Reconciliation Definitions and Glossaries
The reference layer of the knowledge base — plain-language definitions of the terms Indian finance teams meet in bank files, tax portals, and settlement reports, plus five domain glossaries covering financial reconciliation, TDS, GST, NACH, and platform settlement vocabulary.
Ten definition articles answer the what-is questions directly, then add the operational context a generic dictionary entry leaves out: what Form 26AS is and why the credits in it rarely match your TDS receivable ledger; what GSTR-2B is and why ITC can only be claimed against it; what a UTR number is and why it is the strongest matching key in Indian banking; what NACH is and how batch returns work; what a payment gateway settlement contains after MDR, GST on MDR, and TCS deductions; and what bank reconciliation, a reconciliation statement, and automated reconciliation actually involve at enterprise scale.
Five domain glossaries sit alongside the definitions — a financial reconciliation dictionary, plus dedicated glossaries for TDS, GST, NACH and payments, and platform settlement. Each one defines the terms a practitioner encounters in that domain's files and portals: challan fields and TRACES statuses in the TDS glossary, IMS actions and DRC notices in the GST glossary, return reason codes and mandate states in the NACH glossary, and the fee-line vocabulary of marketplace settlement reports.
This cluster is the entry point for new finance team members, non-finance stakeholders who need to follow a reconciliation discussion, and anyone arriving from a search engine or AI assistant with a terminology question. Every entry links onward into the practitioner clusters — TDS sections, GST reconciliation, bank reconciliation, and platform settlements — where the how-to depth lives.
What is Cash Application (Cash App) in Receivables Reconciliation: Indian Finance Reference
Cash application — often shortened to 'cash app' inside Indian finance teams — is the accounts receivable process by which incoming customer payments captured in the bank statement are matched to the open invoices they were intended to settle. Done well, it closes the order-to-cash loop; done poorly, it creates unapplied cash and disputed dunning.
What is a Debit Note vs Credit Note under GST Section 34: Indian Reference
A debit note increases the taxable value of an original supply; a credit note decreases it. Both are governed by Section 34 of the CGST Act, both must reference the original invoice, and both flow through GSTR-1 on the supplier side and GSTR-2B on the recipient side.
What is Form 168 in Income Tax Act 2025: TDS Credit Statement Replacing Form 26AS for FY 2026-27 onwards
Form 168 is the annual tax credit statement issued under the Income Tax Act 2025. From the assessment year following FY 2026-27 it replaces Form 26AS as the official record of TDS, TCS, advance tax, and self-assessment tax credits available to a taxpayer. Each entry carries the new income-type payment code from the 1001-1092 series.
What is ITC-04: Job Work Quarterly Form Explained for Indian Manufacturers
Form ITC-04 is the GST declaration under which a principal manufacturer reports inputs and capital goods sent to a job worker, goods received back, goods sent from one job worker to another, and goods supplied directly from the job worker's premises. It is the audit trail for Section 143 of the CGST Act.
What is RMPV (Raw Material Price Variation): Auto-Component Index-Linked Pricing
RMPV is the formula-driven price adjustment clause that lives in almost every Indian auto-component supply contract. It links the per-piece sale price of a component to a published commodity index — steel, aluminium, copper, plastic resin — and triggers a periodic credit or debit note to settle the variation.
What is Three-Way Matching in Indian Accounts Payable: PO–GRN–Invoice Reconciliation
Three-way matching is the discipline of cross-checking a purchase order, a goods receipt note, and a vendor invoice line by line before authorising payment. In the Indian AP context it is also the control that protects ITC eligibility under GST and ensures the correct TDS section is applied at deduction.
What is a Virtual Account in Bank Reconciliation: Indian Treasury Reference
A virtual account is a unique 16 to 20 digit account number issued by an Indian bank that maps to a single physical master account in the books. Every customer or counterparty is given its own virtual number to remit into, allowing the receiver to identify the payer with certainty even when the bank narration carries no invoice reference.
Financial Reconciliation Dictionary: Terms Used in Indian Finance Operations
A reference dictionary of 30 financial reconciliation terms for Indian finance operations — covering process concepts, transaction types, matching logic, and the reporting and control vocabulary that auditors and controllers use daily.
GST Reconciliation Glossary: Terms Every Finance Team Must Know
A working reference of GST reconciliation terms for Indian finance and tax teams — from GSTIN and ITC to IMS, GSTR-2B cut-off dates, and recipient mismatches — with practical context for each.
NACH and Payments Glossary: Key Terms for Reconciliation
A comprehensive glossary of NACH, ECS, mandate, and bulk payment terms for Indian NBFCs, lenders, and corporate treasury teams — including mandate types, return codes, reconciliation lag, and how NACH credits appear in bank statements.
