Things to Keep in Mind While Picking an ASP for GST Filing

Since it’s rollout on July 1, 2017, the new GST regime has been the talk of the town. From the phase of pre-emption to actual rollout, to the discussions and analysis regarding its possible impact across industries, the past year has seen enough upheavals regarding it.

Different businesses have different requirements and various GST Suvidha Providers (GSPs) and Application Service Providers (ASPs) have worked out tailor-made solutions that are best suited to a customer’s needs. Be it the offerings of invoice volume-based adaptation models, or even duration-specific packages, there is absolutely no dearth of options.

However, to have that one holistic solution that can take care of everything, Moglix brings to you, 5 things that you must keep in mind while choosing an ASP:

1. Maintenance of Annual Records: Various ASPs in the market, provide limited duration based filings, like a quarter or 6 months, but we need to keep in mind that all businesses need to file annual returns too. In case we want to switch to another ASP post the six months, then it is imperative that the ASP should seamlessly transfer the records. Also, keep in mind that taking an extension post the limited duration, needs to be budgeted, so as to not incur unnecessary costs.
2. Offline/Online Capabilities: Since the new GST regime is entirely digital in nature, the adaptation of internet-based solutions is a must. However, keeping in mind small town and villages and limited connectivity issues, it is equally imperative that your chosen ASP must have provisions for offline capabilities (to store invoice records, that can be updated regularly), so that there is the flexibility of updating/editing data whenever needed, be it online or offline.
3. Plug and Play Model: Flexibility of operation is quite essential when it comes to filing GST returns, like the ability to import data in multiple formats, or the choice of saving the data on the cloud or directly on GSTN etc. Essentially your ASP should enable flexibility of operation, that will help in the reduction of adaptation time.
4. Support and Real-time Infrastructure Upgrade: Even though you might opt for the easiest and most convenient ASP, there will be times when you will need extra support. Hence, make sure that your ASP of choice will offer you 24X7 support via multiple-linguistic call centers, real-time experts offering free demonstration, counselling, visits, in-built assistance etc. These are particularly essential for tier 2 & 3 towns, which are basically SME and MSME hubs.
5. Pre/Post Filing Reconciliation Possibilities: While GST has made the taxation model quite effective, for businesses that are used to traditional models of taxation, technology may feel limiting. Added to this, is the fact that data that is once entered in the GSTN cannot be then edited. Hence, for businesses that have complicated supply chains, multiple vendors etc. there is a huge possibility of invoice mismatch, gaps etc. which can only be reconciled post the filing of taxes. Since there are many ASPs out there, that offer the enhanced feature of pre-filing reconciliation, make sure that you opt for the feature so as to reduce mismatches.

Now that you know what factors to take into consideration; if you’re looking for an ASP that ticks off on all of the criteria above, visit our GreenGST website and let our ASP help you with all your GST related concerns and make your GST filing process, hassle-free.