the rest as the year goes on.
If you want to try this on your own client list, every QubitPilot plan starts with a 15-day free trial with full access. This article is general information, not tax advice, and statutory dates change, so always check the current notification before relying on a date.