Build a practice system around your due dates, your jobs and your fee recovery.
A practice runs on a calendar with people attached. Sales tax returns fall due every month, withholding tax returns every quarter, income tax returns and audits in the busy season, company filings after that, and notices whenever they arrive.
The filing tools work well. The missing layer sits above them: which client is stuck, on what, for how long, and who is handling it. It also covers whether a fee was raised for a notice reply drafted in October.
GullySystem designs that layer around the firm. Jobs are tracked by due date. Document requests follow up on their own. Working papers are filed by year, partners get a status screen, and fees follow the work and not the season.
Practices we can build for.
Two partners with four trainees, or branches in three cities and an offshore arm behind them. The build follows the practice rather than the profession.
- Chartered accountant firms
- Sole practitioners
- Multi-partner practices
- Tax consultants
- Indirect tax practitioners
- Audit firms
- Company secretary practices
- Cost accountant firms
- Accounting and bookkeeping firms
- Outsourced accounting providers
- Payroll bureaus
- Virtual CFO practices
- Registration and compliance consultants
- Tax litigation and appeals practices
- Firms with several branch offices
- Firms with an offshore accounting arm
- Networks of associate firms
- Firms serving one industry deeply
The modules, and what each one covers.
Nothing here is a fixed package. Each module is built, left out or changed to match how your organisation already works.
Client masters
One record per client, so nobody opens several folders to find a tax ID.
- Client name and constitution
- Group or family mapping
- Tax IDs and registration numbers
- Company and director registration numbers where applicable
- Registered and business addresses
- Contact persons and their roles
- Accountant at the client’s end
- Financial year and books software
- Partner responsible
- Staff assigned
- Client since
- Status and risk notes
What you file for each client
The list of registrations decides the calendar, so it is the first thing worth getting right.
- Sales tax or VAT registrations and their regions
- Return type and frequency
- Withholding tax obligations
- Income tax return type
- Tax audit applicability
- Statutory audit applicability
- Company registry filings
- Payroll tax and labour registrations
- Import and export registrations
- Trust and society registrations
- Registrations closed or surrendered
Engagement and scope
- Engagement letter
- Scope of work
- Retainer or per-filing basis
- Fee agreed
- Billing frequency
- Out-of-pocket expenses
- Period of engagement
- Renewal date
- Signed copy stored
The compliance calendar
Every obligation for every client, generated from the registrations rather than typed into a sheet each year.
- Statutory due date
- Internal target date
- Client
- Period
- Assigned staff
- Reviewer
- Status
- Extension notifications applied
- Filings completed
- Filings at risk
- Filings missed with reason
Due dates move when the tax authority extends them. Somebody in the firm has to update the calendar, and the system should make that one change rather than forty.
How a job moves
- Job created
- Documents requested
- Documents received
- Preparation
- Internal review
- Partner sign-off
- Filed on the portal
- Acknowledgement stored
- Fee raised
Jobs and allocation
- Job type and period
- Client and group
- Preparer
- Reviewer
- Estimated effort
- Priority
- Start and target dates
- Current stage
- Days in the current stage
- Reassignment history
- Blocked reason
Document requests
Document collection takes the most hours in a practice and leaves the least record.
- Checklist by job type
- Items requested from the client
- Items received
- Items pending
- Reminders on WhatsApp and email
- Reminder frequency
- Who last chased and when
- Items marked not applicable
- Received by hand or on a USB drive
- Ageing of pending items
Reminders go out on their own, and continue until each item arrives.
The client portal
- See what the firm is waiting for
- Upload documents against each item
- View filings completed
- Download acknowledgements
- Download reports and computations
- View fee invoices and dues
- Pay online
- Raise a query
- See the due dates ahead
Some clients will not use a portal and will send a USB drive. The system accepts both without a separate process.
Document vault
- Filed by client, year and job
- Sales and purchase registers
- Bank statements
- Payment receipts
- Computations
- Signed financial statements
- Audit reports
- Agreements and deeds
- Version history
- Retention and archival
- Download log
Queries register
Questions raised during preparation are recorded here, and not left in a WhatsApp thread.
- Query raised by staff
- Client and job
- Sent to the client
- Client response
- Resolved or still open
- Open queries holding up a filing
- Query history by client
Review and sign-off
- Preparer submits
- Reviewer observations
- Rework loop
- Partner approval
- Checklist before filing
- Who approved and when
- Rejected with reason
- Review time per job
Filed records
- Acknowledgement number
- Filing date
- Filed copy attached
- Payment reference details
- Tax paid
- Refund claimed
- Filed by whom
- Revised filings
- Late filing noted
Filing itself happens on the tax authority and company registry portals. This records what was filed, when, by whom, and where the proof is. It is not a filing tool.
