Case study
A filing service platform where clients and staff see the same status
Clients sent documents by chat and email, staff tracked cases in spreadsheets, and nobody knew which case was waiting on whom. We built a platform that gives clients an account and staff a queue.
Quick facts
- Industry
- Tax and compliance services
- Product type
- Client portal and staff back office
- Platform
- Web, works on phones
- Timeline
- Built in stages
At a glance
What changed
Documents in one place
Clients upload documents to their own account instead of sending them through chat and email.
Status clients can see
Clients see where their case stands without calling or messaging.
One queue for staff
Staff work from one queue, sorted by status and deadline.
Reminders that go out on time
Deadline and missing-document reminders are sent automatically.
The client
The client and the situation
The client runs a filing service that helps individuals and small businesses become and stay compliant tax filers. Its work includes tax registration and the preparation and filing of returns. Most of its clients are not tax experts and want the process to be simple and clear.
Each new client added more documents, more messages and more deadlines to track, while the team stayed small. The business needed a way to grow without the team drowning in coordination.
The challenge
The challenge
Clients sent documents over chat apps and email, in pieces and in every format: photos of paper forms, screenshots, PDFs. Staff tracked cases in spreadsheets. When a client asked about progress, someone had to find the right chat, the right sheet and the right colleague to answer.
The bigger problem was that nobody could see which cases were waiting on the client and which were waiting on staff. Cases stalled quietly. Deadlines came close without warning. And every time a staff member was away, part of the picture went with them.
Before
How the work was done before
A new client reached the service by phone or chat and was told which documents to send. The documents arrived over days or weeks, through several channels. A staff member saved them to a shared folder, checked them against a mental list and added a row to a spreadsheet. Missing items were requested by message, one client at a time.
Once a case was complete, it moved to whoever had time to prepare it. Status lived in the spreadsheet, in chat threads and in people's memory. Clients asked for updates often, because they had no other way to know.
Objectives
What the project had to achieve
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Give every client an account where they upload documents and see their case status.
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Show clients exactly which documents are still needed.
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Give staff one queue with status, owner and deadline for every case.
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Send deadline and missing-document reminders without anyone remembering to.
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Let clients choose a service package and pay online.
The solution
What we built
We built a platform with two sides. On the client side, people sign up, choose a service package, pay, upload their documents and follow their case from start to finish. A checklist shows which documents are still needed. On the staff side, every case sits in a queue with its status, owner and deadline, and moves through clear stages from documents requested to filed.
Notifications tie the two sides together. When staff need something, the client gets an email and an SMS. When a deadline is near, the right person is reminded. This follows the pattern of our customer portals service and our compliance monitoring solution.
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Client sign-up
Clients create an account and see their own cases and documents only.
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Service packages
Clear packages for registration and returns, chosen during sign-up.
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Document upload
Uploads from a phone or computer, attached to the right case and checklist item.
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Document checklist
Each case shows which documents are received and which are still needed.
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Case status
Status stages that clients and staff both see.
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Staff queue
Every case in one queue, sorted by stage, owner and deadline.
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Deadline reminders
Reminders for staff and clients as filing dates come close.
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Online payments
Package payments taken online during sign-up.
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Email and SMS notifications
Clients are told when something is needed or when their status changes.
UX and UI
The UX and UI approach
The client side is built for people who find tax stressful. It uses plain words instead of tax terms where possible, shows one clear next step at the top of the dashboard and works well on a phone, since many clients photograph their documents. Uploading a document takes two taps: choose the checklist item, take or pick the file.
The staff side is built for volume. The queue can be filtered by stage, owner and deadline, and a case page shows everything at once: the client, the package, the checklist, the documents, the history and the next deadline.
Architecture
How the pieces fit together
Clients and staff use the same application with different roles. Cases, checklists and history live in one database, and documents are stored separately with access limited to the client who uploaded them and the staff working on the case. A payment provider handles package payments, and email and SMS services send notifications triggered by status changes and deadlines.
Because tax documents contain identity numbers and financial details, access control was designed first, not added later. Every document request is checked against the case it belongs to and the role of the person asking.
AI-accelerated
Where AI sped up the build
Honest about what AI did, and what people did.
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Workflow mapping: AI helped turn how the team described the process into a first map of case stages, checklists and edge cases.
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Screens and forms: much of the code for sign-up, upload and queue screens was generated with AI and reviewed by our engineers.
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Tests: AI drafted tests for access rules, so a client can never see another client's documents.
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Notification copy: AI drafted the email and SMS messages in plain language, which the team edited.
Integrations
Integrations
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Payment provider
Online payment for service packages at sign-up.
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Email
Status changes, requests for documents and reminders by email.
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SMS
Short reminders by text for clients who do not check email often.
Screens
Concept screens
Simple mockups of the described interface. Real screenshots will replace them.
Concept screen
Results
The results
Clients now upload documents to their own account and can see what is missing and where their case stands. Staff work from one queue instead of spreadsheets and chat threads, and they can see at a glance which cases are waiting on the client and which are waiting on them.
Reminders go out when they should, because the system sends them, not a person who has to remember. We do not have measured figures to publish for this project. When the client shares them, they will appear here.
What the team can do now
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See every open case, its owner and its deadline in one queue.
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Tell at a glance whether a case is waiting on the client or on staff.
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Let clients answer their own status questions.
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Request a missing document with one action and follow it up automatically.
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Take on more clients without adding coordination work at the same rate.
Before and after
Before and after
Chat, email and spreadsheets
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Documents arrive by chat and email, in pieces.
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Cases are tracked in spreadsheets.
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Nobody knows which case is waiting on whom.
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Clients call to ask for updates.
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Deadlines come close without warning.
One platform for clients and staff
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Clients upload documents to their own account.
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A checklist shows what is received and what is missing.
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Staff work from one queue with owners and deadlines.
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Clients see their status without asking.
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Reminders go out automatically by email and SMS.
What comes next
What we would do next
We would next add document reading with AI, so each upload is checked for type and year and matched to the right checklist item automatically. Staff would only review uploads the system is unsure about. That is the approach in our AI document processing solution.
We would also add email triage for the messages that still arrive outside the portal, and simple reports for managers on how long cases wait at each stage. Those reports would show where the process can be improved before the next busy season.
Solutions in this project
Problems this project solved
Compliance tracking
Track filing deadlines, licenses and obligations in one place, with reminders and AI summaries of relevant rule changes.
AI document processing
Read forms, applications, IDs and statements, extract the fields you need and route each document for the right review.
Approval workflows
Requests, approvals and reminders in one place, with clear owners and deadlines instead of long email threads.
Email triage
Sort a shared inbox by topic and urgency, pull out the key details and draft replies for a person to send.
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