The two Meesho downloads a month needs, how the amounts and the invoice numbers join, and the two month-boundary traps that open a gap to the portal.
The two downloads a month needs
Meesho splits a month across two zips from the same Download menu of the Supplier Panel, under Payments. The GST report zip holds tcs_sales and tcs_sales_return: every sale and every return, with the amounts. The tax invoice zip holds Tax_invoice_details: the invoice and credit note numbers. The two join on the sub-order number.
Without the second zip no sale has a document number and Table 13 cannot be built. A return filed that way has invoices nobody can trace to a document, which is the first thing a scrutiny notice asks for.
Shipping is already inside the taxable value
A row reading 229.66 taxable with 77.12 shipping is not a sale of 306.78. Multiply 229.66 by 1.18 and you get the invoice total exactly: the shipping is in the base already. Adding it again inflates the taxable value of that row by a third.
The taxable column also arrives with float noise, 229.66101694915255 rather than 229.66. Working the base backwards from the clean invoice total keeps taxable value plus tax equal to the total, to the paisa, on every row.
A credit note sits in the zip of the month the order was placed
A November order returned in December has its credit note listed in November’s tax invoice zip, even though the note is dated December. To number December’s credit notes you need November’s zip beside December’s. Without it, Table 13 shows gaps in the credit note series that are not cancellations.
Negative rows with no sale behind them
A negative row in tcs_sales whose sub-order has no sale in the same file is a price reduction on a sale invoiced in an earlier month. Meesho raises a credit-discount note for it, dated this month, and nets it in this month’s GSTR-8. It belongs in this month’s return as a credit note against that earlier invoice: the value comes off and the quantity does not, because nothing came back.
On one real December that was nine notes and 402.54 rupees, and it was the entire difference between the files and what the portal showed.
States arrive as names
Meesho writes TAMIL NADU where the return needs 33. The place of supply decides which state receives the tax, so a spelling that matches no state should be a question put to you, never a guess.
Checking against what Meesho told the government
Meesho files a GSTR-8 every month, and what it declared against your GSTIN shows in the portal’s TDS and TCS credit received statement. Download the statement for the month and hold its net value against your own figure, state by state. Meesho’s rows can be negative for a state where returns outran sales, and that is correct.
The TCS itself is half a percent of that net value since 10 July 2024. The free TCS calculator works out what it should come to.
Try it on your own figures with the free GSTR-1 from marketplace reports.
Which file to download, and from where: the list for each marketplace and the GST portal.
By Raunak Pathak, founder of fynxIQ, who files GST returns on it. Last updated 15 September 2026. This is general information about how GST returns work, not advice about your particular return.