The monthly message from your accountant is remarkably consistent. So is the panic that follows it. It is worth looking at why, because the fix is not working harder in the last week of the month.
Request one: the sales list
Every invoice raised in the period, with the customer, the taxable value and the tax on each. If your invoices live in a book, this is a typing job. If they live in software, it is an export. The difference is not effort in the moment — it is whether the effort repeats every single month forever.
Request two: the customer GSTINs
Asked for because the tax split depends on them, and asked for repeatedly because they are usually recorded somewhere other than on the invoice — a chat, a card, someone's memory. A customer record that holds the GSTIN once means it is on every invoice to that customer automatically, and the question stops being asked.
Request three: the purchase side
What you bought and what tax you were charged, so that input credit can be matched. This is the one most often missing, because purchase bills arrive as paper and photos and get dealt with last. Entering a purchase when it arrives rather than when it is asked for is the single highest-value habit here.
Request four: what is still unpaid
Not strictly needed for filing, but every CA asks, because an unpaid invoice is the most common reason a business's own numbers and its books disagree. If your software shows outstanding per customer at any moment, this request answers itself.
The pattern
All four are derivable from the invoices you already raised. None of them require accounting knowledge. The scramble happens because the underlying record is scattered, so every request becomes a reconstruction — and a reconstruction under time pressure is where mistakes enter.
What actually reduces it
- Raise the invoice in the same place every time, including the cash ones.
- Record the customer once, with their GSTIN, rather than typing it per bill.
- Enter purchase bills the week they arrive, not the week they are asked for.
- Give your CA read-only access so they can look instead of asking.
A note on deadlines
This article deliberately quotes no filing dates, rates or thresholds. Those change, they differ by registration type and turnover, and the only correct sources are the GST portal and your accountant. What does not change is the list above — the four things you will be asked for, whatever the calendar says.