---
title: "Keeping track of filing dates without missing one"
source: https://www.lskhata.com/blog/tracking-filing-deadlines
category: "Stock & money"
language: en
published: 2026-08-27
reading_time: 6 min
---

# Keeping track of filing dates without missing one

_How to make sure a deadline does not pass unnoticed — and a clear statement of where record-keeping stops and your accountant starts._

## In short
- Khata tracks deadlines and records that a period was filed. It does not prepare or submit returns.
- What your deadlines are depends on your registration, turnover and country. Get that list from your accountant once.
- Most late filings are not disorganisation. They are a missing record that took a week to find.
- Keep exports monthly rather than scrambling at the deadline. It is the same work at a calmer time.

**What this article is and is not.** This is about not missing a date and having your records ready. It is not tax advice. What you are required to file, when, and how is determined by rules that vary by country, by state, by registration and by turnover, and that change from year to year. Ask your accountant or your tax authority. Anyone who tells you the answer in a blog post without knowing your circumstances is guessing.

With that said, the practical problem most shops actually have is not a lack of knowledge about tax. It is that a date arrives and the records needed to meet it take a week to assemble, so the deadline is missed by a business that was perfectly willing to meet it.

_[Figure: The reminder is the part software can honestly do. The panel on the right is the part it cannot, and saying so is not a limitation to hide.]_

### Where the line sits

| Khata does | Khata does not |
| --- | --- |
| Track filing deadlines on a calendar | Prepare a return |
| Remind you before one arrives | Submit anything to any authority |
| Record which periods you have marked filed | Confirm that a filing was accepted |
| Export sales, purchases and expenses | Tell you what you owe |
| Support GST and non-GST invoice formats, and VAT billing in NPR | Advise which format applies to you |

That right-hand column is not a list of things we have not got round to. Filing is a professional judgement with legal consequences attached, and software that guesses at it on your behalf is doing you harm while appearing to help.

### The setup, once

1. **Ask your accountant for your actual list of deadlines** — Which filings apply to you and on what dates. Write it down. This conversation takes fifteen minutes and does not need repeating unless your registration or turnover changes.
2. **Put each one on the calendar with a reminder ahead of it** — The reminder needs to arrive early enough to be useful. A notification on the day tells you that you are already late in every way that matters.
3. **Agree what your accountant needs, and in what form** — Ask before the first deadline rather than during it. Usually sales, purchases, expenses and tax figures for the period, in a format they can work with.
4. **Mark each period filed once it is done** — So that in four months you can see which periods are closed without having to reconstruct it from your inbox.

### The monthly habit that makes deadlines uneventful

The shops that find filing stressful are almost never the ones that do not know the rules. They are the ones assembling three months of records in the two days before a date.

Exporting the same reports on the same day every month turns that into a twenty-minute job at a calm time. It is exactly the same work, moved to a point where nothing depends on it being finished today.

**The commonest cause of a late filing is a missing record.** Not laziness — a supplier invoice nobody kept, a month of expenses paid in cash and never entered, a set of bills raised on paper during a week when the phone was broken. Recording as you go is what prevents the deadline turning into an archaeology exercise.

> The deadline is rarely the problem. The week of searching before it usually is.

## Common questions

**Does Khata file my GST returns?**

No. It does not generate GSTR data and does not submit anything to any tax authority. What it does is track filing deadlines so one does not pass unnoticed, record which periods you have marked as filed, and export your records for whoever does the filing. Filing itself is your accountant's work, and we are careful not to blur the two.

**What deadlines apply to my shop?**

That depends on your country, your registration status and your turnover, and it changes. This is a question to ask your accountant once and then write down. An article cannot answer it responsibly, and a shop that copies the schedule of the business next door often copies the wrong one.

**What records will my accountant ask for?**

Typically sales, purchases, expenses and the tax charged and paid over the period. Khata exports these, so the handover is a file rather than a shoebox. What format they want them in is worth asking before the first deadline rather than during it.

**What should I do if I have already missed a deadline?**

Speak to your accountant promptly rather than waiting for the next one. Late filing usually has consequences that grow with time, and the difference between dealing with it in a week and dealing with it in six months is often substantial.