GSTR-2B

Credit is only what your supplier filed.

Input tax credit (ITC, the GST you can take back on what you bought) is capped at what appears in your GSTR-2B. That is the monthly statement the portal builds from your suppliers' filings on the 14th. Reconciling means matching your purchases against it, working IMS, and chasing what is missing before you file GSTR-3B (your monthly return).

Request an invitation

Last reviewed 13 October 2026.

In short

Five things to know before a month-end.

2B is the ceiling. You can claim credit only up to what appears in GSTR-2B, generated on the 14th.
Matching is one condition of five. Section 16(2) also needs the invoice, receipt of the goods, tax paid to the government and your own return.
IMS is yours to work. Accept, reject or hold supplier documents on the portal; untouched ones are deemed accepted.
Keep the two directions apart. In your books but not in 2B is credit you may lose; in 2B but not in your books is credit you may be owed, or a stranger's invoice.
Filing is a one-way door. A wrong claim is reversed later with 18% interest under Section 50.

Why 2B is the ceiling

How the statement is built, and why you reconcile against it.

In short: you can only claim what your suppliers filed into 2B. An invoice they never uploaded is money owed to you, not credit.

The government builds your GSTR-2B from your suppliers' filings on the 14th of the next month. After that, no supplier can change it; only you can (see IMS below).

A business buying 40 lakh a month at 18% carries roughly 7.2 lakh of credit that depends on other people filing on time. Two suppliers having a bad quarter is a cash-flow problem.

Reconcile against 2B, not 2A. 2A keeps changing as suppliers file late; 2B changes only when you change it.

Five conditions, and 2B is only one

All of Section 16(2) has to hold; a matched row proves only one clause.

In short: you need the invoice, the supplier's filing in 2B, the goods, the supplier's tax payment and your own return.

Clause (a): you hold the tax invoice or debit note. A delivery challan, proforma or statement of account is not one.
Clause (aa): the supplier reported it and it shows in your 2B. In force from 1 January 2022, this made 2B the ceiling.
Clause (b): you received the goods or services. In a bill-to ship-to sale, delivery to your buyer counts as receipt by you.
Clause (c): the supplier actually paid the tax. An invoice can appear in 2B because the supplier filed GSTR-1, yet fail here because they never filed the 3B that paid it. No reconciliation can see this.
Clause (d): you filed your own return under Section 39. Separately, under the second proviso and Rule 37, credit on an invoice unpaid after 180 days must be reversed; you reclaim it when you pay.

A 2B reconciliation proves clause (aa) and supports (a). It cannot prove (c). A green tick claiming all five is just a tick.

IMS comes first, and it is yours to work

The Invoice Management System, the 14th-to-20th window, and who clicks.

In short: IMS is a portal screen where you accept, reject or hold each supplier document before 2B is built. Do nothing and it counts as accepted.

Since 14 October 2024 the Invoice Management System (IMS) lists every incoming document with three actions: accept, reject, or hold pending. What sits there on the 14th is what your 2B is built from.

Act after the 14th and press recompute, and 2B is rebuilt. That stays open until you file GSTR-3B or its due date passes: the 14th to the 20th. QRMP (quarterly) filers get one 2B a quarter, on the 14th of the month after it.

An untouched record is deemed accepted, so an unworked dashboard quietly claims whatever a stranger sent you.
Rejecting a credit note sends it back to the supplier as tax they owe. Reject with care.

Since the October 2025 period, a credit note can be held pending for one tax period only, you can declare the actual credit to reverse against it, and import Bills of Entry show in IMS, deemed accepted if left untouched.

Ordence does not log in to the portal or act on IMS. You can record an accept, reject or pending decision against each row in Ordence, and it shows how much credit will be deemed accepted if no action is taken. Someone in your office, or your CA, still acts on the portal.

The five categories every row lands in

Every row goes into one of these. No general “unmatched” bucket mixing opposite problems.

The five reconciliation categories, what each means and what it costs
Category	What it means	What it costs you
Matched	Same GSTIN, invoice, period, taxable value and tax.	Nothing. Claim it. On a clean month this is most rows
In books not in 2B	You hold the bill. Your supplier has not filed it, or filed it against the wrong GSTIN.	Your money, now. Most credit at risk is here
In 2B not in books	The government has an invoice you have not recorded.	A lost bill (credit unclaimed), or a document you should reject
Values differ	The invoice matches; the taxable value or tax does not.	Claimable up to the lower figure. Decide on the gap before filing
Ambiguous	Two or more possible matches, usually repeated invoice numbers.	Nothing until a person picks

Near-matches, and what a score is for

INV/2024/001 in your books is INV-2024-1 in your supplier's, dated a day apart.

In short: a match score should sort your work, not decide it. A person confirms.