Platform Settlement Glossary: Terms for E-Commerce and Payment Gateway Finance Teams
A reference glossary for platform settlement and payment gateway terms in India — covering MDR, TCS under Section 52, nodal accounts, chargeback, rolling reserve, and the tax treatment that makes settlement reconciliation in e-commerce uniquely complex.
TDS Glossary: Essential Terms for TDS Reconciliation in India
A plain-language reference of every TDS term your finance team encounters — from TAN and TRACES to correction returns and Section 206AB — with India-specific context for reconciliation.
What Is a Reconciliation Statement? Definition and Types for Indian Finance Teams
A reconciliation statement is a formal financial document that compares two independent records of the same transactions — such as a bank statement against a ledger, or Form 26AS against TDS receivable — and documents every identified difference with its classification and resolution status. In Indian enterprise finance, reconciliation statements are both an internal control requirement and, in several cases, a statutory obligation.
What Is Bank Reconciliation? Definition and Process for Indian Finance Teams
Bank reconciliation is the process of comparing a company's internal cash ledger with the corresponding bank statement entries, identifying and explaining every difference. For Indian finance teams, the process extends beyond standard timing differences to cover UTR-based transaction matching, UPI references, and NACH batch credits — each requiring a distinct matching approach.
What Is Automated Reconciliation? How It Differs from Manual Matching
Automated reconciliation is the use of software to ingest financial records from two or more data sources, apply configurable matching rules, identify matched and unmatched items, classify exceptions by variance type, and present a structured exception queue for human review. It replaces the manual process of opening two spreadsheets and performing VLOOKUP or visual comparison row by row — a method that becomes both unreliable and unsustainable above roughly 500 transactions per month.
What Is Form 26AS? The Tax Credit Statement Explained for Indian Businesses
Form 26AS is the consolidated annual tax credit statement issued by the Income Tax Department of India, linked to a taxpayer's PAN. It consolidates TDS deducted by all deductors, TCS collected by sellers, advance tax paid, and refunds received — and serves as the primary document for reconciling TDS receivable in the company's books against credits actually deposited with the government.
What Is GSTR-2B? The Auto-Populated ITC Statement Explained
GSTR-2B is a static, auto-populated statement of available Input Tax Credit (ITC) generated for every GST-registered taxpayer from the 13th or 14th of the following month. Unlike GSTR-2A, which updates continuously as suppliers file, GSTR-2B is a fixed snapshot for the return period — and since January 2022, ITC claims are restricted to what appears in GSTR-2B under Rule 36(4), with no provisional buffer permitted.
What Is ITC in GST? Input Tax Credit Explained for Indian Businesses
Input Tax Credit (ITC) is the mechanism under India's GST framework that allows a registered business to offset the tax paid on purchases and inward supplies against the GST collected on its sales. The net difference — output tax minus eligible ITC — is the actual liability payable to the government. Since January 2022, ITC claims are restricted to amounts appearing in GSTR-2B, making supplier-level reconciliation a statutory requirement rather than an optional audit step.
What Is NACH in Banking? National Automated Clearing House Explained
NACH — National Automated Clearing House — is the centralised clearing infrastructure operated by NPCI that replaced the legacy Electronic Clearing Service system across Indian banking. It standardises recurring payment collection and disbursement through a single clearing hub with uniform file formats, UMRN-based mandate tracking, and T+1 return cycles.
What Is a Payment Gateway Settlement? How Online Payments Reach Your Bank Account
A payment gateway settlement is the process by which a payment aggregator collects customer payments, deducts its charges — MDR, GST on MDR, platform fees, TCS for marketplace operators — and transfers the net amount to the merchant's designated bank account. Settlement typically occurs on a T+1 to T+7 cycle depending on the gateway and merchant tier, and the settlement file provided by the gateway is the primary document for order-level reconciliation.
What Is TDS Deduction? How Tax Deducted at Source Works in India
TDS — Tax Deducted at Source — is a withholding mechanism under the Income Tax Act, 1961, where the entity making a payment deducts a prescribed percentage of tax before crediting the payee. The deducted amount is deposited with the government under the deductee's PAN, and the deductee claims it as a credit when filing the income tax return. PAN errors and deposit timing gaps are the two primary causes of TDS reconciliation mismatches.
What Is a UTR Number? Unique Transaction Reference in Indian Banking
A UTR — Unique Transaction Reference — is the payment-system-level identifier assigned to every interbank fund transfer in India. It is generated by the clearing infrastructure (NEFT, RTGS, IMPS, or UPI), not by the sending bank or application, making it the only reference that both the sender's and receiver's banks can independently verify for a given transaction.
From definitions to a working reconciliation process
When the terminology is clear, the next question is operational: how to match these documents at scale. TransactIG is configurable for your ERP, your bank feeds, and your compliance requirements — most implementations complete in 2–4 weeks.