Every ICAI Guidance Note a Practising CA Needs

An organised index of ICAI Guidance Notes on accounting and auditing, what each covers, and the ones a general practice actually reaches for.

What a Guidance Note is — and what it is not

ICAI issues several kinds of pronouncement and they carry different weight. Accounting Standards and Standards on Auditing are mandatory. Guidance Notes are primarily recommendatory: they exist to help members apply professional judgement where a Standard is silent or where a particular industry, entity type or transaction needs elaboration.

Recommendatory is not the same as optional in practice. A member who departs from a Guidance Note should be able to explain why, and a Guidance Note is the natural benchmark a reviewer or a disciplinary body will reach for. Some are also given a specific applicability date by Council announcement, at which point compliance becomes an expectation rather than a suggestion — as happened with the non-corporate and LLP financial statement Guidance Notes.

They fall into two families: accounting aspects, issued by the Accounting Standards Board, and auditing aspects, issued by the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board.

The ones a general practice reaches for first

If your practice is mostly non-corporate clients, tax audits and small-company work, these four carry most of the weight:

Beyond those four, which notes matter depends almost entirely on your client mix. A practice weighted towards manufacturing will reach for the notes on inventories and excise treatment; one doing real-estate work will live in the Real Estate Transactions note; a firm with school or trust clients will want the sector-specific ones. The list below is organised so you can find yours quickly rather than read it end to end.

Guidance Notes on accounting aspects

Grouped by when you would actually reach for one.

Presentation and financial statements

• Financial Statements of Non-Corporate Entities (with illustrative Excel formats)
• Financial Statements of Limited Liability Partnerships (with illustrative Excel formats)
• Combined and Carve-Out Financial Statements
• Accrual Basis of Accounting

Tax and duty related

• Accounting for Credit Available in Respect of Minimum Alternative Tax under the Income-tax Act, 1961
• Accounting for Corporate Dividend Tax
• Accounting Treatment for Excise Duty
• Accounting for State-level Value Added Tax
• Accounting Treatment for MODVAT / CENVAT

Assets, depreciation and specific transactions

• Accounting for Depreciation in companies in the context of Schedule II to the Companies Act, 2013
• Accounting for Real Estate Transactions (Revised 2012)
• Accounting for Derivative Contracts (Revised 2021)
• Accounting for Share-based Payments (Revised 2020)
• Accounting for Rate Regulated Activities
• Turnover in case of Contractors

Sector-specific

• Accounting by E-commerce Entities
• Accounting for Oil and Gas Producing Activities (Ind AS, and the Revised 2013 edition)
• Accounting by Schools
• Accounting and Auditing of Political Parties
• Accounting for Self-generated Certified Emission Reductions
• Accounting for Expenditure on Corporate Social Responsibility Activities

Interim reporting

• Applicability of AS 25 and Measurement of Income Tax Expense for Interim Financial Reporting (Revised 2020)

Guidance Notes on auditing aspects

Company audit and statutory reporting

• Companies (Auditor's Report) Order, 2020 — Revised 2022 Edition (and the earlier CARO 2016 note)
• Audit of Internal Financial Controls Over Financial Reporting
• Reporting on Fraud under Section 143(12) of the Companies Act, 2013 (Revised)
• Reporting under Section 143(3)(f) and (h) of the Companies Act, 2013
• Audit of Consolidated Financial Statements (Revised 2016)
• Reports or Certificates for Special Purposes (Revised 2016)
• Reports in Company Prospectuses (Revised 2019)

Auditing specific balances and areas

• Audit of Property, Plant and Equipment
• Audit of Inventories
• Audit of Debtors, Loans and Advances
• Audit of Cash and Bank Balances
• Audit of Investments
• Audit of Liabilities
• Audit of Revenue
• Audit of Expenses
• Audit of Capital and Reserves
• Audit of Miscellaneous Expenditure (Revised)
• Audit of Accounts of Non-Corporate Entities (Bank Borrowers)

Industry and other

• Audit of Banks — reissued annually; use the current edition
• Computer Assisted Audit Techniques (CAATs)
• Certificate on Corporate Governance (Revised)
• Certification of XBRL Financial Statements
• Duty Cast on Auditors under Section 45-MA of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934
• Preparation of Financial Statements on Letterheads and Stationery of Auditors

Several older notes tied to the Companies Act 1956 remain listed for historical reference — provision for proposed dividend, certification of documents for registration of charges, auditing of accounts of liquidators, and the notes on the old Sections 227(3)(e) and (f) and 293A. Treat anything framed around the 1956 Act with care and check whether a 2013-Act successor exists before relying on it. Their continued presence on the list is archival, not an indication that they are current.