Signed report records
- Report ID against each signed report
- Signing partner
- Document type
- Date of signing
- Digital signature holder
- Digital signature validity and renewal date
- Reports awaiting an ID
The report ID is generated on the professional body’s own portal. This keeps the register so a report signed in March can be traced in December.
Notices and representations
- Notice received and date
- Authority and section
- Client and period
- Reply due date
- Person handling
- Drafts and attachments
- Reply filed
- Hearing dates
- Adjournments
- Outcome
- Fee billed for the work
Notice work is often unbilled. Attaching a fee to the job when it is created is the reliable way to avoid that.
Audit engagements
- Audit plan
- Team assigned
- Audit programme by area
- Working papers by section
- Sampling records
- Confirmations sent and received
- Observations and management responses
- Draft and final report
- Management letter
- Archival of the file
Company registry and secretarial work
- Company masters
- Directors and their details
- Annual filing calendar
- Board and general meetings
- Resolutions
- Registers maintained
- Forms filed
- Director identity check due dates
- Charge records
Bookkeeping work
For firms that also write their clients’ books, rather than only audit and file.
- Books maintained per client
- Monthly closing checklist
- Bank reconciliation status
- Ledger scrutiny points
- Pending entries
- Data received from the client
- Monthly management reports
- Handover to the filing job
Payroll and labour filings
- Client payroll month
- Salary data received
- Pension and insurance contribution computation
- Payroll tax
- Withholding tax on salary
- Payslips prepared
- Returns due
- Payment receipts
Time and effort
Time is recorded so that next year’s fee can be set from evidence.
- Time by client and job
- Time by staff member
- Chargeable and non-chargeable
- Effort against estimate
- Cost of a client
- Realisation against fee
- Season load by team
Fees and billing
- Fee per filing or per retainer
- Bill raised from completed jobs
- One-off and additional work
- Out-of-pocket expenses
- Sales tax or VAT on fees
- Advance received
- Credit notes
- Bill approval by the partner
- Invoice delivered to the client
Recovery
Outstanding fees by client and by partner.
- Outstanding by client
- Ageing buckets
- Withholding tax deducted by the client
- Part payments
- Payment promises
- Reminder schedule
- Escalation to the partner
- Clients on hold for non-payment
- Write-offs with approval
Staff and trainees
- Staff and trainee records
- Traineeship dates and transfers
- Skills and client exposure
- Current allocation
- Leave
- Training attended
- Exam leave planning
- Access ends on the day they leave
The partner’s screen
The partner meeting starts from a screen of open jobs and dues.
- Filings due this week
- Jobs stuck and why
- Clients not responding
- Jobs awaiting review
- Notices with reply dates close
- Unbilled completed work
- Outstanding fees
- Team load
- Clients at risk
- Missed due dates
Access and confidentiality
- Client visible only to the assigned team
- Partner-level access
- Download logging
- Document sharing links with expiry
- Access removed on separation
- Audit trail of changes
- Login records
Several offices
- Branch-wise clients
- Branch-wise jobs and due dates
- Staff by branch
- Billing by branch
- Partner allocation across branches
- Consolidated firm view
Client communication
- Due date reminders
- Document reminders
- Filing confirmation with acknowledgement
- Notice alerts
- Fee invoice and reminder
- Statutory update circulars
- Greeting and renewal messages
A reminder that a client has not sent bank statements is fine on WhatsApp. A computation with a tax figure in it is better sent through the portal. WhatsApp templates also need the provider’s approval.
What it connects to
- QuickBooks, Xero and other accounting software
- Your tax filing software
- Email and calendar
- WhatsApp and SMS
- Payment gateways
- Cloud document storage
- Digital signature tokens
Fetching data automatically from a government portal depends on what that portal officially allows. We design against permitted routes, and we do not write anything that works around a login.
One connected workflow, end to end.
Every stage below can sit in one system, so nobody re-enters what the last stage already captured.
- Engagement
- Registrations mapped
- Calendar generated
- Job created
- Documents requested
- Documents received
- Preparation
- Review
- Sign-off
- Filed
- Acknowledgement stored
- Fee raised
- Recovery
You do not have to replace everything at once.
Each phase is usable on its own, so the system earns its place before the next part is built.
- 1
Clients and the calendar
Client masters, registrations, the due date calendar and jobs with names against them. The Excel tracker retires here.
- 2
Documents and review
Checklists, automatic chasing, the client portal, the queries register and the review and sign-off loop.
- 3
Fees and recovery
Billing from completed work, out-of-pocket expenses, outstanding by client and follow-up on dues.
- 4
Audit, notices and analytics
Working papers, signed report records, notice tracking, time against fee and the partner view of a stuck job.
