GST fiscal periods: the GST filing calendar

A GST Fiscal Period is one entry in your GST filing calendar: a calendar month, a quarter or a whole financial year that GST returns are filed for. Every GSTR-1, GSTR-2B, GSTR-3B and GSTR-6 record points at a monthly period, every GSTR-9 annual return points at an annual period, and a Form 26AS statement can point at one too. Periods are usually created for you when returns are provisioned. You rarely create one by hand, but you do need to understand them to backfill a month, read the GST console, or close off a month you have filed.

Overview

The GST calendar is separate from the accounting calendar. Fiscal periods in finance control posting and period close; GST fiscal periods only organise GST returns. Closing or locking a GST period does not stop anyone posting an invoice or bill dated in that month, and closing an accounting period does not change any GST period.

Each period has a Type (its cadence), a Month, a Year and a Financial Year:

• A Monthly period is one calendar month, for example Aug 2026. This is the period GST returns are provisioned for.
• A Quarterly period is one quarter of the Indian financial year, identified by its quarter-end month, for example Apr-Jun 2025.
• An Annual period is one financial year, for example FY 2025-26. It has no month, and GSTR-9 returns are attached to it.

When to use it

• Backfilling a month. Provisioning creates the current month's period. If you start using GST returns part-way through a year, or a month was missed, you may need the earlier month's period. See The GST console for how returns are provisioned.
• Finishing a month. After a month's returns are filed, set its period to Closed or Locked so the scheduled processing jobs stop rebuilding it.
• Checking what a month holds. The period's Related GSTR tab lists the return records attached to it.
• Fixing a period that was created wrong, for example with the wrong month, before any return uses it.

How xMatix handles it

Periods are created automatically. Whenever returns are provisioned for a month (from a GST registration or by the scheduled Provision GST returns job), xMatix looks for that month's Monthly period and creates it if it is missing, with status Open. For a normal (non-ISD) registration it also creates the Annual period of the financial year the month falls in, which the GSTR-9 return attaches to. Two other features create a period when they need one: carrying a GSTR-1 document forward into the next return period creates the next month (or quarter), and creating a GSTR-9 return can create its Annual period. A period created this way is named exactly like one you create by hand.

Name, Financial Year and label are derived. When a period is saved, xMatix fills whatever you left blank:

The financial year runs from April to March, so January to March belong to the financial year that started the previous April. For an Annual period, Year is the year the financial year starts.

One period per month and cadence. There can be only one Monthly period for August 2026, one Quarterly period for April to June 2025 and one Annual period for 2025-26. A Monthly June and the Quarterly April to June share Month 6, but they are different periods and can both exist.

Creating a period does not create returns. A period you add with New is empty. The returns for it come from provisioning.

The period's status is a filing marker. It does not lock the returns themselves. What each status changes is under Business rules.

Prerequisites

• Your profile needs access to the GST Fiscal Period records (see Permissions).
• GST Fiscal Period is not in any standard app menu. An administrator adds it to the app your tax team uses (see Configuration).
• To provision returns for a period you need at least one active GST registration with a GSTIN.

Procedure

Step 1 — Open the list of periods

Open GST Fiscal Periods from the app your administrator added it to. The standard list view, GST Fiscal Period, shows Name, Type, Year, Month, Financial Year and Status. Check the list before adding anything: provisioning has usually already created the months you need, together with the annual period of each financial year.

Step 2 — Create a period by hand

Select New. The form has four fields:

1. Month — the calendar month as a number, 1 to 12. For a Quarterly period, enter the quarter-end month: 3, 6, 9 or 12. For an Annual period, enter 0.
2. Year — the calendar year of that month. For an Annual period, enter the year the financial year starts (2025 for 2025-26).
3. Type — Monthly (the default), Quarterly or Annual.
4. Status — leave it at Open (the default).

Save. xMatix fills in Name and Financial Year as shown in the table above, and the period opens as a record page. If the month, year or type breaks a rule, the save is refused with the reason (see Common problems).

