Built for Mumbai SMEs and CAs across BKC, Andheri, Dadar, Lower Parel, Thane and Bhiwandi. TDS Section 192 across both regimes, Form 12BB declarations, Maharashtra Professional Tax (last day of next month), PF and ESI on the 15th, Maharashtra LWF, bank-portal CSV for HDFC / ICICI / Axis CIB. Free plan available.
Maharashtra PT slab and last-day deadline, MIDC manufacturing attendance, BKC service-firm structures — built in.
₹175 per month for ₹7,501-₹10,000 salary, ₹200 per month above ₹10,000 (₹300 in February for the ₹2,500 annual cap). PT challan due on the LAST day of the next month — distinct from Karnataka and other states. Compliance Calendar surfaces it with status pills.
BKC and Lower Parel salaries trigger surcharge (10% above ₹50L, 15% above ₹1Cr, 25% above ₹2Cr). TDS engine applies the full Section 192 stack — slabs, 87A, marginal relief, surcharge tiers, 4% cess — per employee, per pay period.
HRA optimisation matters in Mumbai (high rents support significant exemption under Section 10(13A)). Form 12BB captures rent paid, landlord PAN where annual rent crosses ₹1 lakh, plus 80C / 80D / Section 24 / 80CCD(1B) / 80E / 80G. Attestation workflow.
3-shift MIDC attendance import via CSV from biometric systems. LOP grid for review. Salary prorates per LOP day. Same wizard runs whether you have 15 employees or 500.
Salary expense to P&L; PF / ESI / TDS / PT / LWF payables on the balance sheet. Maharashtra LWF (₹25 employee + ₹75 employer per half-year) posts twice yearly (June and December) per the LWF Act 1953. Books reconcile against the payroll register every close.
AES-GCM on bank account numbers, masked PAN / Aadhaar, MFA-gated CSV download. Data stored in AWS Mumbai (ap-south-1) — same city as your office. Satisfies RBI data-localisation for NBFCs, payment aggregators, and BKC financial-services firms.
Built for how Mumbai actually pays people.
Maharashtra PT is the last day of the next month — not the 15th, not the 20th. ReadyBooks tracks each deadline with its own status pill so the PT challan does not get accidentally bundled with PF / ESI.
The same product runs a 12-person BKC service firm and a 200-person Bhiwandi warehouse on identical wizard mechanics. No "enterprise tier" gate; no slowdown at higher headcount.
22-column CSV ready for HDFC NetBanking Corporate, ICICI Corporate Internet Banking, and Axis CIB — the portals most Mumbai operations teams already use.
Same-city storage matters for SEBI-registered intermediaries and RBI-regulated NBFCs. Bank account numbers AES-GCM encrypted at rest; sensitive exports MFA-gated.
Mumbai is the most demanding payroll market in India. Volume (Mumbai SMEs typically run 3-5x the headcount of comparable Tier 2 city businesses), variety (the same city houses Crawford Market wholesale traders, BKC financial-services firms, MIDC manufacturing units, and Lower Parel agencies), and a regulatory mix (Maharashtra PT with its last-day deadline, Maharashtra LWF twice yearly, plus the central stack of TDS Section 192, PF Act 1952, ESIC Act 1948) all compress what payroll software must deliver.
ReadyBooks meets that compression. The same wizard that runs a 12-person BKC consulting firm's monthly salary also runs a 200-person Bhiwandi manufacturer's 3-shift biometric-attendance payroll. Maharashtra PT (last day) is tracked alongside PF and ESI (15th) and TDS (7th) on a single Compliance Calendar — no separate spreadsheet of deadlines, no Maharashtra-specific tooling. The bank-portal CSV drops into the corporate banking portals Mumbai operations teams already use. And the books — accounting, GST, and payroll — sit on a single ledger that the Mumbai CA who signs them off can access in one login.
Mumbai's payroll mix splits across roughly four employer archetypes. Wholesale trading and retail (Crawford Market for general goods, Kalbadevi for textiles and jewellery, Bhuleshwar for fashion, Vashi for agri commodities) — typically 15-100 employees, low-to-mid basic wages with significant overtime / piece-rate components, monthly PF and ESI for most of the workforce. Manufacturing in MIDC zones (Andheri, Thane Belapur, Bhiwandi) — 50-500+ employees, 3-shift attendance with biometric integration, full PF / ESI / PT / LWF coverage, multi-day LOP rules. Financial services in BKC and Lower Parel — NBFCs, broking houses, fintech, asset managers — 30-300 employees with high-band salaries (Section 192 surcharge tiers triggered routinely), significant variable components. Service and creative firms in Andheri, Dadar, and Lower Parel — 10-80 employees, mid-band salaries with HRA optimisation (Section 10(13A) matters because Mumbai rents are high), regime distribution skewed old-side for HRA + 80C + Section 24 home loan.
