Why reconcile GSTR-2B in Excel
GSTR-2B is the auto-drafted input tax credit (ITC) statement on the GST portal. To claim the right ITC, you reconcile it against your own purchase register: matching invoices, checking tax amounts, and spotting suppliers who have not filed. The portal gives you a JSON file, which is hard to read directly. Excel is where the actual reconciliation happens.
Step 1: Download the GSTR-2B JSON
On the GST portal, open Returns, select the period, and download the GSTR-2B in JSON format. If you use a GST Suvidha Provider (GSP), you may instead have an API response that wraps the same data in extra layers.
Step 2: Convert the JSON to Excel
Use SheetBeam's GST JSON to Excel converter. It auto-detects the GSTR-2B structure and creates one sheet per section, so you get separate tabs for sections like B2B, CDNR (credit and debit notes), and IMPG (imports). If your file is a wrapped GSP API response, the converter digs through the nested layers automatically to find the actual return.
What you get:
One sheet per section: , so B2B invoices, credit/debit notes, and imports are not mixed together.
One row per invoice or line item: , with context columns (your GSTIN, return period, generation date) repeated on every row so you can filter freely.
GSTINs and invoice numbers kept exactly: , written as text so leading zeros and long numbers are not altered. This matters: an invoice number like "0007" must stay "0007" for matching to work.
The conversion runs entirely in your browser, which is important because this is data tied to your business identity. Nothing is uploaded.
Step 3: Bring in your purchase register
Put your own purchase register on another sheet in the same workbook, with comparable columns: supplier GSTIN, invoice number, invoice date, taxable value, and the tax amounts (IGST, CGST, SGST).
Step 4: Match and find gaps
A few formulas do most of the work:
Match invoices:: use a helper key that joins supplier GSTIN and invoice number, then VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP from your register against the 2B sheet (and vice versa) to find what is in one but not the other.
Compare tax amounts:: subtract the register tax from the 2B tax for matched rows; anything non-zero is a mismatch to investigate.
Total ITC by supplier:: SUMIF on the supplier GSTIN column to see ITC available per vendor.
Highlight problems:: conditional formatting to flag blank matches (missing in 2B, so the supplier may not have filed) or value differences.
Step 5: Act on the differences
Invoices in your register but missing from 2B usually mean the supplier has not filed or filed late. Follow up with them.
Invoices in 2B but not in your register may be invoices you missed recording, or a wrong GSTIN.
Tax amount mismatches often come from rounding or a data-entry error on one side.
Tips
Filter the B2B sheet by IGST versus CGST plus SGST to separate inter-state from intra-state purchases.
Sort by date to catch invoices that fall outside the return period.
Keep the original converted file untouched and do your working in copies, so you always have a clean reference.