Every year before ITR season, millions of Indians scramble to collect their bank statements and hand them to their chartered accountant. A bit of preparation makes the process faster and reduces back-and-forth.
Collect all accounts
List every bank account you have: savings, current, fixed deposits, joint accounts. Your CA needs statements from all of them for the financial year. Missing an account can lead to income discrepancies that attract IT notices later.
Download the full financial year
The Indian financial year runs April 1 to March 31. Download statements covering April of last year through March of the current year. Some people download calendar year statements by mistake. Check the dates before handing anything to your CA.
Annotate unusual transactions
If your statement has large credits that are not income (loan disbursements, sale of property, gifts from family), annotate them. Add a note in the PDF or a separate Word document explaining each unusual item. This saves your CA from asking and saves you from providing documentation under pressure later.
Convert to Excel for faster work
If your CA works in Excel or Tally, providing statements in Excel or CSV format saves significant time over PDFs. Many CAs spend hours manually typing transactions from PDFs. An Excel file with clean columns can be imported directly into accounting software. Ask your CA which format they prefer.
Related reading: Bank Statement for Income Tax Return, Using Bank Statements for GST Return Filing, Convert Bank Statement PDF to Excel.