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Business, Compliance

Books for an Indian company owned from outside India

The Indian company still needs books, GST workings and TDS workings. The UAE company's VAT file is a different set of books.

You live in the UAE, or your UAE company owns an Indian private limited. Invoices sit in email. The Indian accountant wants a trial balance, the GST return and the TDS return. You do not want a second set of books that tries to be the UAE VAT file as well.
Last reviewed: 28 October 20265 min readBy Vipul Sharma, Founder · Reviewed by Preetesh Maloo, CA

Confirm this with a practising CA before you act. The answer depends on the year and your documents.

The short answer

For the Indian company, the work is the Indian books: source invoices and vouchers, ledger entries, bank reconciliation, a trial balance, and the workings for the returns you have agreed. A practising CA prepares them from the records you send. The statutory auditor is a different firm. Section 144 of the , 2013 does not allow the auditor to keep the books as well. Trust does not keep the UAE VAT books or file UAE corporate tax. Agree the software, the period and who reviews before the work starts.

Need the Indian company's books written up?

Tell us the period and what records you have. A practising CA will say what can be prepared from them. No obligation.

Senior CA who specialises in NRI-owned Indian companies · we handle the regulator, you stay abroad

What is prepared

You send the source records for an agreed period. That is sales invoices, purchase bills, bank statements and payroll, in the quality you actually have.

From those, the books are written up: ledger entries, a bank reconciliation, and a trial balance. If you have agreed financial statements, they are drafted from that trial balance. If the company is registered for , the return workings are prepared from the same books. If it deducts tax, the workings are prepared from the same books.

We do not promise a live dashboard, a software integration, or a report the source records cannot support. The software is whatever you already use, or one you agree at the start. Review sits with the practising CA who prepares the file. You approve it.

What is not in this work

UAE VAT, UAE corporate tax and the UAE company's own management accounts are not this engagement. A UAE-licensed firm keeps those. If both companies are in one group, the Indian file can note the recharge or the dividend. It does not become the UAE return.

Statutory audit is a separate engagement, by a different firm. Section 144 of the , 2013 bars the auditor from also keeping the books. We can introduce that separation. We do not collapse the two roles.

The audit, the filings and the overseas-investment report each have their own pages: statutory audit, ROC, and overseas investment.

GST on the Indian company

Registration and the return depend on what the Indian company supplies and where. A freelancer billing from abroad is a different page, freelancer GST. A company that pays a foreign professional often has a reverse-charge question, on the reverse-charge page. This bookkeeping page does not create a new service.

What's involved

What the CA actually does

  1. 1

    We agree the records and the period

    What you will send, which months, and which software. Weak source records are named before the trial balance is promised.

  2. 2

    We write the Indian books

    Ledger, reconciliation and trial balance, plus the and workings that were agreed.

  3. 3

    We keep the auditor separate

    The firm that keeps the books is not the statutory auditor. Section 144 requires that split.

What to have ready

Documents you'll typically need

  • Sales and purchase invoices for the period
  • Bank statements of the Indian company
  • Payroll records, if anyone is paid in India
  • GST and TDS portal access, if returns are already running

References on this page

  • Companies Act, 2013, section 128: books of account, accrual basis and double entry. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/152820709/
  • Companies Act, 2013, section 144: the auditor shall not provide accounting and bookkeeping services. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/121364313/
  • The same separation is already stated on the statutory audit page: /situations/nri-company-statutory-audit-tax-audit

Frequently asked questions

Common questions

No. UAE VAT and UAE corporate tax stay with a UAE-licensed firm. This page is the Indian company's books.

No. Section 144 of the Companies Act, 2013 does not allow the statutory auditor to provide bookkeeping as well.

No. We use the software you already have, or one agreed before the work starts. We do not require a particular product.

Need the Indian company's books written up?

Tell us the period and what records you have. A practising CA will say what can be prepared from them. No obligation.

No card, no obligation. All certification and filing work is handled by ICAI-registered practising Chartered Accountants.