Avalara launches TrustFile GST annual return filing feature for GSTR-9 

The annual return filing feature of Avalara’s TrustFile GST helps businesses of all sizes stay GST compliant with easy, fast and accurate filing of GSTR – 9

Chennai, India , August, 2019:  Avalara, Inc. (NYSE:AVLR), a leading provider of tax compliance automation software for businesses of all sizes, today announced the launch of Avalara TrustFile GST annual return compliance feature for GSTR-9 return filing to help businesses and tax practitioners easily achieve and maintain compliance with the country’s current Goods and Services Tax (GST) law implemented on July 1, 2017.

Avalara TrustFile GST is a secure cloud-based software that enables businesses and consultants in India to prepare and file timely GST returns. The annual return compliance feature of Avalara TrustFile GST makes GSTR-9 return filing process easier, faster, and more accurate. The software auto-populates almost the entire GSTR-9 form by pulling the necessary information from the GSTN as well as previously filed returns by the business, thus helping accounting teams and tax professionals achieve increased productivity and more accurate tax compliance.

GSTR-9 is a consolidated annual return of all the periodic returns filed during a financial year for every GSTIN. It is compulsory for all regular taxpayers under GST and includes all information on sales, purchases, input tax credit (ITC) claimed, ineligible credits, demands, refunds, and tax paid during the said financial year.

The current deadline for businesses to file GSTR-9 is August 31, 2019. Businesses are in a hurry to finalize their annual GST return for the 2017-2018 financial year since they will soon need to focus on current financial year, 2018-2019, compliance.

Apart from GSTR-9 return filing, Avalara TrustFile GST helps businesses in many more ways than the government portal currently supports. The software easily retrieves data from ERPs, accounting systems or ecommerce platforms, validates incoming data, flags corrections, provides reconciliation with built-in intelligence, and classifies and allocates input tax credits.

Speaking about the annual return filing feature, Manjula Muthukrishnan, Managing Director – India, Avalara Technologies Private Limited, in a statement, said, “There is an obvious need among businesses to have a fast, easy and accurate way to file the annual return, GSTR-9. Most businesses resort to manual methods of validating and reconciling their invoice data and that is hindering their productivity, not to mention it is time consuming and error prone. The GSTR-9 return requires more information than a monthly or quarterly return, and some of those details were not required in any of the earlier returns. In some cases, the required information might not have been captured at all. TrustFile GST helps businesses and tax practitioners one step further by ensuring that the various data validations required by GSTN are complete before they can go ahead with filing GSTR-9 return. This is an important step since the invoice data once saved on GSTN cannot be revised. Avalara is making sure that our customers are filing their annual return before deadline, their productivity is not hampered, and that they are focusing on their core business rather than tax compliance.”