A surprising amount of Indian paperwork is not a number you decide, it is a code you look up. The HSN code for what you sell. The unit code your return files a quantity under. The six-character customs port on a bill of entry. The district a PIN code belongs to. The branch behind an IFSC.
Every one of those is published by the government as a list. Finocket has loaded those lists, so you pick from them instead of typing them — and every value can tell you which list it came from.
HSN and SAC codes on an item
The HSN/SAC field on Items → New item, on an invoice line, and in the quick-create sheet is now a search box over the government's full list — 22,609 codes, from two-digit chapters down to eight-digit entries.
Type what you sell rather than what you think the code is. The list is fetched once, the first time you open the picker, and every keystroke after that is matched instantly, so searching does not make you wait.
Two things the picker deliberately does not do:
- It does not invent how many digits you must quote. That depends on your turnover, and it is read off Finocket's rule book. Until a chartered accountant has approved that rule, the picker says there is no approved rule rather than showing you a plausible number. See Where a tax figure comes from.
- It does not apply a rate behind your back. When a rate has been published for the code you chose, it appears as a chip with the notification behind it and a link to the document — and applying it is a button you press. The lookup matches by code prefix, and a heading's rate can be wrong for a specific item under it. A rate nobody chose is a filing position nobody took.
You can still type a code the list does not carry. If your CA gave you one, refusing it would be the worse mistake, so Finocket keeps it.
The unit you type, and the unit your return files
GST notifies its own short list of unit codes — 45 of them — and your return is filed using those, not using the word you typed. Finocket now tells you which one your line will file under, at the moment you choose the unit rather than weeks later in an export file.
The notified list is a goods vocabulary. If you bill by the hour, by the day, by the visit, by the project or per licence, there is no notified code for any of those, so the line files under the general “others” code. That is correct, not a mistake — but it means your return will not say “hour”, and you are much happier knowing that now. Finocket never rewrites your unit to something more convenient: the unit is your description of what you sold.
Customs ports on a bill of entry
The port on GST → Bill of entry used to be a free text box, which meant the same port could be recorded three different ways on a register whose entire purpose is evidencing an import credit. It is now a picker over the 1,061 notified port codes, searchable by name or code. Export invoices carry the same picker.
Two behaviours worth knowing. If a bill of entry already holds a code the list does not carry, that code is offered as its own option rather than quietly dropped — otherwise you would never learn the register holds something odd. And if the port list cannot be read at all, you get the plain text box back with a line explaining why: a bill of entry has a filing deadline and our list does not.
PIN codes and IFSC
Type a PIN code in an address and the district and state fill themselves from the postal directory — 164,817 PIN codes. Type an IFSC on your bank details and the bank and branch fill from the RBI list — 183,340 branches. Both are always editable; the lookup offers, it does not overrule.
Both say clearly which of several things happened. “The directory has no such PIN code” is a different sentence from “we could not reach the directory” — the first would tell you your own real PIN code is wrong, and it is only allowed to say that when it actually knows. And where the post offices on one PIN code disagree about the district or state, nothing is filled in and the disagreement is named, rather than the first row being picked for you.
Bringing a list in from a spreadsheet
You do not have to enter a catalogue or a client list by hand. There are importers for items, clients and suppliers, each with a template you can download and fill in.
Every import shows you what it would do before it does any of it: how many rows will be created, how many updated, and — the useful part — which rows it cannot place and why. For clients and suppliers that includes the tax identity: how many rows can actually be placed for GST, and which carry a GSTIN that does not agree with the state on the row. Nothing is written until you say so.
An empty list and an unreadable one never look the same
This runs through all of the above, and it is the habit worth trusting. When a search finds nothing, Finocket says the list holds no match. When the list itself could not be read, it says that instead. Those two situations produce identical blank screens in most software, and almost everybody reads the blank screen as the reassuring one.
Related: Where a tax figure comes from, Cess, exempt lines and transport details, Items & catalogue.