Cross-border SaaS compliance

Describe the product and contracting model

Document whether customers receive hosted access, a software licence, implementation, support, custom development or a bundle. Identify the contracting entity, customer and any reseller or merchant of record. A product marketed as SaaS can contain several distinct obligations.

Read the customer terms alongside actual operations. Establish who sets prices, invoices customers, collects taxes, handles refunds and bears customer claims. Do not assume a payment processor has become the seller merely because it collects funds.

Assess the Indian GST position

For an Indian supplier serving overseas customers, assess the export-of-services conditions and place-of-supply rules for the actual service. An overseas billing address or foreign-currency receipt alone does not settle the result. Retain the recipient and establishment analysis.

For an overseas supplier serving Indian customers, review the current OIDAR and other applicable rules, recipient status and registration route. GSTN provides a GSTR-5A process for relevant non-resident providers; do not apply that process automatically to every Indian SaaS exporter.

Review foreign-market obligations separately

Identify the countries where customers are located and whether the customers are businesses or consumers. Assess local indirect-tax registration, invoicing and collection obligations with country-specific advice. An Indian LUT does not answer a foreign jurisdiction’s digital-services tax requirements.

Review any local staff, sales agents or authority to conclude contracts for business-presence and employment implications. A company’s place of incorporation does not by itself resolve every cross-border obligation.

Reconcile subscription revenue to receipts

• Customer contract, subscription period and invoice.
• Upgrades, usage charges, discounts and credit notes.
• Refunds, chargebacks and disputed transactions.
• Platform fees, reserves, currency conversion and other deductions.
• Net settlement matched to bank receipt and outstanding balances.
• Tax collected by the business or platform identified separately from revenue.

Check export reporting and bank documentation

Assess the applicable foreign-exchange reporting and realisation requirements with the authorised dealer bank. Review whether the actual software export requires SOFTEX or another reporting process; do not conclude from the word “online” alone.

Keep contracts, invoices, delivery or access evidence and remittance records together. Choose the payment purpose classification from the underlying activity and current instructions, not whichever option appears easiest in the bank interface.

For example, one platform payout may cover many subscriptions less fees and refunds. Prepare a traceable bridge to individual invoices rather than treating the payout as one unexplained export sale.

Align customer terms and data handling

Record service commitments, renewal and cancellation terms, intellectual-property rights and responsibility for customer data. Map hosting, subprocessors and cross-border data access to the actual service design. Obtain jurisdiction-specific review where required by the customers or applicable law.

Make invoices, refund practice and customer-facing terms consistent. Avoid promising a tax treatment, data location or deletion process that the operating systems do not support.

Maintain a market and exception register

Track the customer markets, supply categories, tax decisions, bank reporting process and owner for each obligation. Reassess when the business adds consumer sales, a reseller, an overseas employee or a new product bundle.

Bring contracts, product descriptions, customer-location data, invoices, settlement reports and bank correspondence to Kosha.Services. We can organise the operating model and evidence for coordinated tax, reporting and contract review.