Statutory compliance rarely fails because a rule was unknown. It fails because nobody owned a date. In companies under 200 employees, payroll, PF and TDS usually sit with one generalist who is also running hiring, onboarding and engagement — and a filing slips in a busy month.
The fix is unglamorous: a single calendar, one named owner per line, and a monthly close ritual. Here is the shape we set up for client teams.
Due dates and thresholds change through amendments and state notifications. Treat this as a planning structure, and confirm the current date with your CA or compliance partner before you file.
The monthly rhythm
Most of the load repeats every month, in a predictable order.
Around the 7th — TDS deposit
Tax deducted on salaries in the previous month is deposited. The input is your payroll register; the risk is late deposit interest, which is small per month and embarrassing in a due-diligence review.
Around the 15th — Provident Fund
The ECR is uploaded and PF contributions for the previous month are remitted for every covered employee. Two habits prevent almost all PF pain: get the UAN and KYC done during onboarding, not at the first contribution, and reconcile new joiners and exits against the register before you upload.
Around the 15th — ESI
ESI contributions are remitted for employees within the wage ceiling. Watch the boundary cases — an employee crossing the ceiling mid-contribution-period continues to be covered until the period ends.
Between the 10th and 21st — Professional Tax
PT is a state levy, so both the rate and the due date depend on where the employee works. Multi-state teams need a per-state line in the calendar; this is the single most common miss in remote-first companies that hired across five states in one year.
Month end — registers and records
Attendance, leave, wage and muster registers under the applicable shops and establishments or factories rules. Nobody asks for these until an inspection or an investor's HR due diligence — and then they are asked for all at once.
The quarterly and annual layer
- Quarterly — TDS returns (Form 24Q) and issuance of quarterly certificates where applicable.
- June — Form 16 to every employee for the previous financial year.
- Annual — PF annual reconciliation, bonus payment and return under the Payment of Bonus Act where applicable, gratuity provisioning review, shops and establishments licence renewals, and POSH annual report to the district officer.
- Ongoing — POSH internal committee constituted and trained, minimum wage revisions applied when notified, and gratuity actuarial input for audited accounts.
Where small teams actually slip
Contractors treated as invisible. If you engage labour through a contractor, principal-employer obligations do not disappear. Collect the contractor's monthly PF and ESI challans before releasing payment, and keep them with the invoice.
Interns and consultants misclassified. A "consultant" who works fixed hours under supervision, with no other clients, looks like an employee to an inspector. Get the contract structure reviewed once rather than defending it later.
State-wise blind spots. Remote hiring creates PT, shops-and-establishments and leave-entitlement exposure in states nobody visited.
Documents that exist but cannot be produced. Scattered across three laptops and a WhatsApp group is not a record. One folder structure, per financial year, per category.
The close ritual that makes this work
Give the calendar a fixed weekly slot. On the first working day of the month, list the filings due, the owner and the input needed. On the day after each filing, save the challan or acknowledgement into the folder for that month. On the last working day, run a five-line reconciliation: headcount, joiners, exits, wage total, contribution total.
Two hours a month of this discipline replaces a fortnight of panic before an audit — and it is the difference between an HR function that is trusted with growth and one that is treated as an administrative cost.