How a build actually runs.
- 01
Understand
We sit with the firm in a filing week, not a quiet one. A practice under pressure shows where it really breaks.
- 02
Map
Clients, registrations, job types, review stages, fee arrangements and every tracker somebody keeps privately.
- 03
Design
Screens for the trainee, the manager, the partner and the client, each carrying only that person’s part of the work.
- 04
Build
The calendar, jobs and document chasing first. Those three change a filing week on their own.
- 05
Test
One month of sales tax work runs through it in parallel with the old tracker, and the two are compared line by line.
- 06
Deploy
Go-live is planned outside the season and not inside it.
- 07
Improve
Audit files, notice workflows, time capture and analysis of which clients are worth the hours they take.
What you bring, and when.
The build moves at the speed of the answers. These are the things we ask for, in the order we ask.
- 01
Your due date tracker and engagement letters
Send the sheet staff use to track filings, a sample engagement letter and a typical document checklist. Add a recent invoice. The calendar is mapped from what you actually use.
- 02
A partner and a senior per team
Tax, audit and compliance teams work differently. Seniors confirm that screens match the way a job moves. A partner rules when teams want different practice.
- 03
Fee bases and reviewer levels
Fee bases, reviewer levels and the checklist for each job type must be settled as work proceeds. A senior reviews each module when shown. Open points stop the next module.
- 04
Client list and portal permissions
Clean the client master before it moves. A partner decides what clients may see on the portal.
Systems we can put together for you.
- Practice management systems
- Compliance and due date trackers
- Client document portals
- Job and workflow management systems
- Audit working paper systems
- Notice and litigation trackers
- Time and effort tracking
- Fee billing and recovery systems
- Client communication automation
- Document management systems
- Bookkeeping workflow systems
- Partner dashboards
- Multi-branch practice platforms
- Multi-tenant practice SaaS platforms
Questions owners ask before starting.
Do we need a custom build when a practice product exists?
Usually not at first. Our CA Practice Management Software already covers client masters, the filing calendar, jobs, document collection and fee recovery. Try that, and build only where your firm will not fit it.
When does building actually make sense?
When the firm has an unusual review structure, an offshore team, industry-specific engagements, or a client portal that must look and behave like your own. Also when a practice product cannot carry your fee arrangements.
Does it file returns for us?
No. Filing stays on your tax authority and company registry portals, with the software your team trusts. This tracks the work around the filing and keeps the proof of it.
Does it replace our accounting software?
No. Your accounting software stays where it is, for your clients’ books and for your own. The firm’s fee invoices can post across so your accounts sit in one place.
Can clients upload documents themselves?
Yes, against a checklist that shows exactly what is pending. Reminders continue until each item arrives.
Can we track signed-report IDs and working papers?
Yes. The ID is recorded against each signed report, and working papers are filed by client, engagement and year. Generating the ID stays on the professional body’s portal.
Who can see a client’s financial data?
Only the staff assigned to that client and the partners. Downloads are logged with a name and a time, and access ends the day a trainee leaves.
Can it bill from completed work?
Yes. A job marked done can raise a bill, including one-off work like a notice reply, which is often left unbilled.
Can it handle several branches?
Yes. Branch-wise clients, jobs, staff and billing sit under one firm view, with a partner able to see across branches.
Can the system pull data from the tax portal?
Only through routes the portal officially allows, and those change. We will tell you what is permitted today rather than build something that breaks with the next portal update.
Could we begin with just the due date tracker?
Yes. The calendar and job allocation alone replace the shared Excel sheet that several people update at different times.
Can this be sold to other firms later?
Yes, if it is designed for that from the start. Another firm will not use your due date master or your trainee allocation, so the design has to keep every practice separate from the first day.
How we work with this trade.
Ready products for this work.
If one of these fits, it is cheaper and faster than building from scratch. We will say so.
Build the system your practice runs its calendar on.
The filing is rarely the difficult part. Knowing which of two hundred clients has not yet sent a bank statement is.
Whether you need a due date tracker, a client document portal, an audit file system or a full practice platform, describe how your firm works through a season. The first question is which clients have sent nothing by the twelfth.
Tell us how your accounting and tax firms runs today.
We will tell you what can be digitised, what can be connected, what is worth automating, and what you should leave alone.
What happens after you share your requirements
- A senior engineer reads your answers. Nobody phones first.
- Within one business day you get a written note: what we understood, what we would start with, and the questions we still have.
- If it fits, a proposal follows with the order of work, what we need from you and what you receive at each step.
- No call is booked and nothing is paid until you have read the note. Your details stay with us.
Start with your requirements
Seven short steps that tell us what you need. A senior engineer reads them before anyone gets in touch.
Share your requirements