Methodology
How every Schedule FA figure is dated and converted
These are the conventions behind every number GetScheduleFA reports — the same note that ships on the Methodology sheet of the workbook itself. Each one states its own standing, because the notified ITR-2 schema is silent on every one of them and a reader deserves to know where a rule ends and our judgment begins.
Standing
Convention, not statute
The five items below are prevailing practitioner convention or a strong inference this tool draws, cited against analogous authority where one exists — never codified rule. The notified ITR-2 schema, its instructions, and the Income Tax Department's own Schedule FA guide are silent on every one of them. Nothing here overrides the reviewing CA's professional judgment.
Accuracy controls
How we prove every number
A trail for each INR figure
For each INR figure, the workbook’s citations table records the formula inputs and exchange-rate row, plus the source-document reference when the figure comes from a document.
No unexplained required figures
Before a workbook is written, its required INR figures are checked for citation coverage. If a required citation or source is missing, the build stops and no workbook is produced.
Known-good workpapers guard changes
Regression tests rebuild fictional known-good workpapers and compare their workbook contents. An unexpected change fails the test instead of silently changing a delivered result.
Inspect the fictional sample audit trail to see the evidence before uploading or paying.
The five treatments
What we do, and what it rests on
Trade-date sale year
strong inference; analogous authority: CBDT Circular No. 704
a sale's gross proceeds are booked in the calendar year of its TRADE date, never its settlement date — the closest departmental authority on which date a securities transaction is dated for tax purposes is CBDT Circular 704 (holding-period computation by trade date, not settlement date), applied here by analogy; the notified ITR-2 and its instructions are silent on which date a Schedule FA disclosure itself should key off.
Per-transaction TTBR
prevailing practitioner convention; official forms are silent
converting each transaction/valuation at its OWN date's exact TTBR, rather than one blended annual or quarterly rate, is prevailing practitioner practice, not a statutory formula — Rule 115 fixes a conversion rate for specific income heads (e.g. the dividend Rule-115 TTBR above); it does not itself prescribe a valuation-date methodology for Schedule FA's peak/initial/closing figures, and the notified form is silent on this point.
Vest-FMV as initial value
strong inference; official forms are silent
for an RSU lot, the Initial Value of Investment is fair market value on the vest date; for an ESPP lot it is market fair value on the purchase date — never the grant-date notional value or discounted price actually paid — a strong inference from "cost of acquisition" concepts used elsewhere in the Act; the notified ITR-2 Schedule FA fields do not themselves define an initial value convention for equity compensation.
Per-tranche (lot-level) rows
prevailing practitioner convention; official forms are silent
one Table A3 row per purchase lot/vest tranche, rather than one pooled row per security, is prevailing practitioner practice adopted so every acquisition, disposal, and closing figure stays independently traceable to its own source citation — the notified ITR-2 schema is silent on lot-level versus pooled reporting.
Gross-before-deductions
strong inference; official forms are silent
every reported proceeds/income figure is the GROSS amount before fees, commissions, and tax withholding are netted out — a strong inference from the Schedule's own "gross amount paid/credited" and "gross proceeds" field labels, but the Income Tax Department's Schedule FA guide does not itself spell out a fee/withholding netting treatment.
The twelve engine conventions
How each figure is computed, and the test that proves it
Beyond the five treatments above, the computation engine follows twelvefurther conventions — how a peak is scanned, which quantity an initial value uses, which day’s rate converts a dividend. These are the exact sentences the workbook’s Methodology sheet carries, and every one is enforced by a named, executable check in the test suite: a convention stated here without its check cannot compile.
Peak basis intraday high
Peak value is the maximum, over every day a lot was held during the year, of units × that day's INTRADAY HIGH price × that day's TTBR. The day's close is used only as the fallback for a symbol/day with no published high. The daily price feed is anchored to the broker's own 31-Dec close (scale-invariant, split-proof); where no daily price series exists for a symbol at all, peak falls back to max(initial value, closing balance) and says so.
verified by verify-peak-intraday-high
Acquisition floor
For a lot acquired within the filing year, the peak is never below the lot's own acquisition value (the filer held those shares at that value on the acquisition day); the daily scan can only raise it. A prior-year acquisition's value is never reported as this year's peak.