To get the returns for that month, provision it. Opening a period does not create returns, and the standard period page has no provisioning button (see Common problems). Use the scheduled job with that month in its payload, as described under Configuration.

Step 3 — Read a period

The record page header shows Financial Year, Month, Type and Status, and has an Edit button. The Details tab shows Name, Month, Year, Status, Type and Financial Year. The Related GSTR tab lists the return records attached to the period. These lists are read-only and have no buttons.

The GST console is built from these records too. Its Financial Year picker lists the financial years that periods exist for, and its timeline shows that year's annual period first and then its months, newest first. The status dot beside each month is the period's Status.

Step 4 — Change a period

Select Edit in the header. The dialog shows Month, Year, Type and Status. You can also change Name and Financial Year directly on the Details tab.

• Changing the month, year or type is allowed only while no return, GSTR-9 or Form 26AS statement points at the period. When you change the key, xMatix also updates the Name, label and Financial Year, unless you typed a new value for them in the same save.
• Changing Financial Year by hand is checked: it must match the month and year, for example 2026-27 for August 2026. On an Annual period, changing Financial Year moves the period to that year, and Year follows it.

Step 5 — Close or lock a period

When the month's returns are filed and you no longer want the scheduled jobs to rebuild them, open the period, select Edit, set Status to Closed or Locked and save.

• Closed can be set back to Open at any time.
• Locked is final. A locked period can never be reopened.

Step 6 — Delete a period

You can delete a period from the list (the row's Delete, or select rows and use Delete in the list header) only if it is Open and nothing points at it: no GSTR-1, GSTR-2B, GSTR-3B, GSTR-6, GSTR-9 or Form 26AS statement. Otherwise the delete is refused and the message lists what still uses the period. This is how you remove a period that was created with the wrong month.

Fields

Business rules

Validation on save. xMatix refuses the save, with every reason at once, when:

• the month does not fit the type: 1 to 12 for Monthly, 3, 6, 9 or 12 for Quarterly, and 0 for Annual;
• the year is before 2017 or more than one year ahead of the current year;
• the period starts before GST: the earliest Monthly period is 07/2017, the earliest Quarterly one is Jul-Sep 2017, and the earliest Annual one is FY 2017-18;
• the Financial Year does not match the month and year, or an Annual period has none;
• the Type or Status is not one of the allowed values;
• a period of the same type already exists for that month and year, or the same save contains two;
• a Locked period is being set to another status;
• the month, year or type is being changed on a period that returns or statements already use.

What the status changes:

Closing a period does not stop you from processing, correcting or filing its returns by hand, and it does not stop posting documents dated in that month. A job run that names the month in its payload still processes that month whatever its status. Provisioning from a registration or the scheduled job also uses an existing period whatever its status, so a missing return can still be created in a closed month.

Provisioning creates periods Open. A period that provisioning or GSTR-1 carry-forward creates is Monthly (or the matching cadence for carry-forward) and Open, with the same name and financial year you would get by hand. If a period already exists for the month, it is reused, including one you created yourself.

Duplicates from older data. Periods created before these rules existed can include duplicates for the same month. Provisioning then uses the oldest one, and the GST console shows only one of them on the timeline but looks for returns under all of them. Delete the extra Open period that nothing uses.

Example

Your company started filing GST returns in xMatix in August 2026. Provisioning created Aug 2026 (Financial Year 2026-27) and FY 2026-27 automatically. You also need the July 2026 returns.

1. You open GST Fiscal Periods. You see Aug 2026 (Monthly, Open) and FY 2026-27 (Annual, Open). There is no July.
2. You select New and enter Month 7, Year 2026, Type Monthly, and leave Status at Open. You save. The record is named Jul 2026, Financial Year 2026-27.
3. Your administrator runs the Provision GST returns job with the payload {"month": 7, "year": 2026}. The run summary reports one GSTR-1, one GSTR-2B and one GSTR-3B created for each registration, and no GSTR-9 because the 2026-27 return already exists. The Related GSTR tab of Jul 2026 now lists them.
4. In September you file the August returns. You open Aug 2026, select Edit, set Status to Closed and save. The nightly processing jobs now skip August. If a late correction comes up, you can still process the August GSTR-1 by hand.

