Your firm’s data, in your firm’s own database

A CA firm is holding other people’s tax files. The questions that deserve a plain answer are where the data sits, who can reach it, and what the sign-in actually protects. Here are all three, including the parts that are not finished.

A database per firm

Each firm on BharatTax gets its own PostgreSQL database. Your clients, their returns, the documents imported for them and the bank statements parsed for them are not rows sharing a table with another firm’s clients — the separation is at the database, which is the level at which a mistake in application code cannot cross it.

It is created when you register, before the first client exists, and everything the software stores for you goes into it.

One login per firm, today

Say the unfinished part out loud. A firm registers one admin login, and that is the login the practice works from. Additional logins for partners and staff are not available yet. The roles and the per-client assignments exist in the data model, with start and end dates, because that is how the work will be divided when the screens for it ship — but no page here is going to sell you a team feature you cannot use this season.

What that means in practice: the client roll, every return, every import and every bank statement sit under the one firm account, and the work is saved against the client rather than against a person, so it is picked up wherever it was left.

Signing in: what it does, and what it does not

Sign-in is by password, or by a one-time code sent to the registered email address. Every successful sign-in sends an alert to that mailbox.

Be clear-eyed about that alert. It is detection, not prevention. It tells you a sign-in happened; it cannot stop one, and it goes to the same mailbox that can request a login code. What it is genuinely good for is the ordinary case — a password that leaked or was reused, used from a machine that is not yours. That shows up here and nowhere else. Two-factor authentication is not in the product today, and we would rather write that down than let the alert imply it.

Client portal credentials

A client’s income tax portal password can be saved against that client so their 26AS and AIS can be fetched. It is stored encrypted, never in plain text, and saving it is optional — a client whose password you have not saved works normally everywhere else.

A record behind every figure

Every document imported against a client is written to that client’s import log: what it was, what it contained, and what was decided about it. A line can be kept, undone, or excluded with the reason attached. When an assessment reply asks where a number came from, the answer is in the file rather than in somebody’s memory.

The same discipline runs through the bank statement import, where the reconciliation verdict is stored with the transactions rather than printed once — see bank statement import.

The account itself

A firm registers itself and gets 30 days with nothing held back. Pricing is on the pricing page.

Questions

Where does our client data live?

In a PostgreSQL database of its own, per firm, on our server in India. Your firm's clients, returns, imports and statements are not rows in a shared table with someone else's — they are a separate database.

How many people in the firm can sign in?

One, today. A firm registers a single admin login and that is the login the practice works from. Staff logins are not available yet, and we would rather write that down than let a page about roles imply otherwise.

Is there two-factor authentication?

Not today, and again we would rather say so. Sign-in is by password or by a one-time code sent to your registered email. Every sign-in raises an alert to that mailbox, which is detection rather than prevention: it tells you a sign-in happened, it cannot stop one.

Do you store our clients’ income tax portal passwords?

Only if you choose to save them, and then encrypted rather than in plain text. They exist for one purpose: fetching that client’s 26AS and AIS. A client whose password you have not saved works normally in every other respect.

Can we show where a figure in a return came from?

Yes. Every document imported against a client is logged with what it contained and what was decided about it — kept, undone, or a line excluded. That log is the answer when a figure is questioned a year later.

Register your firm

30 days, the whole product, your own database from the first client.

Start a 30-day trial See how a season runs