Double-entry books that compute tax, withholding, and inventory the moment you post — not at filing. OnBooks runs Indian GST and TDS end-to-end today, and it’s built for cross-border compliance as you grow.
Withholding tax, handled at the bill
Shown here for India’s TDS — the same engine is built to resolve withholding in any jurisdiction.
The problem
Every vendor bill needs the right category, the right rate, a tax-ID check, and a running eye on thresholds. Get one wrong and it’s a notice, interest, and penalty months later.
Vendor
East West Corp Pvt Ltd
Posts as
206AA (no PAN), 206AB (non-filer) and 197 certificates are all checked automatically — override the rate or amount any time.
Getting paid
You billed ₹3,54,000. ₹3,24,000 landed. The rest is tax your customer withheld, a discount you agreed to, and a bit that’s never coming — and until you can say which is which, that invoice sits open and your receivables lie to you.
OnBooks settles all four in one event. The tax becomes a credit you reclaim, the discount and the write-off hit the right expense, and the invoice closes — because it is closed.
It does the arithmetic too: OnBooks already knows what your customer should have withheld, so one tap fills it in. Short payment you can’t explain? Tell it the gap is tax and it books the rest.
No silent maths
One bill, two kinds of work — construction and legal advice — and they’re taxed at different rates. Deduct everything at one rate and you under-deduct. Nothing looks wrong. You find out at assessment, with interest.
OnBooks says so, on the bill, while you can still fix it. Because the dangerous number isn’t the one that’s wrong — it’s the one that’s wrong and quiet.
Mixed categories
This bill’s lines are taxed two different ways. Everything here is deducted at the construction rate, so the advisory work is under-deducted. Split the bill, or choose a category to confirm.
Quietly wrong
₹12,000
one rate, no warning
Actually owed
₹20,000
split as it should be
Shown for India’s TDS — the same check applies wherever withholding does.
Close the loop
Withholding isn’t done when it’s deducted — it has to be filed and reclaimed. OnBooks keeps both sides as living registers, organised by party, category, and quarter, so filing and credit-matching stop being a spreadsheet scramble.
| Customer | Sec | Qtr | TDS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northwind Traders | 194J | Q1 | ₹30,000 |
| Acme Consulting | 194C | Q2 | ₹8,400 |
| Blue Yonder Pvt Ltd | 194H | Q2 | ₹12,500 |
| Total credit to reclaim | ₹50,900 | ||
Every feature starts from a problem finance teams live with.
“Classifying CGST/SGST vs IGST by hand and hoping the return ties out.”
Invoices split tax by place of supply from HSN/SAC automatically, print as tax invoices, and roll straight into GSTR-1 and GSTR-2B/ITC reconciliation.
“Too scared to leave Zoho — what if the numbers don’t match?”
OnBooks imports everything, derives the Dr/Cr ledger, and proves parity account-by-account before anything touches your real books — then keeps syncing.
“Invoices that never close, because the cash never quite matches the bill.”
Settle cash, withheld tax, discount and write-off in one event — each to its own account. The tax becomes a credit you reclaim instead of an unexplained shortfall, and the invoice closes for a reason you can point at.
“Stock value and COGS drift away from the ledger over time.”
Perpetual moving-average inventory recognises COGS on every sale and reconciles the stock ledger to the GL — no month-end guesswork.
“Spreadsheet “books” that can’t produce a trustworthy statement.”
A real double-entry core: chart of accounts, balanced journal, and TB / P&L / Balance Sheet as live projections — every figure drills to its entry.
“Rolling several entities into one view means re-keying everything.”
Consolidated TB / P&L / Balance Sheet across workspaces with your own group taxonomy — permission-checked per entity.
“Loans and inter-party balances that each side records differently.”
Connect an account to a shared onLedger position and reconcile against records both parties co-signed. Nothing posts silently.
A cross-border payment isn’t one decision, it’s four: what to withhold, whether a treaty lowers it, what to file before the money leaves, and what the other side needs from you. Miss any of them quietly and it costs real money.
Withholding · Sec 195
You owe a US vendor ₹10,00,000 for a software licence. The statute says withhold 20.8%. The India–US treaty caps it at 15% — but only if three documents are on file, and only if none has expired. That’s ₹58,000 of the vendor’s money riding on paperwork nobody enjoys tracking.
OnBooks resolves it on the bill: it compares the statutory cost against the treaty cap, applies the lower one, and shows you which documents earned it — or exactly which lapsed, and when.
Let the TRC lapse and it silently reverts to 20.8%. OnBooks says “TRC/10F expired 31 Mar” — not “no TRC on file”, which would send you hunting for a document you already have.
You — India
Them — United States
One payment · both jurisdictions · nothing assumed
The compliance advisor
Withholding is the easy part. Before that money can legally leave India you need a CA’s certificate and a Rule 37BB filing; afterwards you owe a return and the vendor owes you nothing but needs your certificate to avoid being taxed twice.
OnBooks reads the payment and lists what each side owes, and when — so the first time you hear about 15CB isn’t from your banker on the day of the transfer.
Works in both directions: when a foreign customer withholds from you, it values the credit and points at the form that reclaims it.
Shown for India — the engine is per-jurisdiction and configured, not coded. Treaty rates, surcharge, cess and form names come from data; adding a country is a configuration change, not a rewrite. Import-of-services reverse charge is next.