If you are registered under GST, two return names come up every month or quarter: GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B. Many business owners aren't sure how they differ or why they have to file both. Here is the plain-English version.
GSTR-1 — your sales, in detail
GSTR-1 is the return where you report the details of your outward supplies — essentially, your sales. It is invoice-level: B2B invoices, exports, credit and debit notes, and a summary of B2C sales.
Think of GSTR-1 as telling the government, "here is exactly what I sold, to whom, and how much tax I charged." Because it is detailed, the data flows to your buyers' returns so they can claim input credit against your invoices.
GSTR-3B — your summary and payment
GSTR-3B is a summary return where you declare your total outward supplies, your input tax credit, and the net tax you actually pay. It is not invoice-level — it is the consolidated picture, and it is the return through which you make the payment.
Think of GSTR-3B as, "here is my total tax for the period, here is the credit I'm claiming, and here is what I'm paying."
How they relate
- GSTR-1 = detailed sales (no payment).
- GSTR-3B = summary + tax payment.
They must agree with each other. The sales you report in GSTR-1 should reconcile with the outward supplies in GSTR-3B. Mismatches between the two are a common trigger for notices, so keeping them in sync matters.
Deadlines (in general terms)
- GSTR-1 is filed monthly, or quarterly for smaller taxpayers under the QRMP scheme.
- GSTR-3B is filed monthly (with quarterly options under QRMP), and it is when tax is paid.
Exact due dates shift with turnover, scheme and government notifications, so always confirm the current dates for your case — but the pattern above holds.
The reconciliation trap
Filing gets painful when your GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B are built from different places — say, invoices in one system and a manual summary in another. The numbers drift, and you spend the last day of the month hunting for the difference.
The fix is to have both come from one source of truth: your actual invoices and accounts.
Because CraveInvoice keeps your invoicing, tax and accounts in one place, it produces GSTR-1, GSTR-2 and GSTR-3B summary reports from the same data — so your returns reconcile instead of fighting each other.
The takeaway
- GSTR-1 reports your sales in detail.
- GSTR-3B summarises everything and is where you pay.
- Keep them reconciled by generating both from your real invoice data.
Do that, and monthly filing stops being a scramble and becomes a few minutes of review.