Simplifying lives of accountants with ClearTax Pro App
We are thrilled to announce that we have recently launched an app exclusively to cater to the needs of tax professionals who prefer convenience of accessing information on the move — ClearTax Pro. The app enables users to check the GST filing status of all their clients on the go, stay up-to-date with tax compliance deadlines and access the latest news from the world of tax and finance. To know more about the journey from ideation to the launch of the app, we synced up with Srikanth Radhakrishna, Associate Director of Product at ClearTax. Here are some excerpts -
When did we start building the “ClearTax Pro” app? What were the challenges which our customers were facing before?
We started building this app around June 2020 — in the midst of the COVID pandemic.
Tax experts face a variety of problems with accessing correct information such as filing status of their clients’ returns, compliance deadlines etc. They need to depend on others or refer to an excel sheet for the correct information as this is not readily available. Sometimes tax experts cannot plan their monthly or quarterly itinerary properly due to factors such as changes in compliance dates. While talking to our users, we found out that many of them access vital information such as clients’ GST filing status only through their desktop/ laptops in their office. Since offices were closed during the Govt mandated nationwide lockdown, tax experts were faced with a fresh set of challenges in accessing and obtaining vital client information.
How will our solution simplify our customer’s lives?
We are empowering users to be more independent and do more while they are on the move or respond quickly to their clients’ needs, all while having access to accurate information.
The ClearTax pro app provides a bulk GSTIN filing status report that can be accessed by tax experts anywhere. It shows a very clear view of the pending returns as well. Users can also share the filing report with their clients and even send reminders to the clients for sharing important documents.
Our compliance calendar has the latest compliance dates across GST, ITR & MCA. We notify users in case of any deadline changes and remind them about upcoming deadlines.
We also have a news feature that gives short and summarized news from credible and diverse sources across the internet so that a tax expert does not waste time or have to put time and effort into seeking relevant news related to the world of taxes and finance.
The ClearTax pro app will help our users save a lot of time and manual effort and will also keep them updated with accurate information related to compliance dates, notifications etc
Did we face any challenges while creating this product? How did we overcome those challenges?
For much of the team, developing a mobile app was a first time experience, so we had to learn a lot of new skills. A lot of trial and error and A/B testing went behind perfecting the product.
Some features like summary of filing status, digitized compliance calendar, summarized news etc were introduced for the first time ever by ClearTax through this app. We had to take help from other product and engineering team members to deliver certain tasks. Constant collaboration and a good rapport across teams really helped us deliver things on time.
We also wanted to make sure the app is completely up to the mark before its launch. Testing coverage on different phones was a challenge. We invited CTzens to internally test the app in order to make it user friendly and robust.
What are the next steps? What can we expect in the further releases of the app?
We want to continue with our journey of helping users access data at ease. For this, we will have additional reports such as GSTR-2A etc. We want to make payments easier and less frustrating. Additionally in the further releases, we also want to simplify the return filing process. We want to empower tax experts by solving transactional issues faced by them and direct their time and energy towards growing their practices.
