The Invoice Management System (IMS) is a facility on the GST portal. It lists the invoices and credit or debit notes that your suppliers have reported against your GSTIN, and it lets you decide what to do with each one: Accept it, Reject it, or keep it Pending. Your decision affects what appears in your GSTR-2B, and therefore how much input tax credit (ITC) you can claim in GSTR-3B.

IMS Reconciliation in the GST compliance application (previously known as Sapphire) compares the invoices in IMS with your own purchase register, which this guide calls 2P. Instead of reading every invoice one by one, you can see which invoices match, which ones differ and why, and then take action on them together. Invoices that match can be accepted in bulk, so your time goes to the invoices that need attention.

About the name: In this guide, the product is called the GST compliance application. Until recently it was known as Sapphire, a name that many users still use, so you may see both names.

Why IMS exists

Before October 2024, GSTR-2B was generated automatically as soon as your suppliers filed their GSTR-1, and you did not have to take any action. As a result, invoices that were wrong, or that did not belong to you, could flow into your ITC. IMS is meant to address incorrect ITC claims caused by mismatched invoices.

IMS works as a communication channel between the supplier and the recipient. The recipient can accept or reject an invoice that the supplier furnished, or put it Pending. The supplier can also see your response through the IMS Supplier View.

The aim is that only invoices you have accepted, or have chosen not to challenge, reach GSTR-2B, so that the ITC you claim in GSTR-3B is more accurate.

How IMS fits into the GST compliance application, and how to reach it

IMS itself is a facility on the GST portal. The application connects to it, fetches your IMS data, reconciles that data with your purchase register, and saves your actions back to the GST portal. Your actions take effect on the GST portal only when you save them to GSTN. Until then they remain drafts in the application.

To reach IMS in the application, open Reconciliation in the main menu and then IMS Based Purchase Recon. This menu has three options:

• GET & Action IMS lets you fetch your IMS data from the GST portal and take action on it using a file. It opens the IMS DATA FETCH screen, and it is available to all users.
• IMS Perform Reconciliation lets you run the reconciliation that matches your purchase register with your IMS data.
• IMS Recon Result lets you review the reconciliation results, take action on invoices and save your actions to the GST portal.

IMS Perform Reconciliation and IMS Recon Result are part of a premium service, as explained under “Before you start” below.

IMS, GSTR-2A and GSTR-2B

IMS is easiest to understand next to the two statements it relates to.

• GSTR-2A is a dynamic, read-only statement. It keeps updating as your suppliers file or amend their returns. It is a reference for tracking, not the basis for your ITC claim.
• GSTR-2B is a static ITC statement that the GST portal generates on the 14th of every month. ITC is claimed as per GSTR-2B.
• IMS sits between your suppliers’ filings and your GSTR-2B. What you decide in IMS decides how an invoice appears in GSTR-2B. Accepted invoices flow to the ITC Available section, rejected ones to the ITC Rejected section, and pending ones are carried forward in IMS and are not included in GSTR-2B.
• If you take no action on an invoice, it is treated as deemed accepted and moves to GSTR-2B as accepted.
• If you take an action after GSTR-2B has been generated on the 14th, but before you file GSTR-3B, you must recompute GSTR-2B. In the application, this is the Generate and Get 2B step.

What you can do with IMS Reconciliation

• Fetch your IMS data from the GST portal and reconcile it with your purchase register (2P). The differences are grouped as Match, Value Mismatch, Invoice Mismatch, IMS Only and Purchaser Only.
• Use advanced rules and tolerances to clear differences that are not real errors, for example invoice numbers written in a different style, dates in different months, or very small differences in value.
• Mark Accept, Reject or Pending on a single invoice, on a whole category, or on many invoices at once, and add a comment to explain your decision.
• Save all your actions to the GST portal in one step, and then regenerate GSTR-2B so that it reflects your decisions.

Two GST rules to keep in mind

• If you take no action on an invoice, it is treated as accepted when GSTR-2B is generated on the 14th of the month.
• You can change an action on an invoice until you file GSTR-3B for that month.

Before you start

IMS Reconciliation needs a few things to be in place. Check each of them first, so that the later steps run without interruption.

1. Premium module. IMS Perform Reconciliation and IMS Recon Result are part of a premium service. If your organisation has taken it, both pages open normally. If it has not, you see the message “Unlock IMS Reconciliation Module”, as shown below, and you can contact Sovos sales to enable it. GET & Action IMS stays available to all users, so you can still fetch your IMS data and take action on it using a file.

1. GSTIN selection. If you have selected a business or legal PAN in the hierarchy, the pages under IMS Based Purchase Recon list the GSTINs you have access to, and you can select several and work on them together. If you have selected a GSTIN, each page opens with that GSTIN fixed; to change it, select a different GSTIN in the hierarchy.
2. A valid GSTN session for each GSTIN you will fetch data for or save to. The GSTN session is the active connection between the GST compliance application and the GST portal for that GSTIN. If it has expired, activate it from Compliance Tracker > GST Session Status.
3. Your purchase register (2P) uploaded for the period. The required fields and the upload steps are in the Upload Purchase Register (2P) guide.
4. Run your 2B or 2A reconciliation first. You do not choose a base. IMS reconciliation uses your GSTR-2B reconciliation if one exists for the financial year, and otherwise your GSTR-2A reconciliation. It builds on those results, as explained in the article “IMS: Perform Reconciliation”.