ITR-2 Excel Utility for AY-2025-26, My Update on using it

@ Kiran Baliyan

Plant the seed, without expecting to enjoy the fruit.

@ Cs26kit

@ Ranjan

Sorry for the delay in replying to your queries... Yesterday was a busy day for me plus I chose to re-do my whole ITR-2 from scratch to make sure I take correct notes of my steps, issues faced, & fixes or workarounds that lead to successful upload of the ITR-2 Json to IT Portal.
So, here's the full story of my successful ITR-2 filing from start to end...  Some details below are not needed for you both, but may benefit others here; so including them just in case...

1. All actions below are on a computer with Windows-10 Pro 64-bit and MS 365 64-bit (with Excel as part of it) installed.
   Note :  The ITR-2 utility's macros do NOT work correctly if the MS 365 or Excel software installed is a 32-bit version running under a 64-bit Windows OS. Not sure what happens when using a 32-bit Excel or MS 365 running under a 32-bit Windows OS (don't have such a setup to try).
2. Downloaded the ITR-2 Excel Utility ZIP file from IT Portal and extracted all its contents to a new folder for my PAN. 
3. Downloaded the ITR Pre-fill Json file for my PAN from Inc Tax Portal to above folder.
4. Opened the ITR-2 Excel copy for my PAN.  Got a warning message from Excel that active content in it are disabled, and pressed "Enable Content" on the warning line to enable the Macros in that ITR-2 Excel file alone...
   Note:  It's CRITICAL to make sure Macros are enabled when editing an ITR-2 Excel file.
   So, EITHER 
        Add the folder path where you save ITR-2 files to Excel "Trusted Locations" using :
        (File->Options->Trust Center->Trust Center Settings->Trusted Locations->Add)
   OR 
        Press "Enable Content" in Warning line for disabled active content to enable Macros
        and Active content in the current Excel file every time you see the warning...
        If you opt for this, then if you use "Save as" to create a new copy of an in-progress       ITR-2, do not continue editing the new file...  Close & re-open the saved ITR-2 file 
        and press "Enable Content" on opening the new ITR-2 file.
        (When you use "Save As", macros are not auto-enabled for the newly saved file, but         if you continue editing the newly saved file, you are not warned of disabled content.
         So, I expect that the ITR-2 will misbehave if we continue editing after "Save As").
   Not doing this correctly may have caused some issues seen in my earlier tries.
   (Personally, I chose to "Enable Content" for each file as I didn't want to remember to manage my "Trusted Locations" afterwards... But had to remember to close & re-open the new ITR-2 after each "Save As".  So, you can choose whichever you prefer...)
   
   
5. Imported the Pre-fill Json for my PAN (downloaded earlier from IT Portal) to my ITR-2, and checked & entered all missing or changed data in Sch PART A - General.  Necessary items were selection of :  "Condition for Residential Status", "Governed by Portugese Civil Code ?", and "Whether you are an FPI?"
   (Huh !! Why is FPI not auto-set to "N" when Status already set to Individual & RES ??).
   
   
6. Then went to "Home" tab to disable Schs irrelevant for me.  Expected that based on my options in Sch PART-A General (i.e., Individual, Resident, filing under New Regime), all Schs not relevant for me - like Sch VI-A, 80-xxx, 115AD, 5A, etc. would be disabled.
   But no such luck.. !!  So, manually selected N for all Schs irrelevant for me.
   Enabled only the following Schs (i.e., only these rows set to "Y"; all others set to "N") :
   CG, 112A, OS, CYLA-BFLA, CFL, SPI-SI, AMT, AMTC, TI-TTI, IT, TDS, Verification.
   
   Note :  In "Home" tab, the display of "Strikethrough" in cells of a row often does not match the "N" or "Y" selection on that row. Some rows never show strikethrough, and some rows get struck off on deselecting other rows, but selection of that row stays "Y".
   E.g.,  Sch 80C never shows strikethrough;   Setting 80G to "N" shows strikethrough on next rows 80D & 80GGA as well, although those Schs remain set to "Y"...
   Lastly, all selection changes in "Home" tab are activated only after you press the "Apply" button at top-right side of that tab.  Don't forget to press "Apply" after each change.
   
   
7. Sch OS was pre-populated with Savings Bank Interest, but interest shown here was less than the Interest shown in AIS & TIS statements.  Checking showed that the SB Interest from one of my Bank Acs was not added in the Interest amount got from Pre-fill. 
   So, corrected this Int amount manually.
8. Entered other details in Schs OS, 112A, CG, checked TI and TDS, and validated all the enabled schedules individually...
   
