(1) Every dealer or a person registered or liable to be registered under this Act, or liable to pay tax under this Act, including a dealer covered under sub-section (1) and (2) of section 7 of this Act, shall keep and maintain a true and correct account showing the value of goods purchased, manufactured or sold or supplied by him and such other records as may be prescribed under this Act or the Rules made or Notifications issued thereunder:

Provided that this sub-section shall not apply to such dealers as are not liable to taxation under this Act.

(2) A manufacturer liable to pay tax under this Act shall in addition to the accounts referred to in sub-section (1), maintain stock books in respect of raw materials as well as products obtained:

(3) The Commissioner may, subject to such conditions or restrictions as may be prescribed in this behalf, direct any dealer or any class of dealers generally to keep such accounts and records, including records of purchases, sales or delivery of goods in such form and in such manner as may be specified.

(4) Every registered dealer or a dealer referred to in sub-section (1) or sub-section (2) shall keep at his place of business all accounts, registers and documents maintained in the course of business.

(5) Where a dealer as referred to in sub-section (1) or sub-section (2) has established branch offices of his business in the State other than the principal place of business, the relevant accounts, registers and documents in respect of each such branch shall be kept by him at such branch.

(6) A dealer who maintains or keeps books or accounts in a computer shall prepare floppies of such books or accounts or documents and shall maintain them as part of accounts. He shall also maintain day-to-day print out of all such books, accounts and documents.

(7) Any dealer who claims input tax credit under section 6 shall maintain a register in respect of computation of input tax credit tax period wise.

(8) Where a dealer purchases or receives or disposes of manufactured goods in more than one of the following ways:

(a) makes sale of taxable goods inside the State; or

(b) dispatches taxable goods to other dealers for sale inside the State; or

(c) makes sale of taxable goods in the course of inter-state trade or commerce; or

(d) makes sale of goods in the course of export out side the territory of India; or

(e) dispatches taxable goods out side the State otherwise than by way of sale,

shall keep separate account of sales or dispatches and also purchases and receipts of goods for such purposes separately as far as possible.

(9) Every dealer liable to pay tax shall prepare an inventory of goods purchased from in side the State or imported from out side the State along with their purchase value as given below:

(a) goods held in the opening stock on the date on which the dealer becomes liable to pay tax;

(b) goods held in the closing stock on the last date of each financial year;

(c) goods held in opening stock on the first date of the assessment year in which the dealer applies for cancellation of registration under sub-section (1) of section 18;

(d) goods held in stock at the time of discontinuance of business:

Provided that if the dealer manufactures any goods and holds any manufactured or semi-manufactured goods in stock, he shall also prepare inventory of goods and record estimated purchase value of goods used in manufactured or semi-manufactured goods as constituent and estimated purchase value of goods used in the manufacture of such goods as fuel or consumable stores or lubricants or packing material.

(10) Where a registered dealer or a dealer liable to pay tax, consigns any taxble goods whether as a result of sale or otherwise:

(a) Such dealer shall issue a sale invoice or a challan containing an individual serialized number and date of issue in case of consignment of goods otherwise than way of sale which shall contain the name, address and registration certificate no. (which effective date) of the consignor and consignee and the description, quantity, volume of goods and amount of tax charged in case of sale and also estimated value of goods in case of consignment and value of goods in case of sale.

(b) Such dealer shall issue a sale invoice or as the case may be the challan in original to the purchaser or the consignee person and the first copy of the invoice in case of sale and the original copy of the challan in case of consignment shall accompany the goods during the journey of goods and the second copy of the invoice in case of sale and the duplicate of the challan in case of consignment shall be preserved by the dealer as part of his accounts.

(c) Person transporting the goods for delivery to consignment shall record the registration number of the vehicles on the sale invoice or the challan and shall deliver such document to the consignee along with the goods.

(d) The consignee dealer of goods shall not transfer any such document to any other person and preserve the same for the period prescribed under Section 61.

(11) Where a dealer receives any certificate or any form of declaration prescribed under this Act or Rules made or notifications issued thereunder:

(a) he shall use them in the prescribed manner and keep an account of such used or unused certificates or forms of declarations in the prescribed manner;

(b) he shall not transfer to any person and no person shall receive from any person any certificate or any form of declaration except for lawful purposes;

(c) any dealer who receives any prescribed form including duplicate copy thereof and other connected documents, shall preserve them for a period prescribed under section 61.