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Government pushes implementation of transparent accounting software to April 1, 2022

According to latest notification issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the implementation of the rule has been extended by a year, till April 1, 2022.

Government pushes implementation of transparent accounting software to April 1, 2022

(Photo: iStock)

The central government has extended the date of implementation of rule making it mandatory for all companies to adopt accounting software having audit trail of each and every transaction and having feature to store logs of each transaction.

The rule was to come into force from April 1. However, as per the new latest notification issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the implementation of the rule has been extended by a year, till April 1, 2022.

The changes were earlier proposed to be implemented from April 1, 2021. But after receiving several representations from various stakeholders expressing their inability to make quick changes in accounting software, the government decided to give one more year to businesses to prepare for new accounting system that aims to check manipulation and ensure utmost transparency in recording transactions.

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“In the Companies (Accounts) Rules, 2014, in proviso to sub-rule (1) of rule 3, for the figures, letters and words “1st day of April, 2021”, the figures, letters and words “1st day of April, 2022″ shall be substituted,” it said.

Provided that for the financial year commencing on or after the 1st day of April, 2022, every company which uses accounting software for maintaining its books of account, shall use only such accounting software which has a feature of recording audit trail of each and every transaction, creating an edit log of each change made in books of account along with the date when such changes were made and ensuring that the audit trail cannot be disabled.

Earlier in March this year, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs had issued a notification making it mandatory for all companies to use accounting software that will maintain a record audit trail of each financial transaction.

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