A Day in the Life of a FinTax24 Academy Trainee

TL;DR

The FinTax24 Academy programme runs Monday to Saturday, 9 AM to 6 PM, split between theory sessions, hands-on software practice, and weekly client file reviews. The first six months are in-person at the Palitana office. From month seven, trainees start working on real client portfolios under supervision.

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Most job descriptions tell you what you’ll learn. Very few tell you how a typical Tuesday actually feels.

This is an honest account of a training day at the FinTax24 Academy in Palitana — written for BCom and MCom students in Gujarat who are deciding whether to apply for the January 2027 cohort.

8:45 AM — Arrival and Setup

The Palitana office opens at 9. Trainees are expected by 8:45. Most students who commute from Bhavnagar town catch the 7:30 bus; those from nearby towns like Botad or Mahuva arrive a little earlier.

By 8:50 the training room is already half-full. Someone’s pulled up GSTR-1 on the shared screen. Someone else is cross-checking their Tally Prime backup from last night’s homework — Month 1 trainees have to maintain a daily entry log, and the previous week’s trial balance exercise is due before the morning session starts.

The space is small by design. Ten desks, a whiteboard, a projector. Not a classroom — more like a compliance firm’s back office that happens to have a training schedule.

9:00 AM — Morning Session: GST Registration Deep Dive

Today’s topic is new GST registration — specifically, the documents a small textile trader in Surat needs to register under regular GST.

The trainer walks through the actual GST portal (gst.gov.in), clicking through each step live. SPC Textures — a fictional trading business set up for the exercise — needs CGST/SGST registration because its annual turnover crossed the ₹40 lakh threshold. The trainee follows along on their own screen.

By 10:30 the class has covered:

• PAN, proof of address, and bank account details required for GST registration
• Why a textile dealer’s principal place of business matters for jurisdiction
• How the GSTIN format encodes the state code (24 for Gujarat) and entity type

The trainer stops halfway through the business nature selection screen and asks: “What’s the HSN code for a synthetic saree?”

Nobody answers immediately. He waits. Someone guesses 6204. He’s not satisfied. “For made-up garments it’s generally 61 or 62 depending on whether it’s knitted or woven. But a synthetic saree specifically — let’s look it up on the GST portal’s HSN search before we guess.”

This is typical. The trainer does not give answers; he teaches the habit of looking things up.

10:30 AM — Break

Fifteen minutes. Tea from the thermos in the corner. Some students stay on their screens — pulling up the GST portal’s HSN database to verify the 6204 question. Others step outside; Palitana is quieter than Surat or Ahmedabad, and the office faces a narrow lane that gets a breeze in the morning.

10:45 AM — Practical: Tally Prime Company Setup

The next ninety minutes are on Tally Prime. Each trainee creates a new company in Tally — SPC Textures again, same fictional data from the morning session.

The objective is to establish a habit that matters in practice: the GST registration details in Tally must match the GST portal exactly. State code, GSTIN format, effective date of registration — one character wrong and the e-way bill will error out when a client tries to generate it.

By 12:00, most trainees have completed the company creation, set up two GST rates (5% and 18% for different fabric types), and entered the opening stock. Two students are still fixing a GST classification mismatch — they classified yarn under the wrong HSN and the stock report looks wrong.

The trainer does not fix it for them. He points to the Tally validation error and says: “Read what it’s telling you.”

12:00 PM — Lunch Break

One hour. Most students go home or to the nearby tea stall on the main road. A few stay and work through the GST portal’s e-way bill generation module — it’s not assigned work, but they’re curious.

Palitana has a specific lunch pattern in the office: the students who’ve been here longest have started bringing tiffins from home. The newer trainees mostly buy from the shops nearby. Nobody eats at their desk.

1:00 PM — Afternoon Session: GSTR-1 Filing Walkthrough

The afternoon starts with the most commercially important skill in the programme: GSTR-1 filing.

GSTR-1 is how a taxpayer reports all outward supplies — every invoice issued to a B2B customer or B2C consumer. The trainer walks through a complete GSTR-1 cycle using real-looking data:

• B2B invoices with GSTINs (generated using the GST portal’s test data format)
• B2C sales aggregated by rate
• Export invoices with shipping bill numbers
• Credit and debit notes

The class works through two practical scenarios:

1. A Surat textile trader with 12 B2B invoices and 3 export shipments
2. A Rajkot engineering parts supplier with mostly B2C sales and one credit note

By 2:30, every trainee has filed a simulated GSTR-1 for scenario one and is partway through scenario two. The Rajkot scenario is homework — it involves HSN-wise summary filing, which they haven’t covered yet.

2:30 PM — Guest Input: Real Client File Review

Once a week, the afternoon session is a live file review. Today’s reviewer is a senior accountant who handles GST and ITR for eight clients across Bhavnagar and Rajkot districts.

