I never had a mentor. No trading community. No seniors who walked me through how markets work or what mistakes to avoid. I learned to trade the way most people learn things they care about — books, mistakes, more books, more mistakes, and eventually something that worked.
I got reasonably good at the trading part. Buy, sell, manage risk, read a balance sheet, understand why a stock moves. That part I figured out.
The tax part I kept getting wrong.
Not because I didn't understand the rules. I understood them. I knew STCG was taxed at 20%. I knew losses could offset gains. I knew March 31st was the deadline.
What I didn't have was the numbers. Specifically, I didn't have my own numbers, in front of me, before the deadline, in a form that made it obvious what to do.
Every year, sometime in April or May, I'd be talking to my CA and he'd walk me through the return. Here's your total STCG. Here's your tax. Here are some losses you booked.
And I'd look at the numbers and think — wait. I sold FEDERALBNK on April 4th. That was a ₹3,450 loss. If I'd sold it three days earlier it would have offset ₹3,450 of my gains. That's ₹690 I didn't have to pay.
My CA would nod. Yes. Timing.
And I'd feel like an idiot, not because ₹690 is a significant amount — it isn't — but because it was entirely preventable and I only found out after the window had closed.
This happened every year. Different scrips, different amounts, same story. I'd look at the April transactions and see the ones I should have done in March. Never huge numbers individually. Collectively, over five years, real money.
FY2024-25. 2,816 transactions. One financial year of active equity trading on Zerodha.
Realised STCG gains: ₹5,79,293 across 124 scrips. Realised losses: ₹4,41,783 across 96 scrips. Loss harvesting saving available: ₹88,357. Positions sold in April that missed the March 31st window: 15 scrips. Tax I paid that I didn't have to: ₹7,771.
FEDERALBNK was two of those 15. So were BAJAJ-AUTO, INDUSINDBK, OFSS, TORNTPHARM, GRASIM, NYKAA, ICICIBANK. All positions I was going to exit anyway. All sold just after the deadline. None of it the result of bad trading decisions — just bad timing that nobody flagged.
I built Fynr because the information existed — it was all in my Zerodha tradebook — but nobody had assembled it in a useful way before the deadline.
The tool reads your broker tradebook. It runs FIFO matching on every lot. It classifies every gain and loss. It tells you your total STCG, your total losses available for set-off, your LTCG exemption headroom, and the positions you sold after March 31st with the exact tax cost of that timing.
It also runs what I call the Regret Engine. Not to make you feel bad — to make the number concrete. "You sold OFSS on 10/4/2024. Had you sold it before 31 March, it would have saved ₹677 in tax." Named, dated, costed. So next year, when February comes around, you know exactly what to look for.
Upload your Zerodha, Groww, Upstox or ICICI tradebook. Fynr finds everything in 60 seconds. Free.
Scan my tradebook →CA verification required on all outputs. This is not tax advice. Consult a qualified Chartered Accountant before taking any action.