Training

Practice exercise

In a sandbox, do the following and check the result of each step.

1. Create a Monthly period for month 13 of the current year. Expected: the save is refused with "Month must be between 1 and 12; '13' is not a calendar month."
2. Create a Quarterly period with Month 5. Expected: refused, because a Quarterly period needs a quarter-end month (03, 06, 09 or 12).
3. Create a Quarterly period for Month 6 of next year. Expected: it saves as Apr-Jun of that year, with the financial year that starts that April.
4. Create a second Quarterly period for the same Month and Year. Expected: refused with "A Quarterly GST period for Apr-Jun … already exists; use it instead of creating a second one."
5. Set the period from step 3 to Locked, then try to set it back to Open. Expected: "GST period '…' is Locked and cannot be reopened." Then try to delete it. Expected: "Only an Open GST period can be deleted; '…' is Locked."

Do step 5 only on a period you are happy to keep forever.

Quick reference

• Provisioning creates the current month's period (and the year's Annual period). Check the list before adding one.
• Monthly Month is 1–12, Quarterly is the quarter-end month, Annual is 0.
• For Annual, Year is the year the financial year starts.
• Name and Financial Year fill themselves; leave them blank.
• One period per type, month and year.
• New does not create returns; provisioning does.
• Closed stops the scheduled processing jobs; you can reopen it.
• Locked is permanent.
• Delete only works on an Open period that nothing uses.
• Once a return uses a period, its month, year and type are fixed.

Permissions

GST Fiscal Period records follow ordinary record access. In the standard security profiles, SystemAdmin, StandardUser and SalesExecutive have full access to the records. The New button is granted to SystemAdmin and StandardUser; Edit and Delete are granted to all three. Because closing, locking and deleting periods affects every GSTIN, an administrator should consider restricting these records to the tax team in a custom profile. See Security profiles.

Running the Provision GST returns job needs access to Setup → Platform Operations → Monitoring → Jobs.

Configuration

• Put the records in an app. GST Fiscal Period is in no standard app. Go to Setup → Design Studio → Apps, open the app your tax team uses, and add GST Fiscal Period with Manage Items (see Create an entity).
• Schedule provisioning. No schedule is created for you. On Setup → Platform Operations → Monitoring → Jobs, open the Schedules tab and select New schedule. Choose the job type Provision GST returns, a frequency (for example monthly on the first day), and save it as Active. With no payload, each run provisions the current month in India time and creates its period. To backfill a month, create or edit a schedule with Payload JSON set to {"month": 7, "year": 2026} and use Run now on it. The Month in the payload must be 1 to 12. The run summary on the Jobs screen lists how many returns of each kind were created.
• Processing jobs. The Process GSTR-1 data, Process GSTR-2B data, Process GSTR-3B data and Process GSTR-6 data jobs are scheduled the same way. Without a payload they work on Open periods only, so the period status is how you stop them rebuilding a filed month.
• The Provision GST Returns button on a period. The standard metadata does not include a provisioning action for GST Fiscal Period, so no button appears on the period. Use a registration's Provision GST Returns (current month only) or the job.

Common problems

"Month must be between 1 and 12; '…' is not a calendar month."

A Monthly period needs a month number from 1 to 12. Enter the month number. If you entered 0 because you meant an Annual period, set Type to Annual.

"A Quarterly GST period is identified by its quarter-end month (03, 06, 09, 12); '…' is not one."

Enter the last month of the quarter: 6 for April to June, 9 for July to September, 12 for October to December and 3 for January to March.

