TDS has two sides, and Finocket keeps them strictly apart. As a deductee, your clients withhold tax while paying you, and that money is credited to your PAN and reconciled against Form 26AS on the TDS summary. As a deductor, YOU withhold tax while paying vendors (contractors, rent, professional fees), and that money must be deposited against your TAN and reported every quarter in Form 140, the statement that was Form 26Q until 1 April 2026, when the Income-tax Act 2025 renumbered it. Quarters before that still file on 26Q. The TDS hub shows both sides as two separate tabs so the numbers can never blur into each other.
Set up your deductor profile
Open Settings → Business Details and fill the TDS deductor profile card: your TAN (the 10-character AAAA99999A number, separate from your PAN), the deductor type, and the person responsible for deduction with their designation and PAN. These details print on every 26Q working paper and Form 16A copy, so add them before your first quarter-end.
Record TDS as you pay vendors
On Add expense, switch on “I deducted TDS on this payment”. Pick the section (194C contract, 194J professional fees, 194I rent, …) and Finocket suggests the standard-rate amount. Adjust it if your case differs. Enter the supplier's PAN: without it, section 206AA can force deduction at 20%, so Finocket flags every PAN-less entry rather than silently letting it through. If the supplier holds a 197 lower/nil-deduction certificate, note its number on the same form.
For a payment dated 1 April 2026 or later, a section that has more than one notified payment code (194J, 194C, 194I, 194A, 194R and 194S) shows a TDS payment code field. It starts on the usual code; choose another only where the note beside it describes what you paid for, such as technical services under 194J. The code you pick is what goes into the 26Q row for that payment. Leave it on the usual code if you are unsure. Your CA can correct it before filing.
Partner commission comes in on its own
You do not have to key commission in by hand. When you finalize a commission statement, each partner being paid is booked as an expense carrying 194H, the partner's PAN and the tax withheld, so it appears in the payable register below, in the quarterly return, and can be tied to a challan like any other deduction. It is dated the last day of the statement's month, so a statement you finalize late still lands in the quarter it belongs to.
Only partners in India are booked this way, since 194H is an Indian section. Re-finalizing the same statement does not duplicate anything. If you have also recorded that commission by hand, Finocket points out the entry that looks like the same one and leaves both alone. Deciding which to keep is yours, and it will never delete something you entered.
Deposit and record challans
TDS you deduct in a month is due by the 7th of the next month (March deductions get until 30 April) via challan ITNS 281. The returns page prints a challan pre-fill sheet you can copy into the e-Pay Tax portal. After paying, add the deposit to the challan register with the bank's 7-digit BSR code and 5-digit challan serial, then use Link purchases to attach the deductions that challan covered. The hub's per-quarter cards then show deducted vs deposited, and warn about anything overdue or mismatched.
Quarter-end: 26Q, then Form 16A
On TDS → Returns, pick the financial year and quarter, clear the warnings panel, and download the 26Q workbook, a ZIP of three CSVs (challans, deductee annexure, summary). Hand it to your CA: they load the figures into Protean's free Return Preparation Utility (RPU), validate the output with the File Validation Utility (FVU), and file it. Finocket prepares working papers only and never files on your behalf.
After the 26Q is processed, you owe each vendor a Form 16A certificate (due 15 days after the return's due date). Finocket generates working copies: one watermarked PDF per deductee with their deductions and linked challans, useful for your records and for chasing gaps. The legally valid Form 16A must always be downloaded from TRACES; the watermark exists so a working copy is never mistaken for the real certificate.
From 1 April 2026 the certificate is Form 131 (it was 16A) and the return it follows is Form 140 (it was 26Q); the working copy names whichever applies to the quarter you pick. Finocket cannot issue the certificate itself: TRACES stamps it with its own certificate number, and a copy made anywhere else is not valid. The returns screen lists the three steps to get it.
Due dates at a glance
- Deposit: 7th of the month after deduction; 30 April for March deductions.
- 26Q: 31 July (Q1), 31 October (Q2), 31 January (Q3), 31 May (Q4).
- Form 16A: 15 days after each 26Q due date.
Sections that file on their own statement
Six sections were added to the picker: 194IA (buying immovable property over ₹50 lakh), 194IB (rent paid by an individual or HUF not under audit), 194M (contractor or professional payments by an individual or HUF), 194R (a benefit or perquisite given in the course of business), 194S (virtual digital assets) and 194T (a firm paying its own partners, new from 1 April 2025).
Four of those do not belong in your quarterly return. Property, rent by an individual, individual contractor payments and digital assets each file on their own challan-cum-statement (26QB, 26QC, 26QD and 26QE respectively, or Form 141 from April 2026), due within thirty days of the end of the month you deducted in. Finocket keeps them out of the quarterly 26Q, where they would be rejected, and tells you which statement they belong on.
Where a payment code is blank
From April 2026 a return carries a numeric payment code instead of the section number. Where we have a code confirmed against more than one source, it is filled in. Where we do not, the field is left for you to complete rather than pre-filled with a guess. A wrong code comes back rejected; a blank one asks you a question. Some sections genuinely have more than one code depending on the sub-type: Finocket names the alternative on this screen, and you choose between them on the expense itself, so the default is never filed in your place.
When a statement might be short
A quarterly statement is put together from three sets of records: your deductions, the challans they were deposited under, and any TCS you collected. If Finocket cannot read one of them on the device you are using, the page says so at the top, and the download button says so too.
The download stays available. That is deliberate. Sometimes you know a part is missing and you want the partial file anyway. What Finocket will not do is let that file leave without saying so. Open the SUMMARY.txt inside the zip and it tells you whether the file was built from a complete read of your records.
So if you download a statement today and open it next week, the warning is still in the file with it. If it says the export may be incomplete, check the figures against the portal before you file, or download it again with a connection.
Scope & caveats
Finocket covers Form 26Q (payments to residents, non-salary). Salary TDS (24Q), payments to non-residents (27Q) and TCS (27EQ) are out of scope. Your CA files those separately. Rates change with Finance Acts, and thresholds per section apply before TDS is due at all, so treat every number here as a working figure and verify with your CA before filing.
Salary TDS runs through payroll, not this hub. ashr.work, Finocket's sister product, calculates it, and the run lands in your books as one journal alongside it - see how the two connect.