| Action | Effect on 2B / 3B | In practice |
|---|---|---|
| Accept | Moves to the "ITC Available" section of GSTR-2B and auto-populates GSTR-3B as eligible ITC. | Only accept what the books support — acceptance is now the legal act that stakes the ITC claim. |
| Reject | Falls into "ITC Rejected" in 2B — no ITC flows. The supplier is notified and can amend or cancel in their GSTR-1. | Use for wrong-GSTIN, duplicate and not-our-invoice records. A wrong rejection needs the supplier to re-cycle the document. |
| Pending | Stays on the IMS dashboard — out of 2B and 3B — until acted on, within the Sec 16(4) outer time limit. | The parking lot for goods-not-received and under-dispute invoices. Credit notes and downward amendments can be kept pending for only ONE tax period. |
| No action | Deemed accepted — flows into 2B as if you accepted it. | The silent trap: doing nothing is a decision. Unreviewed deemed acceptances are exactly what an auditor should sample. |
Every purchase-register entry with a tax invoice should have a matching IMS record actioned consistently — accepted if booked and eligible, pending if goods/services not yet received, rejected if not ours.
The draft 2B lands on the 14th of the following month. Actions taken after the 14th (allowed until 3B filing) require a mandatory 2B recompute on the portal — a stale 2B is a classic mismatch source.
Accepted + deemed-accepted ITC auto-populates 3B. Any manual uplift over the 2B figure is the first thing a scrutiny notice asks about.
Accepting a credit note asks you to declare the ITC actually availed earlier so the right amount reverses; partial or nil reversal needs mandatory remarks. Rejecting a CN after the supplier issued it adds the liability back to the supplier’s next 3B.
Mechanics verified 18 July 2026 against GSTN advisories — IMS behaviour has been revised more than once since the October 2024 launch, so confirm the current advisory on gst.gov.in before relying on edge-case behaviour.
CORAA reconciles books against GSTR-2A/2B/3B with party-wise drill-down to the voucher — see AI reconciliation or start free: your first audit is on us. See also the e-invoicing ₹5 Cr audit guide for the outward-supply side of this reconciliation, and the FY 2026-27 GST compliance checklist for the full start-of-year picture.
Yes — from 1 April 2026 the Invoice Management System applies to all GST-registered taxpayers: inward supplies must be managed through IMS before filing GSTR-3B. It went live as optional from October 2024; the 2026 mandate makes the accept/reject/pending action the formal gateway to ITC.
It is deemed accepted and flows into GSTR-2B as available ITC. That protects filing continuity but creates audit risk in the other direction: ITC can enter your return for invoices nobody reviewed. A monthly sweep of deemed-accepted records against the purchase register is the control.
A regular invoice can remain pending until the Sec 16(4) outer limit for claiming ITC (30 November following the financial year, or the annual return date if earlier). Credit notes and downward amendments are different — they can be kept pending for only one tax period before an accept/reject decision is forced.
The draft 2B generates on the 14th, but IMS actions remain open until you file 3B. If you act (or change an action) after the 14th, you must recompute 2B from the IMS dashboard so the statement reflects the final actions. Filing 3B against the un-recomputed draft is a common cause of 2B-vs-3B mismatch.
Four things: the reconciliation chain (books ↔ IMS actions ↔ 2B ↔ 3B) for sampled months; the deemed-acceptance population (who reviews it, and do unbooked invoices sit inside it); credit-note handling (reversal declarations against ITC actually availed); and cut-off — pending invoices approaching the Sec 16(4) limit at year end are ITC that dies if nobody acts. IMS action logs are themselves audit evidence now.
No — it restructures it. 2A remains the running statement of supplier filings; 2B remains the ITC statement; what changes is that YOUR actions now shape 2B instead of it being purely auto-drafted. Reconciliation shifts from "explain the difference between books and 2B" to "prove every IMS action was the right one".
