Indirect Taxation

May 2026

Advisory for IMS Offline Tool on GST Portal

The Invoice Management System (IMS) was introduced on the GST portal effective from the October 2024 tax period. The system enables recipient taxpayers to take actions on invoices uploaded by their suppliers through GSTR-1, GSTR-1A, or IFF, including accepting, rejecting, or keeping such records pending. With a view to further enhancing taxpayer convenience and facilitating ease of compliance, the IMS Offline Tool is an Excel-based offline tool that has now been made available on the GST Portal. This offline utility enables taxpayers to take actions on both individual and bulk invoices in an efficient manner.

1. Steps to use the IMS offline tool

Download the Tool:

Visit GST Portal: gst.gov.in
Navigate to Downloads -> Offline Tools -> IMS Offline Tool to download the tool.
The tool will be downloaded as a zip file. Extract the zip file, enable the macros through the file properties and open the Excel utility.

Download IMS Data from Portal:

To download data from the GST Portal, navigate to Services -> Returns -> Invoice Management System (IMS) Dashboard -> Offline
Click on Download JSON. Save the JSON file on your system.

2. Import the downloaded JSON file and the Validate Sheet

Click on Open Downloaded IMS JSON File in Home sheet. Select the downloaded file from the online portal to auto-populate invoice data.
Perform the following actions: Accept / Reject / Pending / No Action – Add remarks (if applicable)
Click on the Validate Sheet button.

3. Generate and upload JSON on the GST Portal

Click on Generate JSON File to Upload to create the JSON.
To upload the JSON, log in to the GST Portal.
Navigate to: Services -> Returns -> Invoice Management System (IMS) Dashboard -> Offline.
Click on Upload JSON to upload the generated file.

Some Important Points/Validations related to Using Offline Tools are:

The IMS offline tool follows the same validations and business rules as applicable on the IMS dashboard portal, including treatment of accepted, rejected, pending and no-action records.
If no changes are made to the records after importing the JSON file into the offline tool, the generated JSON file will be empty.
The tool provides filter options to filter the invoices based on relevant parameters. Filters are cleared while performing the ‘Validate Sheet’ action.
Click on the `Validate Sheet` button to validate data in each worksheet in the offline tool, after all the actions required are taken in the sheet.
In case of validation failure of details on uploading a JSON file, an error file will be generated with a status of “Processed with Error”. This file can be downloaded, opened in an offline tool, take relevant actions to remove the highlighted errors, and can be uploaded by creating a JSON file again.
Upon uploading this JSON file, these records will get incrementally added to the records uploaded earlier. If there are pre-existing records on the Portal against the same GSTIN, those details will get replaced/updated.