Ans.: The respondent companies should follow the below-mentioned points while filling the survey schedule:

1. The company must use the latest survey schedule which is in .xls format without any macros.

2. The company is required to save the survey schedule in Excel 97-2003 workbook i.e., in .xls format only.

3. In order to save the survey schedule in .xls format, follow the below-mentioned steps:
   a. Go to Office Button / File → Save As → Save As type
   b. Select “Excel 97-2003 Workbook” and Save the survey schedule in .xls format.

4. The company must use the .xls format of the survey schedule provided by RBI and are requested not to incorporate any macros in the survey schedule while submitting the same.

5. Please note that survey schedules submitted in any other format (other than .xls format) will be auto rejected by the system.

6. Please ensure, all information furnished in the survey schedule are complete and no information is missed out.

7. After filling Part-I to III, the company has to fill the Declaration sheet. The Declaration sheet helps in confirming and validating that the information entered by the company are double checked before submitting the same to RBI. This would help to avoid errors like data entry errors, missed data etc.

8. Further the respondents are requested to not use any special characters i.e., [!@#$%^&*_()] and comma while data filing in all parts of survey schedule.

Ans.: The RBI launches the FCS survey during the month of June every year with the last two financial year end-March as the reference date.

Ans.: Biennial.

Ans.: The respondent companies can submit their responses on or before July 15 of the survey year.

Ans.: Last two financial year (FY) starting from April YYYY to March YYYY. For eg., FCS survey for the reference period 2021-2023 covers April 2021 to March 2022 and April 2022 to March 2023.

Ans.: The Reserve Bank will send emails to all the eligible entities from generic email IDs of the Reserve Bank to notify them about the launch of the FCS survey for the latest reference period. Entities are required to fill in the latest survey schedule attached along with the mail and send to the generic email IDs of the Reserve Bank as per the instruction given in the survey schedule.

Ans.: After sending the duly filled in survey schedule (excel based) to the generic email IDs of the Reserve Bank as per the instruction in the survey schedule, the respondent will receive the system-generated acknowledgement. No separate mail will be sent in this regard. If some error is mentioned in the acknowledgement, then the respondent is required to resubmit the form by rectifying the mentioned error. After corrections, the respondent should receive a successful processing acknowledgement email.

Ans.: In case the account closing is different from end-March, the company cannot report the information as per their account closing period. In such cases, the information should be reported for the reference period only, i.e., previous March and latest March based on company’s internal assessment. Companies can submit provisional figures in FCS survey schedule, if audited data is not available.

Ans.: Companies, who have inward FDI along with foreign technical collaboration (FTC) agreements can participate in this survey.

Ans.: In case the company does not have any FTC during the survey reference period, then they have to submit the survey schedule of FCS survey by filling Part I and II of the form.