Questions every owner should ask their CA

If you ask your CA only five questions this year, ask these. Who prepares my filings and who reviews them? What is my full year compliance calendar, in writing? Which thresholds am I close to this year? What will you flag before I spend, not after? And what exactly does my fee include and exclude?

A CA who can answer all five clearly is advising you. A CA who cannot is only filing for you. The rest of this article turns those five into a working question set, organised by the moment you need each question.

The short version: the year your CA is managing

Dates move by notification. The point of the table is not to memorise it. The point is to ask your CA to give you this calendar with your business name on it, and a named person responsible for each date. Our MSME compliance calendar lists the full year in one place.

Questions to ask before you appoint, or reappoint, a CA

Start with verification. Search the CA's name or firm on ICAI CA Connect at caconnect.icai.org and match it to the letterhead you were given. For audit and certificate work, confirm the CA holds a certificate of practice. On any signed certificate or audit report, check the UDIN, the unique document identification number.

Then ask these eight questions, and note the answers in writing.

1. Which clients like mine do you already serve, in my sector and at my size?
2. Who prepares my work, and who reviews it before it is filed?
3. How do you remind me of deadlines, and how many days before the date?
4. What does your fee include, item by item?
5. Are replies to notices included in the fee, or charged separately?
6. Which software will my books live in, and will I have owner access to them?
7. How fast do you reply in filing season, when every client needs you at once?
8. If I leave, what data and logins do you hand over, and in what format?

None of these is a trick question. A well run practice answers them in one meeting. Vague answers on items 4, 5 and 8 are the ones that cost owners money later, because scope disputes always surface at the worst moment: a notice, a loan application, or a change of CA in the middle of the year.

Questions about your monthly rhythm

Filing dates are the visible part. The monthly work underneath decides whether your returns are right.

Ask: will you reconcile my purchase register against GSTR-2B before every GSTR-3B, and tell me the credit at risk in rupees? A reconciliation reported in rupees changes behaviour. A reconciliation reported as done does not.

Ask: what do you need from me, by which date each month, for GSTR-1 by the 11th and GSTR-3B by the 20th? Get that list in the engagement letter: sales data, purchase data, bank statements and expense records, with a cut off date you both agree.

Ask: what does a late filing cost me? For GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B the late fee is Rs 50 per day where there is liability, and Rs 20 per day for a nil return, with caps that depend on turnover. Interest on tax paid late is separate, and usually larger than the fee.

One more rule to confirm with your CA: returns more than three years past the due date can no longer be filed. Old gaps cannot always be repaired, which is why the monthly rhythm matters now, not at year end.

Questions about thresholds you are approaching

Thresholds are where a filing service and an adviser part company. Crossing one changes your obligations, your dates and sometimes your costs. You want the warning before you cross, while you can still plan.

The e-invoicing rule is covered in full in our guide to the GST e-invoicing Rs 5 crore rule. Here, the question for your CA is narrower: does it apply to me this year, and what has to change in my billing before it does?

Ask also about presumptive taxation. Should you stay on it, or leave it? Note the trap your CA should explain unprompted: opting out, or declaring profit below the deemed rate, can itself trigger an audit requirement. The choice is not only about this year's tax.

Pradrix is building its product with MSMEs in the room, and chartered accountants are among the experts shaping it. If you advise owners for a living, come build with us and put your ground truth into what gets made.

Questions with dates attached: the annual calendar

Beyond the monthly GST rhythm, a set of annual and quarterly dates decides whether your year closes cleanly.

Two cautions belong with this table. First, the income tax return date for a given year is the date CBDT notifies for that year, and it has moved in past years. Ask your CA to confirm the notified date for the year you are filing, rather than working from memory. Second, if your structure is a company or an LLP, company law dates sit on top of this tax calendar. Structure choices carry different calendars, which is one reason to revisit them with the questions in our guide to proprietorship vs LLP vs private limited.

The question that ties this section together: who owns each date, you or the CA, and what happens a week before it if the data is not ready?