A good match weighs GSTIN, invoice number (ignoring separators and leading zeros), date within a tolerance, taxable value and tax. No one field decides.
A wrong automatic match hides a genuinely missing invoice behind a green tick.
A file only partly read is a failure. A skipped row looks like a supplier who did not file, and you chase the wrong person.

The two kinds of mismatch are different problems

One is credit you may lose, the other credit you may be owed. Never net them.

In short: “in books, not in 2B” means chase the supplier before a deadline. “In 2B, not in books” means find the missing bill, or refuse a stranger's invoice.

In books but not in 2B is your loss, on a deadline. Call the named supplier about the named invoice this week. For repeat offenders, hold back the tax part of the payment until the credit appears.

Section 16(4) closes the window: for an invoice from financial year 2025-26, on 30 November 2026 or the date you file that year's annual return, whichever is first. Two exceptions:

Sections 16(5) and 16(6), inserted retrospectively from 1 July 2017, reopened the window to 30 November 2021 for 2017-18 to 2020-21, and gave a fresh window to taxpayers whose cancelled registration was revoked. Ask your CA before writing off an old denial.
Reverse-charge credit (where you paid the GST instead of the seller) runs from the year you issued the self-invoice.

In 2B but not in books is usually a bill you never recorded. Sometimes a supplier typed the wrong GSTIN, and claiming that invoice makes their problem yours.

Netting the two into one figure gives no one anything to act on.

What credit at risk means, in rupees

The one number worth taking into a supplier meeting.

In short: the tax on rows in books but not in 2B, plus any shortfall where values differ. Nothing else.

It is the tax, not the invoice value. A 10 lakh invoice at 18% puts 1.8 lakh at risk.
Leave out ambiguous rows (no shortfall until someone picks a match) and in 2B not in books (credit you may be owed, not lose).
Leave out blocked credit under Section 17(5). It was never claimable.
Note its age. Two months at 40,000 is a nuisance. Nine months at 6 lakh with a November deadline is urgent.

A month-end, step by step

Mostly chasing, not matching. The steps, with dates, are on a one-sheet month-end checklist to print and tick.

Bring in 2B and match
Download the statement after the 14th and match it against your vendor bills. In Ordence they are already there, entered or read from the supplier's PDF for a person to check.
Work the queue, chase, decide
Sort by rupees at risk, not date: fifty rows worth 3,000 together wait behind one row worth 4 lakh. Chase the in-books-not-in-2B suppliers. Then claim, hold or write off each row and record why; a held row carries its Section 16(4) deadline.
Hand over and lock
Ordence works out the GSTR-3B figures and your CA files. Then lock the period in the books.

Filing is a one-way door

Hard-locking, interest, the three-year bar and Rule 37.

In short: once filed, a wrong credit claim costs 18% interest to undo, and unfiled old periods cannot be reopened.

From the July 2025 period, the sales tax figure auto-filled into GSTR-3B is hard-locked (Table 3.2 joined from the November 2025 period). Corrections go into GSTR-1A before the 3B is filed.

Credit is not locked yet: Table 4 is still yours to fill. A lock on Table 4 was widely expected for the July 2026 period; as of October 2026 we found no advisory that brought one in, so credit in 3B is still filled from 2B and editable. On 8 October 2026 the GST Council recommended aligning 3B credit to 2B from the April 2027 return, and giving IMS a basis in the rules. Those are recommendations, not law, until notified. The sales side has its own guide.

After filing, a wrong claim is reversed in a later period with interest under Section 50 at 18%, counted from the original date.

Separately, no return can be filed more than three years after its due date. A period you never filed is closed, and the tax owed in it remains.

Rule 37: credit on an invoice unpaid after 180 days must be reversed, which catches disputed bills.

Ordence prepares and matches. Your CA reviews and files.

What Ordence does on the credit side

What it does, and the limits.

Matches GSTR-2B against the vendor bills in its own double-entry books.
Works out GSTR-3B figures and builds GSTR-1 JSON from your sales invoices.
Locks periods once a return is filed.
Keeps the deadline calendar so the 20th is never a surprise.
Records IMS decisions in Ordence only; you act on the portal.
Does not log in to the GST portal, fetch 2B, act on IMS, or file through an API. You download 2B as a file.

What CAs ask about 2B

The questions that come up first.

Our CA already does this in Excel.

At a hundred invoices a month that works. At volume it breaks: near-matches are made by eye, no one records who decided what, and last month's chase list is lost when the workbook is rebuilt.

Does Ordence connect to the GST portal?

No. Nothing is filed or fetched through an API, and Ordence never holds your GSTN login. Returns and IMS actions stay with you or your CA.

Know your credit at risk before the 20th.

Bring last month's 2B and your purchase register. We will show which rows match, and put a rupee figure on the ones that do not.