ReadyBooks covers each archetype on the same product. The 5-step run wizard is identical; what differs is how it gets used. Biometric CSV import for MIDC manufacturing; manual LOP grid for the small BKC consulting firm. Section 192 surcharge engine kicks in automatically for BKC high-band salaries; the same engine treats a Crawford Market trader's payroll without surcharge complexity. Maharashtra PT surfaces on the Compliance Calendar for every archetype; Maharashtra LWF posts to the ledger on the June and December runs (LWF is not on the Compliance Calendar because half-yearly cadence does not fit the next-month-by-N model).
The Maharashtra State Tax on Professions, Trades, Callings and Employments Act 1975 levies a monthly PT with the deadline set by the Maharashtra Profession Tax Rules. The slab for FY 2025-26: no PT up to monthly salary of ₹7,500; ₹175 per month for ₹7,501 to ₹10,000; ₹200 per month for above ₹10,000 (₹300 in February to reach the ₹2,500 annual cap). The PTRC (Profession Tax Registration Certificate) is issued by the Maharashtra Sales Tax Department; every Maharashtra employer needs one.
The deadline is the LAST DAY of the next month — distinct from Karnataka (20th), Tamil Nadu (15th), and other states. April salary PT is due by 31 May; May PT by 30 June; and so on. Late deposit attracts interest at 1.25% per month plus a penalty of up to ₹1,000 per challan under Section 6 of the Maharashtra PT Act. ReadyBooks surfaces the last-day deadline on the Compliance Calendar widget so the PT challan does not get bundled with the 15th PF / ESI cycle.
Maharashtra also requires an annual PT return (Form III-B) by 30 April of the next FY for employers with PTEC liability. The return is generated from the payroll register; the corresponding amount reconciles against the PT Payable account in the ledger.
BKC and Lower Parel salaries routinely trigger surcharge under Section 192. The surcharge tiers (for FY 2025-26) are: 10% above ₹50 lakh total income, 15% above ₹1 crore, 25% above ₹2 crore, and 37% above ₹5 crore (the 37% tier is capped at 25% under the new regime per Finance Act 2023). Marginal relief applies at each tier so the marginal tax on the next rupee never exceeds 100%. The 4% health-and-education cess applies on the total tax including surcharge.
ReadyBooks runs the full Section 192 stack — slab math, 87A rebate, marginal relief at ₹7L (new regime), surcharge tiers, cess — per employee per pay period. For a BKC fund manager earning ₹3 crore CTC, the TDS calculation includes the 25% surcharge tier and the corresponding marginal-relief check at the ₹2 crore threshold. The engine snapshots the rate version on every run so a recomputation six months later (for a corrected Form 12BB declaration, for example) uses the slabs that were in force at the time of the original run.
Manufacturing in MIDC zones — Andheri MIDC, Thane Belapur, Bhiwandi — typically runs 3-shift attendance with biometric integration. Each shift has its own start and end times, overtime rules, and night-shift premium. The payroll cycle has to capture per-employee LOP days, distinguish between paid leaves, unpaid leaves, and absences, and apply the shift premium correctly.
ReadyBooks accepts CSV import of attendance data from any biometric system into the run wizard. The LOP grid lets payroll ops review each employee's working days before computation; anomaly chips flag zero-attendance and missing-PAN cases. Salary prorates per LOP day, and the salary structure's variable components (overtime, night shift, attendance bonus) can be configured per role.
PF and ESI for MIDC manufacturing typically cover the full workforce. ESI applies up to ₹21,000 gross wage — most factory floor workers qualify. PF applies on basic wages up to ₹15,000 (with voluntary contribution above) — most workers contribute on full basic via the voluntary route. Maharashtra LWF (₹25 employee + ₹75 employer per half-year, collected in June and December) covers everyone. ReadyBooks seeds all four (PF, ESI, PT, LWF) for Maharashtra tenants on day one.
Salary structure templates per role (sales staff fixed, warehouse staff piece-rate). Maharashtra PT computed automatically per employee per month; Compliance Calendar surfaces the last-day deadline. HDFC NetBanking CSV closes the run on the 30th.
TDS Section 192 surcharge tiers applied automatically. Form 12BB captures HRA / 80C / Section 24 declarations digitally. Period-locked via GSTR-3B proxy; nothing posts to the ledger until approval. ICICI Corporate CSV gates on MFA.
Biometric CSV imported into the LOP grid; salary prorates per LOP day in seconds. Maharashtra PT (last day) tracked on the Compliance Calendar; Maharashtra LWF (twice yearly) posts to the ledger on the June and December runs. Journal entries post to the same ledger that handles GSTR-1 for the manufacturing output.