When your business spends money on air tickets, you are paying GST for the tickets. You can get input credit for the GST money you pay. This can get you a refund and help you save money. Most companies find the process of Claiming GST Credits complicated. The reason for this is that companies do this process manually. It involves a lot of paperwork and takes a lot of time. Since this work is done by humans, there are chances of mistake cropping that could lead to problems.

Basics of Claiming Credit

The following is some basic information on Claiming GST Credits for airline travel:

• Organizations that spend money on air tickets for their official travel pay GST. They can claim input credit for the GST they have paid.

• To claim GST credit, the primary requirement is that the company should have availed of the services. Secondly, an invoice must be available with the GST details of the airline/ service provider and the invoice must have details of GST charged.

• The airline/service provider must have remitted the tax to the Government and filed the returns. Until the airline completes its transaction, Claiming GST Credits is not possible. It must be noted that input credit can be claimed before one year of date of invoice.

• If the tax of inputs is more than the tax on outputs, then the company can get a refund or carry forward the input tax.

• GSTR 2 is the GST form that needs to be filed to avail GST credit. For this to be used, the airlines/service provider must have already filed GSTR 1.

Solution for Claiming Credit

A solution that can be considered for Claiming GST Credits is the use of software-based tools for automating the entire process. All the problems involved in manual processing of GST input credit claims can be solved by using software solutions. An ideal software solution can help to claim input credit in an easy way. This is how it works:

• The tool would take the invoices inputted and extract the details of the tax from these invoices for further processing.

• A smart tool would not only use data inputted but also would search online and through other methods to find related invoices and use the data from there. This would make the processing work easier for a company and avoid manual intervention.

• The tool would then reconcile the data comparing with bank/credit card statements and the GSTIN data.

• The reconciled data is used to calculate the GST input credit that can be claimed. Reports will then be generated showing the amount that can claimed as input credit. This can be used by the accounts department for further processing and for actually completing the process of making the claim.

• A good tool would have a dashboard showing all the key data elements. It would also have multiple reports that provide data for analysis.

Claiming GST Credits becomes easy and trouble-free experience when a software based tool is used to automate the process.