GST Invoice Management System (IMS): Accept, Reject or Pending — A Seller's Guide

Your GSTR-2B used to be a passive statement. Since October 2024 it reflects choices you make in the Invoice Management System (IMS), the portal dashboard where every invoice your suppliers report lands first. Get those choices wrong and your ITC is quietly higher or lower than you think.

This guide covers what IMS does. For the monthly filing workflow around it, see our GSTR-3B filing guide, and for the statements themselves, GSTR-2A vs GSTR-2B.

What IMS does

When a supplier saves an invoice in GSTR-1, GSTR-1A or IFF, it appears in your IMS dashboard. You can accept, reject or keep it pending. Only what you accept (or leave untouched) becomes eligible ITC in GSTR-2B.

Action	GSTR-2B	GSTR-3B
Accept	Under "ITC Available"	Auto-populates as eligible ITC
Reject	Under "ITC Rejected"	Not populated
Pending	Not included	Not populated; stays in IMS for later months
No action	Treated as deemed accepted at GSTR-2B generation	Populates like an accepted record

Rejecting is not a formality. For rejected credit notes, the supplier's tax liability goes up in their GSTR-3B for the following period, so reject only when the record is genuinely wrong.

Timing rules that catch sellers out

• You can act until you file GSTR-3B, not just until the 14th. The 14th is when the draft GSTR-2B is generated. If you act after that, or change an action you already took, recompute GSTR-2B from the IMS dashboard.
• GSTR-2B is sequential. The portal generates the next period's GSTR-2B only after you file GSTR-3B for the previous one.
• Filed records leave the dashboard. Accepted, deemed-accepted and rejected records move out of IMS once you file GSTR-3B. Pending ones stay.
• Supplier edits reset status. If the supplier changes a record before filing GSTR-1/1A/IFF, your earlier action on it is reset.
• Amendments via GSTR-1A flow to IMS, but the corresponding ITC reaches your GSTR-2B for the following month only.
• Pending has a ceiling. You can claim a pending invoice later, but not past the Section 16(4) limit. Do not use Pending as permanent storage.

What does not go through IMS

Two categories go directly to GSTR-3B: inward reverse-charge supplies reported by the supplier in Table 4B, and supplies where ITC is ineligible under Section 16(4) or the place-of-supply rules.

Credit notes work differently

Credit notes reduce your ITC, so IMS treats them more strictly. Before the October 2025 tax period, you could not keep an original credit note pending. Two changes since then:

1. Pending is now allowed for credit notes, upward amendments of credit notes, and some downward amendments. It lasts one tax period beyond the applicable GSTR-2B period, up to that later period's GSTR-3B due date. For a monthly filer whose applicable GSTR-2B period is October 2025, that is 20 December 2025. After that, the record is deemed accepted.
2. You can declare how much ITC to reduce. When you accept such a record, IMS asks whether ITC needs to be reduced. Answer No if you never claimed the ITC on the original invoice, Yes with no value for a full reversal, or Yes with an amount for a partial one. Remarks are mandatory for partial or no reversal.

This matters for marketplace sellers with returns and post-sale discounts, where credit notes arrive in bulk.

A practical monthly routine

1. After the 14th, open IMS and sort by supplier.
2. Reject or hold anything you do not recognise: unknown GSTIN, duplicate invoice, wrong amount.
3. Leave normal purchase invoices alone; they are deemed accepted.
4. Decide each credit note explicitly, and declare the ITC to be reduced.
5. Recompute GSTR-2B, then compare it to your purchase register before filing GSTR-3B.

If reconciling is taking more of your month than it should, your CA partner can run this comparison for you; Dhanaay can refer you to one, free of charge. Claiming more ITC in GSTR-3B than GSTR-2B shows can trigger a mismatch intimation in Form DRC-01C, so treat GSTR-2B as your ceiling. Keep the GST due dates handy so IMS actions land before filing.

Sources

• GSTN, Invoice Management System advisory
• GSTN, FAQ on new IMS changes from the October 2025 tax period