Questions to ask before big decisions

Some questions only matter at the moment of a decision, and they are worthless a month later. Put these to your CA before you act.

Before buying machinery or a vehicle: How will depreciation apply? Is GST credit available on this purchase, in full or in part? How is loan interest treated? The same machine can have three different answers depending on how the purchase is structured.

Before taking a partner or an investor: How should the business be valued? Which company law points apply? If money comes from outside India, which FEMA touchpoints apply? A CA who works only on tax should say so and bring in the right specialist.

Before changing your business structure: What changes in tax, compliance dates and personal liability if you move from proprietorship to LLP or company? Price the full year of compliance under each structure, not only the registration cost.

Before applying for a loan or a scheme: Which statements and projections will the bank ask for, and are my filed returns consistent with them? Owners often discover at this point that returns filed carelessly two years ago now block a loan. The scheme routes themselves are covered in our guides to choosing between PMEGP, Mudra and Stand-Up India and related topics; your CA's job is to make sure your papers support the application.

Questions to ask when a notice arrives

A notice is the moment the engagement letter earns its keep. Ask these four questions on the day the notice reaches you.

1. Is the reply included in my fee, or is this charged separately?
2. Who drafts the reply, and who signs it?
3. What is the reply deadline written on this notice?
4. What records do you need from me this week?

Then actually send the records that week. Most poor outcomes in notice cases come from delay and incomplete papers, not from the law being unclear.

Many owners also meet CAs and other experts through community sessions and owner discussions. Those conversations are useful for general learning. They do not replace your own CA, who holds your full facts.

A worked example: the audit question, answered with arithmetic

Take a Pune engineering services firm with turnover of Rs 2.4 crore. Most of its transactions are banked. The owner assumes a tax audit is unavoidable and has budgeted for one every year.

Run the threshold questions from this article, on paper, with the CA.

Step 1: Is turnover above the base threshold? Rs 2.4 crore is above Rs 1 crore. On the base test alone, an audit would apply.

Step 2: Does the higher threshold apply? The limit rises to Rs 10 crore where cash receipts and cash payments each stay within 5% of their totals. Rs 2.4 crore is below Rs 10 crore. So if the firm's cash share is genuinely within 5% on both sides, no section 44AB audit is triggered on turnover alone.

Step 3: What follows from that? The return date is the non audit date rather than 31 October, and the audit budget can be redirected, provided the cash position is measured properly and stays within the limit through the year.

The same meeting builds the firm's real calendar. As a monthly GST filer it files 12 GSTR-1 and 12 GSTR-3B, which is 24 GST filings a year. Add 4 quarterly TDS returns. Add 4 advance tax dates. Add GSTR-9 by 31 December. Total: 24 + 4 + 4 + 1 = 33 dated obligations.

Twelve monthly review calls of 30 minutes equal 6 owner hours a year to supervise all 33. That is the arithmetic of a well run CA relationship: a small, fixed owner time cost, agreed in advance, against a calendar with no surprises.

Common mistakes

Choosing on price alone, with no written scope. The cheapest quote usually excludes notices, reconciliation and advice. You find out at the moment you need them.

Letting the CA hold every portal login with no owner copy. Your GST, income tax and MCA logins belong to your business. Keep your own record of every credential and registered email and mobile number.

Using the same person for bookkeeping and audit in a way that breaks auditor independence. Ask directly how the firm handles this for audit clients.

Arriving in the last week before a deadline. Every practice is overloaded then. Owners who send data early get the careful version of their CA. Owners who arrive late get the fast version.

Score your current CA: a decision framework

Test your current arrangement against five points.

1. Calendar in writing, with a named owner for each date.
2. Monthly reconciliation reported in rupees, not only as done.
3. Threshold warnings given before you cross, not after.
4. Notice handling agreed in the engagement letter.
5. Data, books and logins owned by you, with access today.

If two or more tests fail, run the appointment question set in this article as a reappointment interview with your current CA first. Many relationships improve once the expectations are written down. If they do not, you have the exact question set you need to appoint someone else.