Where Guidance Notes sit in the hierarchy

Members occasionally treat every ICAI publication as carrying equal authority. They do not, and knowing the order matters when two documents appear to point different ways.

Two practical rules follow. First, a Guidance Note cannot override a Standard — where the two genuinely conflict, the Standard governs, and in practice apparent conflicts usually turn out to be scope misreadings. Second, statute outranks both: where the Companies Act, the LLP Act or a state co-operative law prescribes a format, that format prevails and the Guidance Note fills the gaps around it rather than displacing it.

Note also the distinction between a Guidance Note and a Technical Guide. ICAI has issued a Technical Guide on financial statements of non-corporate entities as well as the Guidance Note; they are different documents with different standing, and citing the wrong one in a working paper is an easy way to look underprepared in a peer review.

Using them well in practice

• Check the edition. Several Guidance Notes are revised, and a few — Audit of Banks above all — are reissued annually. Working from last year's PDF is a real and common error.
• Check for a Council announcement. A Guidance Note's applicability can be set or changed separately from its issue date. The non-corporate and LLP financial-statement notes are the current example: originally announced for 1 April 2024, then moved to a phased 2025/2026 timetable.
• Read the scope paragraph first. Most misapplication comes from assuming a note covers an entity type it does not. LLPs versus non-corporate entities is the case that catches the most people.
• Document a departure. Recommendatory means you may depart with reason — and that reason belongs in the working paper file, written at the time.
• Go to the source. Summary articles, this one included, are a map. ICAI's own list of Guidance Notes on accounting and auditing aspects is the territory, and it is the only place the current edition is guaranteed.

Frequently asked questions

Are ICAI Guidance Notes mandatory?

They are primarily recommendatory rather than mandatory, unlike Accounting Standards and Standards on Auditing. In practice a member who departs from a Guidance Note should be able to justify the departure, and should document the reason contemporaneously, because a Guidance Note is the benchmark a reviewer will apply. Some Guidance Notes are additionally given a specific applicability date by a Council announcement, at which point compliance becomes an expectation.

How many Guidance Notes has ICAI issued?

They run to several dozen across two families: Guidance Notes on accounting aspects, issued by the Accounting Standards Board, and Guidance Notes on auditing aspects, issued by the Auditing and Assurance Standards Board. The exact count changes as notes are issued, revised and superseded, which is why ICAI's own lists are the only reliable current source.

Which ICAI guidance notes apply to a small non-corporate practice?

Most commonly the Guidance Note on Financial Statements of Non-Corporate Entities, and the separate Guidance Note on Financial Statements of Limited Liability Partnerships where the client is an LLP. Beyond those, the accounting notes on depreciation under Schedule II, MAT credit and accrual basis of accounting come up regularly, along with the auditing notes on specific balances — inventories, receivables, PPE — for audit engagements.

How often are ICAI guidance notes revised?

There is no fixed cycle. Some are revised when the underlying law changes, such as the CARO note following the 2020 Order and its 2022 revision. The Guidance Note on Audit of Banks is reissued every year, and using a superseded edition is a common and avoidable error. Always confirm the current edition on ICAI's website before relying on a note.

Where to go next

If your immediate need is the non-corporate financial statement formats, start with our complete guide to the ICAI Guidance Note for non-corporate entities, then the balance sheet format guide. For entity-specific work, see financial statements of a partnership firm and LLP financial statements.

The Accountrix Financials module applies the right formats and the level-appropriate disclosures from a TallyPrime or Excel trial balance, so the entity type drives the output rather than a template someone adapted. The first statement is free — full build, on-screen preview, no card.