Tax · Compliance · Accounting · Insights
Here is the work. Then the limits.
Filed from Ernakulam, for businesses anywhere in India and for non-resident Indians selling property in India. Everything we take on is set out below — and so is the point at which our work ends and someone else’s begins.
Fees quoted in writing · Every filing approved by you · No referral fees
What we finish, and what we hand across
01The work
What we actually do.
GST Compliance
Registration to annual return, with every input credit reconciled — and chased where a supplier’s invoicing left it out.
- GSTR-1, GSTR-3B and the annual GSTR-9 / 9C
- 2B reconciliation, credits missing from 2B, blocked credits
- Notice replies, and the tie-outs behind a hearing
Income Tax & Capital Gains Advisory
Returns for individuals, businesses and NRIs — reconciled against the department’s own record before submission.
- Full computation across all heads
- Capital gains advisory, including for NRIs and OCIs
- Notice and intimation responses
TDS & TCS: Filings, Backlogs & TRACES Corrections
Quarterly statements with the data checked before it goes in, so the correction cycle never starts.
- Quarterly TDS and TCS statements, and missed quarters brought up to date
- PAN and challan validation before filing
- TRACES corrections and default resolution
Accounting, Book-keeping & Monthly Reconciliations
Monthly book-keeping and reconciliation, so year-end is a review rather than a reconstruction.
- Bank reconciliation, every account, every month
- Vendor reconciliations, monthly on request
- Payroll, and a monthly report you can act on
Company Law, Entity Setup & Annual MCA Compliance
Incorporation to annual filings, on the due date rather than after it.
- Before you incorporate: private limited, LLP, partnership or one person company, chosen on tax, liability and funding
- After you incorporate: the first compliances, dealt with on time
- Annual MCA filings: AOC-4, MGT-7, Form 11 and Form 8
- Statutory registers kept current on request
Virtual CFO
Management accounts, cash-flow forecasts and lender-ready reporting, without a full-time hire — scoped to your precise needs.
- Monthly management accounts, with a written note on what moved and why
- Cash planning, on a rolling cash-flow forecast
- Banks and lenders: reporting packs prepared, loan conditions tracked
- Clear limits: no investment advice, no mark-ups, no success commissions
02The fee
Quoted in writing before the work, and never on your turnover.
A fee here is built from two things: how much there is to do, and what doing it actually involves. For recurring work that is transactions, registrations, returns, entities and the state the records arrive in. For a one-off matter — a property sale, a notice, a backlog — it is the sequence the matter needs and how much of it is already done. It is never a percentage of your turnover, and never a percentage of a sale price or a refund: those measure the size of your transaction, not the size of our work.
You are billed for time and skill, and for exactly what you ask for — an extra report, a second entity, a second GSTIN, a reconciliation nobody else runs. Every fee is quoted in writing before any work begins, against a scope written down in the same document. If the scope changes we re-quote in writing and wait for you to agree it.
And a fee is quoted per engagement, not per client. Most of what this firm does is a discrete piece of work with its own cycle, its own deadline and its own scope. You take the ones you need, and each is priced on what it actually involves.
Recurring, monthly
- GST returns for one GSTIN — GSTR-1, GSTR-3B, the GSTR-2B reconciliation and the IMS actions
- Book-keeping, reconciliation and the monthly management report
- Payroll, with payslips and statutory deductions
A second GSTIN is a second engagement, not a bigger one. So is a second entity.
Recurring, on a cycle
- TDS and TCS quarters, with the deduction certificates
- The annual GST return — GSTR-9 and the self-certified GSTR-9C
- The income tax computation and return, for the business or for you
- Annual ROC filings and the statutory registers
Each has its own due date, so each is scoped and quoted on its own.
One matter, start to finish
- An NRI property sale — the gain, the s.395(1) certificate, the return, the remittance file
- A reply to a notice, and the tie-outs behind a hearing
- Incorporation, LLP or partnership formation
- A backlog brought current before anything else can start
No monthly commitment. One scope, one fee, one finish line.
Nothing here is a tier you have to climb. A firm that files nothing but a quarterly TDS statement is a client on the same terms as one that hands over the whole calendar.
We do not bill on a percentage of any refund we recover for you. Government fees are passed on at cost, with the receipt.
03The second front door
Selling Indian property from another country.
The house is in Tripunithura, or Chennai, or Bengaluru. You are in Doha, or Dubai, or Dallas. There is a buyer, a broker who says everything is simple, and a sale deed date coming toward you in a time zone you no longer live in. The expensive mistakes happen before the deed is signed — because when the seller is a non-resident, the buyer must deduct tax from the sale price itself, not from your gain, unless a certificate obtained beforehand says otherwise.
Establish the facts
Residential status, and how the property came to you.
Compute before you negotiate
The gain, with the cost properly established.
Certificate before the deed
Applied for under s.395(1), in time to matter.
Deed, return, remittance
Tracked through to the money reaching you abroad, including Form 145 and — where one is needed — the CA-certified Form 146 your bank will ask for.
04How an engagement runs
Four steps, and you are in all of them.
- 1
Scope in writing
What we will do, what we will not, and what it costs. Before anything starts.
- 2
We prepare
Computation, reconciliation, the return — with the workings behind each figure.
- 3
You review and approve
Figures, exceptions and open questions, in front of you before submission.
- 4
We file and confirm
Filed on the due date, acknowledgement back to you the same day.
05Your books
Whoever holds the pen, the record stays yours.
Some clients keep their own books and engage us for the filings. Others hand us the book-keeping as well. The promise is the same either way, and it is not that we keep our hands off your ledger — it is that nothing enters it that you have not seen.