verified by verify-acquisition-floor
Filing fy vest basis
A vest is reported on the basis its own documents state, not on the calendar: where a document states the GROSS vested quantity, Table A3 discloses that gross acquisition together with the same-day sell-to-cover disposal, in the CALENDAR YEAR the vest happened — including a vest before 1-April, because Schedule FA is calendar-year based and no earlier return's Schedule FA covered it. Where a document states only the NET shares delivered, the net quantity is reported and no gross is inferred. Each row states which basis produced it. This is a Schedule FA rule only: the capital-gains treatment of a pre-1-April sell-to-cover is unaffected, since that disposal falls in the previous financial year and is reported in that year's Schedule CG.
verified by verify-filing-fy-vest-basis
Represented quantity initial value
A lot's Initial Value of Investment is its acquisition-date per-share value × the quantity this return represents: the reported acquisition quantity for a current-year vest, and the quantity surviving all events before 1-January for a carry-forward lot. Disposals during the filing year never reduce it.
verified by verify-represented-quantity-initial
No proceeds netting or rebasing
An initial value is never reduced by sale proceeds and never re-based to a 1-January market value; a sold lot's initial value remains its acquisition-date value for the represented quantity.
verified by verify-no-proceeds-netting
Exact date ttbr
Initial, peak, and closing values use the exact-date SBI TT-Buy rate (TTBR) on the relevant date (acquisition date, the winning peak day, or 31-Dec), with nearest-prior-published backfill up to 30 days; beyond that the run stops with a named error rather than substituting a distant rate silently. The 30-day window exists because SBI itself stopped publishing for 21 days in May-June 2020 and 23 days in July-August 2021; wherever a backfill exceeded a routine weekend or holiday, the Citations sheet names the date the rate actually came from and how many days earlier it was.
verified by verify-exact-date-ttbr
Pre 2020 fx fallback
For a pre-2020 date, an archived SBI card recovered for the exact date is used first; the shipped sparse archive contains 114 dates for each of USD and GBP in 2017-2019 and is never carried to a nearby day. Where no recovered card is held, the ECB reference rate for that same date is used and every affected figure says 'ECB reference rate' in its Citations-sheet convention. This is a MID-MARKET rate, not a TT-Buy rate: on the recovered pre-2020 overlap its median is 0.56% above SBI TT-Buy for USD and 1.09% above for GBP, so INR values are generally overstated rather than understated. The spread is disclosed, never modelled away. From 2020 onward the fallback is never consulted. A date before 2000, where even the ECB has no INR rate, remains blank with a reason and is resolved by importing the prior-year return or entering the cost by hand.
verified by verify-pre-2020-fx-fallback
Rule115 dividend ttbr
Dividend income converts at the Rule-115 TTBR: the last published rate on/before the last day of the calendar month PRECEDING the credit date — never the credit-date rate itself.
verified by verify-rule115-dividend-ttbr
Source conflict tolerance
When two documents state the same numeric fact about one event, values within 0.5% of each other (relative, uniform across quantities, prices and money; dates compared exactly) are treated as agreeing; a larger difference is flagged with both values shown. Gross and net share quantities are different facts and are never compared against each other under this rule.
verified by verify-source-conflict-tolerance
Sell to cover cash exclusion
Sell-to-cover proceeds are booked as Table A3 gross proceeds but never enter the custodial account's cash balance and never appear as a Table A2 amount credited — the cash is remitted to the tax authority and never rests in the account.
verified by verify-sell-to-cover-cash-exclusion
Espp purchase date fmv
An ESPP lot's Initial Value of Investment is the purchase-date MARKET fair market value × shares — never the discounted price the participant actually paid, and never the earlier subscription-date FMV. The stated discount, contributions and price paid are retained as facts for the capital-gains workpaper; they are not the Schedule FA acquisition value.
verified by verify-espp-purchase-fmv
Unbounded a2 carry
The Table A2 daily account-value series carries a held security's last known price forward without bound, on both the peak and the closing basis — a security with no quote (suspended or delisted) is still held and never valued at zero for want of a quote. Table A3 price lookups keep their bounded 10-day backfill unchanged (a stock that has not traded for weeks is a suspension, not a publication gap — unlike the TTBR window above).
verified by verify-unbounded-a2-carry
Where to go next
The worked method, and the rates behind it
The step-by-step method these conventions sit inside is in the Schedule FA guide, and the published bank rate every conversion uses is looked up, per date and per currency, with the free SBI TT-buying-rate tool.
Last reviewed 27 July 2026 by GetScheduleFA · current for AY 2026-27.