Every payroll deadline tracked, every return ready to file.

The monthly clock: TDS by the 7th, PF and ESI by the 15th

TDS deducted on salary under Section 192 has to land with the Income Tax department by the 7th of the next month, paid via challan ITNS-281. The lone exception is March, where the deadline shifts to 30th April.

The PF Electronic Challan-cum-Return goes to the EPFO unified portal by the 15th of every month, carrying employee-wise wages, UANs, and the 12% employer plus 12% employee contribution split. Miss the date and the portal locks until you pay damages. ESI runs on the same 15th: for every employee earning up to ₹21,000 a month (the ceiling rises to ₹25,000 for persons with disability), the employer pays 3.25% and the employee 0.75%, deposited via the ESIC portal by the 15th of the following month.

Quarterly and annual paperwork: 24Q, Form 16, 12BA

Form 24Q, the quarterly TDS return on salary, falls due on 31 July, 31 October, 31 January, and 31 May. Annexures I and II travel with it, and the .txt file has to clear FVU validation before the NSDL portal accepts the upload. Indian HRM runs the file through FVU validation in-app, so the upload clears first try. Form 26Q for non-salary TDS comes out the same way.

At year end, every employee from whose salary you deducted TDS must receive Form 16 by 15th June. Part A is pulled from TRACES, Part B is computed from your salary structure, and Form 12BA for perquisites is generated alongside, with deductions under 80C and 80D and TDS already reconciled.

State filings and the half-yearly returns

Professional Tax is a state subject, so Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, AP, and Telangana each have their own slabs and filing cadence. Some states want monthly challans, others quarterly, and the slab caps differ wildly. The system applies the right slab per employee based on work location and produces state-wise challan data on the right schedule.

ESI adds two half-yearly windows: the October to March return is due 12th May, and the April to September one is due 11th November. PF, on the other hand, no longer needs a separate annual filing. EPFO discontinued Form 3A and Form 6A after the monthly ECR came in around 2012, so the year-end view is just a reconciliation of the twelve monthly ECRs.

What a missed filing actually costs

The penalty rates are spelt out in the statute. Late PF draws 12% per annum interest under Section 7Q plus damages of 5% to 25% under Section 14B of the EPF Act; on a 100-person payroll, one late month easily clears ₹40,000 in liability. Late TDS deposit costs 1.5% per month under Section 201(1A) after deduction, or 1% per month where tax was not deducted at all, and Section 234E adds a ₹200 per day late fee on the quarterly return until the default is cured. ESI late payment draws 12% per annum under Regulation 31 with damages of 5% to 25% under Section 85B. Not issuing Form 16 costs ₹100 per day per employee under Section 272A(2)(g), which compounds fast for a 50-employee company. Figures current as of FY 2025-26. The annual software licence is usually a fraction of one such penalty.

Reminders, ready files, and an audit trail

Deadline reminders fire at 60, 30, and 7 days before every PF, ESI, TDS, PT, Form 16, and 24Q due date. Each filing window is scheduled, reminded against, and the file is generated ahead of time, so submission day is mostly a click: a portal upload and a confirmation receipt. Every wage component, deduction, and statutory filing is written to an immutable audit log with user, timestamp, and old and new values. It is searchable by employee, month, or component, and exports to Excel, which is what most labour inspectors actually ask for.