She brings three real (anonymised) scenarios:

Scenario 1 — The blocked ITC problem: A client’s GSTR-2B shows input tax credit that their GSTR-3B claimed. But the supplier’s GSTR-1 was filed late, so the credit didn’t appear in the buyer’s GSTR-2B for that month. What do you do?

The class suggests claiming it next month. The reviewer says that’s partially right but incomplete — you also need to check whether the supplier will amend their GSTR-1 and whether the amendment will flow into the buyer’s GSTR-2B in time for the next return.

Scenario 2 — The composition dealer invoice problem: A client wrongly issued a tax invoice at 5% GST when they should have charged 18% on a particular product. The buyer has already claimed ITC. How does the seller correct this?

Answer: Debit note, correct rate, reconcile with buyer’s GSTR-2B.

Scenario 3 — E-way bill expiry: A client moved goods on a Friday. The e-way bill expired Saturday evening. The goods were delayed by a vehicle breakdown and didn’t reach the destination until Monday. What are the consequences?

Answer: Under Section 129 of the CGST Act, goods can be detained or seized. The penalty depends on whether the tax amount is paid and whether there’s a genuine reason for the delay. The lesson: always generate a fresh e-way bill if there’s any risk of delay.

These sessions are the ones trainees remember most. Real numbers, real consequences, real clients in Gujarat.

4:00 PM — Break

Tea and a walk. The Palitana office backs onto a residential area. In October the evenings are starting to cool. Some students use this break to update their notes from the morning sessions — GST registration checklist, Tally error log, client file observations.

4:15 PM — Independent Practice: ITR-4 Filing for a Salaried Employee

The last session of the day is practice, not instruction. Each trainee opens the Income Tax e-filing portal (incometax.gov.in) and works through an ITR-4 filing for a salaried employee with house property income and Section 80C investments.

The case: Annual income ₹7.2 lakhs. Salary from one employer. One house property (self-occupied, home loan). Investments in PPF (₹1.5 lakhs), ELSS (₹50,000), and life insurance premium (₹25,000).

The trainees compute:

• Gross income from salary (after standard deduction of ₹75,000)
• Income from house property (after interest deduction under Section 24)
• Deductions under Chapter VI-A (80C, 80D not applicable here)
• Tax liability under both old and new regimes

By 5:30, most have completed the computation and are cross-checking their answer against the ITR-4 pre-fill data. Two students are still working through the home loan interest calculation — the Section 24(b) deduction for self-occupied property is capped at ₹2 lakhs, which catches some students off guard.

5:45 PM — Day-End Review

The trainer asks each trainee to share one thing they learned today and one thing they’re still unsure about.

Common answers today:

• “Learned: always verify GSTIN on the portal before filing for a new client.”
• “Still unsure: how to handle a case where the e-way bill has expired and the goods have been partially delivered.”

That second question gets a brief answer — partial delivery is a grey area under the GST Act, and the safe practice is to generate a fresh e-way bill before any movement. It goes on a class FAQ list that gets updated daily.

6:00 PM — End of Day

Most trainees leave by 6:05. A few stay to finish their Tally entries. Tomorrow is Friday — which means the morning session covers GST returns (GSTR-3B) and the afternoon is the weekly assessment.

The monthly assessment for Month 1 covers accounting fundamentals, GST registration, and Tally Prime company setup. It’s not a pass/fail test — it’s a diagnostic. The trainer uses the results to identify who needs extra support on which topics.

What a Month Actually Looks Like

The programme moves fast. Each month has a theme:

Month	Focus	Key Deliverable
1	Accounting + GST basics	Trial balance from 20 journal entries; GST registration on the portal
2	GST filing deep dive	Simulate GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B for a model trading business
3	Income Tax	ITR-1 through ITR-4 for 3 scenarios
4	MCA filings	DIR-3 KYC, AOC-4, MGT-7 for a model Pvt Ltd
5	Advanced GST	Draft a reply to a GST DRC-07 demand order
6	Practice management	Manage a simulated portfolio of 8 clients in 5 days

From Month 7, trainees begin working on real client files under supervision — starting with 3-5 clients and scaling up to 12-15 by Month 24.

Is This the Right Programme For You?

The FinTax24 Academy is specifically designed for BCom, MCom, BBA, and MBA graduates in Gujarat who want to actually learn tax and compliance — not just pass an exam.

It is not a CA coaching programme. It is a practice-oriented training that takes you from accounting basics to independent GST return filing, ITR filing, and MCA compliance. The next cohort starts in January 2027 in Palitana.

The entrance test is the first step. It costs ₹250 to attempt, takes about 90 minutes online, and covers basic accounting, GST awareness, income tax basics, and professional scenario judgment. Passing score is 60%.

If you’re serious about a career in tax and compliance — and you’re based in or near Bhavnagar district — the January 2027 cohort has 10 seats. The entrance test is the first gate.

Next cohort entrance test: Apply via WhatsApp. Seats are limited to 10 per cohort.

Related: Accounting Training Programme — full programme details