Media, Advertising and Marketing

Context

The group runs seven companies, from creative and media buying to digital and events, each with its own GSTIN in Maharashtra and some with further registrations in Delhi and Karnataka. About 2,400 employees travel regularly, and bookings go through two shared travel agencies. Travel spend ran into crores each year, but airline credit was claimed only when an invoice happened to reach the right entity's accounts team.

The Challenge

In 2024-25 and the first half of 2025-26, the group took roughly 41,000 flights across 16 GSTINs. Agencies often entered the wrong company's GSTIN, or none at all, so invoices landed in another entity's GSTR-2B or were issued as B2C. Credit notes for cancellations and changes were raised against one entity while the original ticket sat with another.

Each entity's team could see only its own GSTR-2B, so nobody saw the whole picture. The Section 16(4) deadline for 2024-25 credit was 30 November 2025, and with IMS now in place, invoices left without action were being deemed accepted without anyone reviewing them. The group's tax head estimated the leakage was large but had no way to prove it.

What We Did

We pulled every airline invoice and credit note for all seven entities directly from airline portals, then matched them to each GSTIN's GSTR-2B and to the booking data from both agencies. About 93% of tickets matched automatically. Every remaining gap was valued and tagged: missing invoice, wrong GSTIN, unlinked credit note or credit claimed twice.

Specialists decided eligibility on each gap and prepared a single list of invoices to be reissued to the correct entity. Automated follow-ups went to airlines and agencies until corrected invoices appeared in GSTR-2B. The group's finance team made only two decisions: which entity should carry shared bookings, and how to treat credit notes that crossed entities.

The Outcome

In 12 weeks, ₹1.7 cr of airline credit was recovered across all seven entities, most of it before the 30 November deadline. Agencies were given a GSTIN mapping for every employee, which cut wrong-entity invoices sharply from the following month.

The match now runs every month for the whole group, reported in one signed monthly statement. Each entity sees its own figures, and the group tax head gets one signed monthly statement showing credit recovered, pending with airlines and awaiting decision.

Timeline

1. Weeks 1–2Airline invoices and credit notes pulled for all seven entities
2. Weeks 3–5Matching to GSTR-2B and agency data, gaps valued
3. Weeks 6–8Eligibility decided, entity rules agreed with finance
4. Weeks 9–12Airline follow-ups, corrected invoices claimed before the deadline