The India compliance calendar most companies track in five different spreadsheets
Five real, recurring obligations that land on a compliance officer's desk, whatever industry you're in. None of them are optional, none of them are seasonal — and all five are exactly the kind of thing that "quietly goes overdue" when the only thing tracking them is someone's memory and a shared drive.
This is a working reference, not legal advice — rules and thresholds change, and your company secretary or tax advisor should confirm current requirements before you act on any of it.
Section 189, Companies Act 2013 — related-party contracts register
What it is: every company must maintain a register (Form MBP-4) of contracts and arrangements in which a director, or a person connected to a director, is interested. It isn't a once-a-year filing — it's a living register that has to be updated whenever a qualifying transaction happens.
How often: continuous. A new entry is due within 7 days of the board approving a related-party transaction, not at year-end when someone remembers to reconstruct it.
If you miss it: officers in default can be held personally liable, and an incomplete register is exactly the kind of gap a statutory or internal auditor flags first — because it's easy to check and easy to miss.
MSME 45-day payment rule (Section 15–16, MSMED Act 2006)
What it is: if your vendor is a registered micro or small enterprise, you must pay them within 45 days of acceptance of goods or services (15 days if there's no written agreement). Since Section 43B(h) of the Income Tax Act took effect, missing that window doesn't just risk interest — the unpaid amount becomes non-deductible business expenditure until it's actually paid, which turns a vendor-payment delay into a tax problem.
How often: per invoice, continuously — which is exactly why it's the compliance item most likely to slip. A single missed payment run can create dozens of breaches in one month.
If you miss it: compound interest at three times the RBI-notified bank rate, plus the tax deduction disallowance above.
TDS on vendor payments — deduction, deposit and return deadlines
What it is: tax deducted at source on qualifying vendor payments (contractor payments, professional fees, and others under sections like 194C and 194J), deposited to the government and reported in a quarterly return (Form 26Q), with certificates (Form 16A) issued to the vendor afterward.
How often: deduction happens per payment; deposit is monthly; returns are quarterly, with each stage carrying its own deadline.
If you miss it: interest on late deposit, late fees on the return itself, and — for the vendor — a missing certificate that blocks their own tax filing, which is usually the first place the problem surfaces.
Stamp duty on contracts and agreements
What it is: most commercial contracts and agreements need to be stamped under the Indian Stamp Act and the relevant state's stamp legislation — rates and procedures vary significantly by state and contract type.
How often: per contract, at or shortly after execution.
If you miss it: an insufficiently stamped document is typically inadmissible as evidence until the deficiency is made good, often with a penalty on top of the original duty — which only becomes a real problem the day you actually need to rely on that contract, usually in a dispute.
E-Waste (Management) Rules 2022 — Extended Producer Responsibility
What it is: producers and bulk consumers of electronic equipment must register on the CPCB's EPR portal, maintain records of e-waste generated and how it was disposed of, and file an annual return.
How often: ongoing record-keeping, with an annual filing and EPR targets that increase year over year.
If you miss it: registration and reporting gaps are exactly what a CPCB inspection or a customer's own vendor-compliance audit checks first — and unlike a financial penalty, a broken EPR record is hard to reconstruct retroactively.
Why this list keeps slipping
None of these five are unusual or obscure — every compliance officer already knows they exist. What breaks is the tracking: five different obligations, five different frequencies, spread across a company secretary's register, an accounts team's payment run, a tax team's return calendar and a facilities team's e-waste log. Each owner can honestly say their own piece is under control, and the gap between them is still where things go overdue.
AuditGauge's obligations register is built to hold exactly this kind of recurring, cross-functional item in one place — with an owner, a due date, and a reminder ladder that starts well before the deadline and keeps escalating if nothing happens.