AIS reconciliation: match your Annual Information Statement to your books

The Annual Information Statement is a comprehensive view of all financial transactions reportable under Indian income-tax law for a given PAN. It was introduced in FY2021-22 and replaced the older Form 26AS for income-tax purposes. AIS covers TDS deductions, TCS collections, interest from FDs and savings accounts, dividend income, mutual fund redemptions, securities transactions, foreign remittances, rent receipts, and business receipts. It is available to download from the IT e-filing portal (incometax.gov.in) under the AIS/TIS section.

Form 26AS shows TDS/TCS transactions, advance tax, and self-assessment tax payments. AIS is a superset — it includes everything in 26AS plus investment and income events not captured by TDS (capital gains, foreign remittances, rent, business receipts reported by aggregators). For income-tax return filing from FY2024-25 onwards, AIS is the primary reconciliation document. Form 26AS is still available but AIS is more complete.

Mismatches are common for several reasons: (1) Timing lag — a deductor files TDS returns late, so the deduction appears in AIS a quarter after it was made. (2) Amount difference — the deductor reports the gross amount but your book entry is the net. (3) Missing entry — the income was received but not recorded in the accounting system. (4) Duplicate reporting — some payment aggregators report the same transaction under multiple categories. HelloBooks AIS reconciliation flags each mismatch type separately so you can accept, dispute, or escalate each item.

HelloBooks accepts both the AIS JSON (preferred) and the AIS PDF. The JSON is available from the IT e-filing portal under 'AIS' → 'Download' → 'JSON'. It preserves machine-readable structure so HelloBooks can parse all 20+ transaction categories without OCR. The PDF upload uses text extraction and is a fallback for users whose portal shows only the PDF option. Both are available from FY2023-24 onwards.

For TDS entries, HelloBooks matches by deductor TAN, approximate amount (±₹100 tolerance), and financial year. For business receipts and dividend entries, matching is by PAN of the reporting entity and amount. Salary entries match to the payroll ledger. FD and savings interest match to bank-linked interest income accounts. Unmatched entries are flagged for manual review. You can Accept (mark as reconciled), Dispute (flag for follow-up with the deductor), or link to the matching ledger entry.

Use AIS reconciliation when preparing the income-tax return (ITR). AIS covers all reportable income, not just TDS. Use the Form 26AS tab for quarterly TDS compliance work — matching challan payments, verifying ITNS-281 deposits, and generating Form 16A/16. Both views are available in HelloBooks under the TDS module; the AIS tab is the ITR-facing reconciliation surface.

Yes. You can mark any AIS entry as 'Disputed' with a reason note. The dispute is recorded in HelloBooks for your internal audit trail. To formally dispute with the Income Tax Department, you need to go to the IT e-filing portal and submit the feedback via the AIS Feedback mechanism (available under AIS → Submit Feedback). HelloBooks exports a dispute summary you can reference when submitting portal feedback.

Any taxpayer filing an income-tax return — individual, HUF, firm, LLP, or company. It is especially important for: (1) Businesses with multiple TDS deductors (professional service firms, staffing agencies, contractors), (2) Entities receiving significant investment income (interest, dividends, mutual fund redemptions), (3) High-turnover businesses whose payment aggregators report receipts under business receipts category, and (4) CA practices filing returns for multiple clients.