Ask a firm that promises to take everything off your desk what happens when a notice arrives three years later. The answer is on your letterhead either way.
Both ways round
If you keep the books. We do the defined work — the monthly GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B, the credit reconciliation against GSTR-2B, the Invoice Management System actions, the TDS quarters, the annual returns — and we return the results to you on a stated schedule, with every open item flagged. Where your ledger and the portal disagree, you get the exception list. We do not adjust your books to make a return balance.
If we keep the books. They are kept in your accounting software, under your licence, in your name — not in a system of ours that you would have to leave. Every correction we propose is one you see and approve before it touches a ledger. Ask for a handover and you get the complete file in standard format, on request, with no exit charge and no delay.
Each cycle you receive the same three things
The filing, ready for your approval
Prepared, checked, and put in front of you before it goes to the portal.
The exception list, itemised
Every difference we found, with our reading of what caused it. Nothing quietly absorbed.
The record, in your name
Yours to take, in standard format, whenever you ask for it.
What we never do
We never make an entry you have not approved — in books you keep or in books we keep for you. A ledger quietly adjusted by an outsider is not a record. It is a liability with a filing date.
06Three things we will not do
Now the other half. Each one is a fee we are declining.
You have read what we do. This is the boundary around it, stated before you engage us rather than discovered afterwards.
One. We sell no certificates.
Certain reports under Indian law can be signed only by a named profession in practice — a chartered accountant, a cost accountant, a company secretary, a registered valuer, an actuary. We are none of those, and we will not blur that line or rent a signature. Where your matter needs such a report, we tell you in writing, you appoint your own professional, and we take no referral fee.
Two. We will not rewrite your books to make a return balance.
Reconciliation is supposed to find differences, not bury them. When your purchase ledger and GSTR-2B disagree, you get the exception list — invoice, counterparty, amount, and what we think went wrong — and the correction stays yours to make. A ledger quietly adjusted by an outsider is not a record. It is a liability with a filing date.
Three. We file nothing you have not approved.
Every return we prepare goes to you before it goes to the portal. You see the figures, you ask the questions, you say yes. Then it is filed, on time, with the working papers to show how the numbers were built.
07The line, and who stands on each side of it
When a matter needs a signature we cannot give, you hear it from us first.
Most firms in this market let you believe they can do everything. The belief lasts until the day a filing needs a signature they cannot produce, and by then you are out of time.
We keep a plain rule instead. Indian law reserves certain signatures to certain professionals in practice, and not all of them are accountants. The moment your matter crosses one of those lines you hear it from us first — before the deadline, before any fee, in writing, with the exact requirement named. You choose and appoint that professional yourself. They answer to you, not to us. We prepare our side of the file so that whoever you appoint starts from clean, complete workings, and we tell you what their report has to contain so it is right the first time.
Where we stop
A firm that knows precisely where its authority ends can be trusted about everything inside it. That is the trade we are offering.
We sell no certificate of any kind and take no referral fee — so the professional who signs, whichever profession they belong to, answers only to you.
- A chartered accountant
- A tax audit report, or the certificate your bank wants before it remits money abroad.
- A cost accountant
- A cost audit report, where your company is required to keep cost records.
- A company secretary
- Certain company-law certifications reserved by statute to a practising CS.
- A registered valuer
- The report that makes a fair-market-value substitution defensible on an inherited or long-held property.
- An actuary
- The valuation of gratuity and leave liabilities the accounting standards call for in your accounts.
- An advocate
- Title, succession and anything that turns on a document a tax computation only inherits.
08The people
Two partners, two long careers.
Reghu Prasad
Designated Partner
Thirty years in financial management. Leads the firm’s technical work, and the NRI practice, personally.
B.Com (University of Kerala) · MBA (Finance) · Post Graduate Diploma in Goods and Services Taxation, Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation (GIFT), Thiruvananthapuram, 2022
Sindhu Shenoy
Designated Partner
Runs the firm — its finances, its administration, and the engagement calendar that keeps every deadline honest.
Twenty-four years in accounts and compliance. Completed the articled training prescribed by the ICAI, at an independent firm.
What we are, and what we are not
GSTserve is a limited liability partnership, not a firm of chartered accountants. We do compliance and accounting work — book-keeping, registrations, computations, returns, reconciliations, management accounts, virtual CFO reporting, applications, notice replies — and none of it requires a signature reserved by statute to a professional in practice. Where the law does require one — a chartered accountant, a cost accountant, a company secretary, a registered valuer, an actuary, an advocate — we say so, you appoint your own, and we prepare the file their work rests on. We think that line is worth stating plainly rather than leaving you to discover it.
What clients say
We engage with GSTserve to handle all our accounting jobs. Their process is very efficient and cost-effective.
We have been using GSTserve’s services for the last 3 years. They helped us organize our accounts as we moved beyond software services.
Our sales were rising, but profits weren’t. GSTserve identified unprofitable product lines and showed us where to focus.
From incorporation to GST management and income tax filings, GSTserve has supported us at every step.
09Insights
Written to be useful whether or not you ever hire us.
What actually happens to your money when you sell Indian property as an NRI
From the first conversation with a buyer to the funds reaching your bank abroad — the fixed sequence, and where the expensive mistakes happen.
The lower-deduction certificate: what it is, when to apply, and why most people find out too late
One document decides whether a non-resident seller receives most of the sale price now or waits a year for a refund.
Selling a house you inherited: how the gain is actually computed
The cost of an inherited house is not zero, the holding period is not yours alone, and the exemptions only work if they are planned before the deed.
Exact about the work. Exact about the limits.
Tell us the matter. We will tell you where it falls — including which part, if any, is not ours to do.
Ask where it fallsA written reply from Reghu Prasad within two working days on property matters