"An Annual GST period covers a whole financial year and has no calendar month; Month must be 0, not '…'."

For an Annual period, set Month to 0 and Year to the year the financial year starts.

"Year must be between 2017 and …; '…' is not a GST return year."

Periods can be created from 2017 up to one year after the current year. Check for a typing mistake in the year.

"GST began on 1 July 2017; the earliest … period in 2017 is …"

There are no GST returns before July 2017. The earliest Monthly period is 07/2017 and the earliest Quarterly one is 09/2017.

"Financial year '…' does not match …; expected '…'."

The Financial Year you entered is not the year the month belongs to, or is not written as 2026-27. Clear the field and let xMatix fill it, or enter the expected value from the message.

"A Monthly GST period for 07/2026 already exists; use it instead of creating a second one."

The period is already there, usually because provisioning created it. Use the existing period. The same message appears for a duplicate Quarterly or Annual period.

"Month, Year and Type cannot be changed on GST period '…': 1 GSTR-1, 1 GSTR-3B already reference it."

Returns or statements already use the period, so it cannot be moved to another month. The month's returns were built from that month's data. If the period really is wrong, the returns that use it have to be removed first. Otherwise leave it and create or provision the correct month.

"GST period '…' is Locked and cannot be reopened."

Locked is final. There is no way back to Open or Closed. Use Closed for months you might need to reopen.

"Only an Open GST period can be deleted; '…' is Closed." or "GST period '…' cannot be deleted: … still reference it."

Only an Open period that nothing uses can be deleted. Set a Closed period back to Open first. A Locked period, or one that returns or statements use, cannot be deleted.

I created a period but the console still shows "Not created"

Creating a period does not create returns. Provision the month with the job and a {"month", "year"} payload, or from a registration if it is the current month.

There is no Provision GST Returns button on the period

The standard period page shows only Edit, and the standard metadata has no provisioning action for GST Fiscal Period. Use the job with a payload, as described under Configuration, or a registration's Provision GST Returns for the current month.

Last month's returns stopped updating overnight

The period is probably Closed or Locked, so the scheduled processing jobs no longer pick it up. Process the return by hand from its record, or set the period back to Open if it is only Closed.

Common questions

Is the GST fiscal period the same as the accounting period?

No. The accounting fiscal periods control posting and period close for your ledgers. GST fiscal periods only group GST returns by the month or year they are filed for. They are separate records with separate statuses. Closing an accounting period does not close the GST period, and closing a GST period does not stop posting documents in that month. Keep them in step yourself if your process needs that: for example, lock the GST month only after the accounting month is closed and its returns are filed.

Do I need to create next month's period in advance?

No. Provisioning creates the current month's period when it runs, so a monthly schedule for the Provision GST returns job keeps the calendar up to date with no manual work. You can create a period up to one year ahead if you want to, but an empty period does nothing until returns are provisioned for it, and the returns for a month are not provisioned in advance unless you name that month in a job payload.

What are Quarterly periods used for?

They exist for taxpayers on the quarterly (QRMP) scheme, and GSTR-1 carry-forward moves documents from one quarter to the next when the source return is on a Quarterly period. Provisioning creates returns for Monthly periods only, so no return is ever provisioned onto a Quarterly period. The GST console has no separate quarterly view. A Quarterly period appears on the timeline at its quarter-end month, and when a Monthly period exists for the same month, the console shows only one of them.

Why is there an Annual period I never created?

Provisioning a normal (non-ISD) registration for any month also creates the Annual period of that month's financial year, because the GSTR-9 annual return is attached to it. Only one is created per financial year. An ISD-only company gets no Annual period, because an Input Service Distributor does not file GSTR-9.

Related topics

• The GST console
• GST registrations
• GSTR-1, GSTR-2B, GSTR-3B, GSTR-6
• Annual returns
• TDS reconciliation
• Period close
• GST Fiscal Period reference
• Fiscal Period — entity reference