What your clients must send you in October, in plain words
October is the heaviest document month of the year for a practice with company, LLP and audited clients. The accounts, the final figures for the 31 October return, the July–September deduction
Summary
October is the heaviest document month of the year for a practice with company, LLP and audited clients. The accounts, the final figures for the 31 October return, the July–September deduction details and the small-supplier list all have to come in during the first three weeks. Clients act on a list of papers with a date against each, not on a compliance calendar, and the list is different for each type of client.
The situation
Every month my office types the same message two hundred times, one client at a time: please send last month's bills, your bank statements, the salary sheet. In October the message gets longer, and it is the month clients are least likely to read it, because they have just been through September.
What goes wrong is rarely the due date. The client does not know which of their papers we still need, and "your return is due on 31 October" does not tell a shopkeeper to find his bank confirmation.
The rule
The October clock for each type of client, as the dates stand on 26 September 2026:
| Client | What to ask for in October | Why, and the date it feeds |
|---|---|---|
| Trader or shop | September's sales and purchase bills, bank statements, cash and UPI summary, credit notes, by about the 5th | GST return for September (the 11th and the 20th) |
| Trader, audited | Confirmation of the final figures, by about the 10th | Return for an audit case, 31 October |
| Company | Signed accounts and the meeting papers, within about 10 days of the AGM | Financial statements to the registrar within 30 days of the AGM, which was due by 30 September |
| Company | The list of micro and small suppliers unpaid beyond 45 days for April to September | Half-yearly return, 31 October |
| Company or LLP deducting tax | Parties, amounts and PANs for July to September | Quarterly deduction statement, 31 October |
| LLP | Signed accounts, by about the 10th | Statement of account and solvency, 30 October |
| Salaried | Nothing | Say so. It is worth sending. |
The return date for companies and audit cases is 31 October 2026 for assessment year 2026-27, under section 139(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, which still governs that year (its successor is section 263 of the Income-tax Act, 2025). As at 26 September there is no CBDT extension of the 30 September tax-audit date or of the 31 October return date. The ICAI Corporate Laws Committee's advisory of 25 September on the 28–30 September bank strike extended nothing.
Where people go wrong
Forwarding a due-date calendar instead of a document list. A calendar tells the client what we file. A list tells the client what to find. Only the list gets anything moving in the client's office.
Using last year's template. Two things in older templates are now wrong. Director KYC is no longer an annual 30 September filing. Under the amendment to Rule 12A (G.S.R. 943(E) of 31 December 2025, in force from 31 March 2026) it is due once every three years by 30 June, and the first such June is 2028. A September or October card that still asks directors for KYC documents is out of date. And a template built before April 2026 may carry form numbers that no longer exist after the income-tax renumbering. A client does not need a form number to find a bank statement.
The quarterly GST client in October. For a client on the quarterly scheme, September is the third month of the quarter. There is no separate monthly payment for September on the 25th: that tax goes with the quarterly return, which is due on the 22nd or the 24th of October depending on the state (Chhattisgarh is in the 22nd group). A card that tells this client to pay on the 25th is wrong in October, January, April and July. I know, because my own first version said it.
Asking an LLP for the half-yearly small-supplier list. That return is filed by specified companies under section 405 of the Companies Act, 2013. An LLP is not a company for that section. The income-tax point about paying small suppliers within the time allowed is a separate rule, and it applies to an LLP exactly as it does to a company.
What to do
- Sort your clients into five types before 1 October: salaried, trader, professional, company, LLP. Flag the ones who are audited, deduct tax, have staff or file GST quarterly.
- Send each type its own October list in the first days of the month, with a send-by date against every item that works back from your own filing date.
- For every company, work the dates back from the actual AGM date, not from 30 September.
- Drop director KYC from your autumn templates, and strip form and section numbers from anything a client reads.
- Before you send, check once more whether CBDT has moved the 31 October date.
The tool
I kept typing this list out, so I built a page that makes it once. You pick a client type and a month, and it draws a card titled "What your CA needs from you this month", with your firm's name and logo, the documents due and a send-by date against each. You can remove, reorder or add lines, and the changes are kept for that client type and month. There is a plain-text version for a message. It is not a compliance calendar, and it knows nothing about any particular client, so read every line against the client before you forward it. It sends nothing, stores no client list, and your logo never leaves your browser. The one line naming my site on the card can be removed with one click.
Sources
- Companies (Appointment and Qualification of Directors) Amendment Rules, 2025, G.S.R. 943(E), reported by TaxGuru — https://taxguru.in/company-law/director-kyc-rules-overhauled-triennial-filing-requirement.html
- GSTR-3B and the quarterly scheme's state groups — https://cleartax.in/s/gstr-3b ; https://busy.in/gst/quarterly-return-with-monthly-payment-scheme-under-gst/
- MSME Form 1, half-yearly return under section 405 — https://www.incorpx.io/blog/msme-form-1-half-yearly-outstanding-payment
- ROC annual filing after the AGM — https://blog.saginfotech.com/due-dates-filing-roc-annual-return
- ICAI Corporate Laws Committee advisory on the 28–30 September 2026 bank strike — https://resource.cdn.icai.org/94389clc-aps6399.pdf