   
9. Then on pressing TI-TTI -> "Calculate Tax", got error:  Enter Amount in Sr. No 1 in Salary Schedule, and in table for Allowances exempt u/s 10. (This was despite Schedule S beingde-selected, and the tab hidden !!) 
   Went to Home & enabled Sch S, and then to the now-visible (but almost empty) Sch S.
   Only the data cell for "Nature of Employer" was showing "Select".  Went to this cell and pressed the Delete key to empty it. Then Validate on Sch S was Ok !!
   Then went back to Home, disabled Sch-S again, and retried TI-TTI->Calculate Tax.
10. This time "Calculate Tax" gave error that some details are mandatory in Schedule EI (although Sch EI was also de-selected and hidden for me).
    So, went back to Home, Enabled Sch EI and selected the now-visible tab for Sch EI.
    At Sr. 3 (Other Exempt Income), Row 1, "Nature of Income" was showing"Select". Hit the delete key on this cell.  Then Validate on Sch EI was Ok.
    Then went back to Home, disabled Sch-EI again, and retried TI-TTI->Calculate Tax.
11. Now "Calculate Tax" was successful, and Tax due matched my calculation !!
12. Then paid my Self-Assessment Tax from IT Portal->E-pay Tax, & downloaded Challan.
13. Filled SAT payment Challan details in ITR-2 Sch IT, and Validated it.
14. Back to TI-TTI and "Calculate Tax"... 
15. Successful and correct again...  Amount Payable and Refund both set to 0 !!
16. Hit "Generate JSON"...  Successful, but pop-up messages for things to do before filing.
    New tab SUMMARY created, having button "Save JSON" and a table of Schedules with "No of entries" and "Amount" for each Sch. 
    Many Schs missing from the SUMMARY table, like CG, 112A, OS !!
    Amts in most shown Schs are all NA / 0 (wrong for SPI & SI for me).
    Only Amounts for TDS & IT are Ok.
    The list of "Empty Schs" in SUMMARY is also inexplicable... Sch EI is in the Empty list, while Sch S is in above table with Amt shown as NA... but both are deselected in Home!!
17. Anyway, ignored the bullsh*t in SUMMARY tab and pressed "Save JSON" button.  The Json file was generated and saved successfully in the same folder as the ITR-2 Excel.
18. Uploaded the generated Json to IT Portal...  Validation was successful.
19. Proceeded to Verification and E-Verified the ITR-2 with Aadhaar OTP.
20. Verification successful...!!  Acknowledgement generated...!! 
21. Downloaded the filed ITR-2 in both pdf & Json format, as well as the "Ack" pdf...
22. ITR-2 filing is now complete !!  Got mails & SMSs asking to wait for processing by ITD.

Finally, end of this long story !!  But this was actually for an "easy" ITR-2 filing... 
Have to start the journey again for next family member, who needs ITR-3 !!
Arrrghhh.... Dreading it....  <<Smile...>>

Warning :

While generating Json (i.e., on pressing "Save JSON" button in SUMMARY tab), during the processing a message is briefly shown saying "Encrypting Json..."

But don't be fooled by this !!
The generated Json file to be uploaded to IT Portal is NOT encrypted... !!
You can open the generated Json file and view the data clearly in Notepad or Wordpad.

So, if you are worried about data privacy, do safeguard the ITR Json files like your Excel files.

@ Krishnamurthy B.

Many many thanks from me and from many many others for your latest extremely detailed report on filing using ITR-2 Ver1.0 Excel Utility (AY2025-26)

1. I have found that the json file generated is NEVER encrypted, from day 1 of Infosys, inspite of the fleeting message at time of json saving.
2. You have not mentioned whether you have crosschecked the pdf file downloaded / emailed to you regarding all your filed data. 
3. Plz also download and check the json for your filing and verify everything matches.

Looking forward to your feedback on the above points 2) and 3).

Thanks again 

Ranjan

@ Krishnamurthy B

Congrats for the upload! We are at a point where a successful ITR upload is an achievement worthy of accolade.  ;)

Thank you very much, Sir, for the detailed post. Very few people take the effort to post in such a  detailed, paragraphed manner. So, kudos for this desire to help others. Several portions of your solution will be helpful to several other people stuck in different ways (e.g. the deletion of "Select" leading to validation of unfilled Schedules). 

Regards.

I just read in the other thread that ITR-2 has been released online. Finally!

Just posting it here for others who might stumble on this thread and would benefit from this info.

@ Cs26kit

Good morning 

Better attach the link here for the other thread, so that all can read about the bugs already faced and about my reservations about online filing of something very detailed like ITR-2 ( or ITR-3 as well).

This is what Cs26kit mentioned this morning regarding release of the ITR-2 AY2025-26 Online filing on the I-T Filing Portal.

Below is the link to the other thread for all interested.

https://www.caclubindia.com/forum/itr-excel-utilities-error-613242.asp?offset=2

Plz, do post your experience of using the online ITR-2 filing

@ Ranjan

Thank you. I should've done that. 

