Job work in textiles: sending goods out and receiving them back, step by step

Embroidery, printing, stitching and dyeing are done outside on your goods. A practical routine for the issue, the receipt and the job worker's bill, so nothing goes missing in between.

Job work is simple to describe and easy to lose track of. Your goods go to somebody else's unit, are worked on, and come back, often in parts, often a little short, and with a bill for the work. The goods were never sold, so they must still be in your stock. The bill is a real expense with GST on it. Between the two sits a gap where pieces disappear.

1. Send the goods on paper

Every dispatch goes on an issue with its own number: the job worker, the date, the design, the pieces and the meters, and the rate agreed for the work. Under GST, goods sent for job work move on a challan, not an invoice, because nothing is sold.

2. Count in pieces and meters, both

A job worker returns pieces. Your stock is often valued in meters. Write down both on the way out, and the return can be checked against the issue on both counts.

3. Receive against the issue

When goods come back, receive them against the issue they went out on, not as a new entry. Then what is still out is simply issue minus receipts, and nobody has to work it out on paper.

• Received pieces and meters, and the cut where pieces are cut to a length.
• Short pieces or meters, written down that day.
• Pieces that came back without the work done, kept apart from shortage.

4. Book the job worker's bill on the receipt

The bill for the work is the expense, with its GST and, where the job worker is under TDS, the deduction. Booked on the receipt, the charge sits with the goods it was spent on, and the cost of the finished piece includes it.

5. Look at what is still out, every week

A short list, by job worker: what was sent, what came back, what is pending, and since when. Goods sent for job work have to come back within the time GST allows, so an old pending line is a reminder to call, not a figure to carry.

The law The GST side of job work, including the challan, the time limit and the ITC-04 return, is covered in our piece on job work under GST.

In GintiDesk

Job Work Issue sends the goods (they show as at job worker in stock). Job Work Receipt picks the pending lot with F1, takes the pieces, cut, shortage and anything returned unprocessed, and books the charge with GST and TDS. Job Work Return takes goods back unworked. The Job Work Report shows what is pending, party by party.