Azure-Based Accounting Automation Product for 75,000 SMBs

About Our Customer

The Customer is a well-known European company that offers accounting and payroll software product packages for small and midsize businesses. During its 25+ years on the market, the company helped over 75,000 SMBs streamline their accounting operations with the help of robust digital tools available at an affordable price. The Customer continuously upgrades its software products to provide a seamless user experience and meet its clients’ arising accounting automation needs.

Legacy Accounting Product Failed to Perform Efficiently

The Customer’s existing desktop accounting product was available only for on-premises deployment. At a certain point, the solution failed to compete with the cloud-centric accounting tools that offered higher scalability, better performance, and easier integration with other business systems. So, the Customer decided to replace its legacy accounting software with a modern cloud-based system that would bring maximum accounting efficiency and rely on a convenient pay-as-you-go pricing model.

Due to the lack of in-house cloud competencies, the Customer sought a reliable tech partner to outsource the solution design and development. Owing to ScienceSoft’s decade-long expertise in cloud migration and 15+ years of experience in custom accounting software development, the Customer relied on our team to cover the end-to-end implementation of its brand-new cloud accounting product.

Future-Ready Cloud Accounting Software

Business needs analysis and legacy product audit

ScienceSoft's financial IT consultants started with an in-depth analysis of the Customer’s business needs and user demands. The team also conducted a comprehensive audit of the company’s existing accounting product. Despite the absence of technical documentation, ScienceSoft’s business analysts analyzed and mapped the complex code for the bookkeeping business logic and the accounting formulas used in the financial performance calculations.

Following the discovery phase, ScienceSoft's experts compiled a list of precise requirements for the new cloud accounting solution. Notably, the team suggested partially reusing the existing functional and process dependencies and accounting calculation logic to speed up the development and reduce the project costs. Also, ScienceSoft’s experts suggested upgrading the product with value-adding automation features for document creation, payment sending, and region-specific tax calculation.

Accounting software design and planning

After eliciting the requirements, ScienceSoft’s team developed the technical vision of the cloud accounting product. The Customer received a comprehensive list of software features prioritized for implementation according to their estimated business value.

ScienceSoft’s experts suggested building a web accounting application on Azure. A flexible and high-performing Microsoft Azure environment would allow for on-demand upscaling and downscaling of data storage and processing resources. Plus, Azure Active Directory would enable security at the software component level, automated identity verification, and streamlined access control. ScienceSoft’s Azure consulting team developed an individual pragmatic strategy for Azure migration and accounting software development to help the Customer optimize the project budget and after-launch operational expenses. In particular, our architect designed a non-standard solution architecture to store high-volume audit logs in the low-cost AzureTable storage instead of the core Azure SQL Database.

ScienceSoft's experts designed the solution's UI to maintain the visual style of the Customer's previous accounting product. It would help the company benefit from more enthusiastic product adoption and a shorter learning curve for its existing clients.

Lastly, ScienceSoft delivered a detailed roadmap for accounting software implementation, which comprised budget and time estimates and the development team composition.

Accounting software development

ScienceSoft’s .NET, JavaScript, and Azure developers handled the entire software development process, from coding to setting up data storage to deployment. Our quality assurance experts conducted all necessary testing procedures to ensure smooth software performance and full data security.

The SaaS accounting solution delivered by ScienceSoft introduced all the core features that were available in the legacy tool:

• A general ledger, accounts receivable and accounts payable bookkeeping.
• Automated multi-book accounting for companies operating in various jurisdictions.
• Recording and tracking the procurement and sales transactions.
• Cash and liquidity management.
• Monitoring due and overdue payments.
• Quote management.
• Ad hoc calculation of the company’s financial performance metrics.
• Scheduled generation of financial reports.

In addition, the Customer received the following automation features to power its clients’ accounting workflows:

• Automated generation of quotes, invoices, receipts, and financial reports based on customizable document templates.
• Automated payments to vendors, employees, and regulators, enabled by real-time communication with banks via open banking APIs.
• Automated import and reconciliation of daily cash flow statements from the bank accounts.
• Automated tax calculation under the EU regional taxation systems.

In addition, ScienceSoft’s team completely transformed the Customer’s legacy billing workflow. Our tech experts implemented a modern automated billing system that enabled the scheduled creation and distribution of recurring customer invoices via a third-party online subscription service. Plus, the team launched a new functionality for convenient customer payments via the accounting app’s portal.

Higher Revenue with a Competitive Cloud Accounting Product

The Customer obtained future-ready, user-friendly SaaS software that provides robust automation and full visibility of accounting workflows. With ScienceSoft's expert advice on the value-adding automation features and optimal architecture design and tech stack, the Customer got the opportunity to optimize software development and operational costs and improve user satisfaction. The solution enabled the smooth shift to the more profitable subscription billing model and helped the Customer generate higher revenue.

Now deployed in the cloud, the accounting product is easier and cheaper to maintain, scale, and evolve. The developed system works 24/7 with 100% uptime.

The Customer appreciated ScienceSoft’s value-driven approach to cooperation and proficiency in Microsoft technologies and .NET. The company partnered with ScienceSoft again for its consequent Dynamics 365 CRM customization project.

Technologies and Tools

Analysis: Microsoft TFS 2010, Balsamiq Mockups, SharePoint, Microsoft Visio.

Back end: Azure SQL Database, Azure Table storage, Azure Active Directory, .NET 4.5, C#, Entity Framework, Enterprise library 5, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

Cloud migration: ExtJs, ASP.NET MVC 4.0, HTML, CSS, Azure, Entity Framework, Enterprise library 5.

Testing: Unit tests on MSTest, Selenium WebDriver for UI Tests.