To Admin/Mods: Copy-Paste as well as hypertext links are disabled on posts, probably for  exclusivity & safety reasons respectively. Kindly at least enable hypertext links when the domain is "caclubindia.com" so that forum's internal browsing will be easier via links.

@ Ranjan

@ Cs26kit

Thank you for taking the trouble to read through my long posts and for your encouraging responses and follow up queries... Most people these days don't seem to have the patience and attention span to read through long messages... <<Smile>>

Sorry, didn't mention in my earlier post that I went through the downloaded ITR-2 PDF file in detail and found that everything matches my inputs and expectations... Also viewed the downloaded JSON version of my ITR in Notepad.  Though I can't be absolutely sure of this (as I don't have a JSON editor or validation utility), it looks right to my visual inspection.

Here's another tricky issue+workaround that I forgot to mention in the previous post :
.
When you first enter Sch 112A, there are 4 rows shown, all with cells enabled as needed for selection of "On or Before 31-Jan-2018" in 1st column "Shares Acquired Before/After...".
.
Directly selecting "After 31-Jan-2018" from drop-list on 1st column of the 1st & 2nd rows DID NOT change other column cells enabled on those rows to that needed for Consolidated Sale Amount entry.  I re-checked the Macro enablement, and tried changing the selection several times to no avail... Nothing affected the columns enabled on any of the 4 displayed rows.
.
Then hit "Add Row" (i.e., added a 5th row, though the displayed 4 were still empty), and  selected "After 31-Jan-2018" in 1st column of  the added row. This changed the cells enabled in that row correctly to allow Consolidated Sale Amount entry. Also, changing "Acquired On" selection back and forth between Before & After 31-Jan-2018 auto-changed enablement of other cells in that row correctly.  
After this, magically, cell enablement / disablement based on selection in 1st column started working correctly in all the initial 4 rows as well !!  So, entered my data in the 1st & 2nd rows as needed for my case, and hit Delete key on all cells of the added 5th row. Didn't find any option to delete rows in the table. So left the added 5th row in place but empty.
The Sch 112A sheet then validated successfully and I could go on to finish my ITR-2 . 
.
So, basically, in Sch 112A, best to do an Add Row before trying to enter data in the displayed 4 empty rows... (But don't enter data in the new 5th row while leaving existing rows unfilled... Validation fails if there are empty rows at start or in-between).

Finally thanks a lot to Ranjan & Cs26kit for sharing the info about Online ITR-2 being made available now !!  Hope it works for everyone with fewer issues than the ITR-2 Excel utility...

If not, these hints on using the ITR-2 Excel utility may still be helpful. 
Many of these issues may apply to the ITR-3 Excel utility as well.
(News on IT Portal doesn't mention any Online ITR-3... So, only Excel for ITR-3 for now.)

If a new thread like this is started for ITR-3 we should add reference to some of these posts...
An ITR-3 issues thread like this will be much bigger, of course...
Hope CAClub Forum doesn't set limits on number and size of our posts !!  HahahhaHa...

@ Krishnamurthy B.

Dear Krish

Thanks for letting us know few more bugs/solutions including matching of data in pdf and json.

Good news that the data in pdf and json in IT server against your filing matched with what you filed.

During my exercises with the utility, I had added an extra row in TDS-2 by mistake. Could not delete it. Left all cells blank in it. While trying to Calculate Tax, the macro would not allow tax calculation, insisting on filling up the TDS-2 added row!

It looks like that the Infosys staff themselves may have a tough time to debug this utility or may have to start from beginning for creating a bug free new version.

@ Ranjan

Try visiting each data entry cell in the mistakenly added row in your Sch TDS-2, and pressing Delete key on each cell.  Then do Validate...  This worked for me in the added row in Sch 112A. So, the same stunt may work in Sch TDS too !!

As to Infosys - if they start all over again with their staffing for this "India" work, I feel the new version may have more bugs than the current version...  Because anyone with experience in developing this stuff, would have been assigned to foreign projects by now !! So, maybe better to see if we can make this half-cocked but known devil work...   Hahahha...

Krish.

It has been a nuisance for tax filers ever since Infosys started on itr utilities. It has been such a unpleasant experience after that. It is high time Infosys is replaced by TCS when ITR filing was hassle free. Now, we dread to use these utilities. No other country treats her tax payers with so much contempt.

I AM ALREADY DOING ALLTHINGS THAT YOU ARE TELLING BUT ALL COMPLETED BUT ISON IS NOT CREATED

There are too many issues in ITR-2 online filing with system hanging and asking for non-required fields as mandatory.

I tried offline excel utility and was able to get through with correct calculations. However while generating JSON file, it is stuck after 33.33% of JSON encryption with no messages / errors. Any indications on how to proceed further ?