Azure-Based Accounting Automation Product for 75,000 SMBs

About Our Client

The Client is a well-known European company offering accounting and payroll software packages for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). Over the years, it has helped more than 75,000 SMBs streamline their accounting with robust, affordable digital tools, and continuously upgrades its products to deliver a seamless experience and meet evolving accounting automation needs.

A Legacy Accounting Product Failed to Perform Efficiently

The Client's existing desktop accounting product was available only for on-premises deployment, and over time it could no longer compete with cloud-centric tools offering higher scalability, better performance, and easier integration with other business systems. The Client decided to replace it with a modern cloud-based system built for maximum efficiency and a convenient pay-as-you-go pricing model.

Lacking in-house cloud competencies, the Client sought a reliable partner to outsource the solution design and development, and engaged INNERLUXES for the end-to-end implementation of its new cloud accounting product based on our cloud migration and custom accounting software expertise.

Future-Ready Cloud Accounting Software

Business needs analysis and legacy product audit

INNERLUXES's financial IT consultants began with an in-depth analysis of the Client's business needs and user demands, plus a comprehensive audit of the existing product. Despite the absence of technical documentation, the business analysts analyzed and mapped the complex code behind the bookkeeping logic and the accounting formulas used in financial calculations. The team then compiled precise requirements for the new solution, suggested partially reusing existing process dependencies and calculation logic to speed development and cut costs, and proposed value-adding automation for document creation, payments, and region-specific tax calculation.

Design and planning

INNERLUXES developed the technical vision and a feature list prioritized by estimated business value. The team recommended building a web accounting app on Azure — a flexible, high-performing environment allowing on-demand scaling of storage and processing, with Azure Active Directory providing component-level security, automated identity verification, and streamlined access control. Our Azure consultants devised a pragmatic migration and development strategy to optimize budget and post-launch operating costs; notably, the architect stored high-volume audit logs in low-cost Azure Table storage rather than the core Azure SQL Database. The UI was designed to retain the visual style of the previous product to ease adoption and shorten the learning curve, and INNERLUXES delivered a detailed implementation roadmap with budget, timeline, and team composition.

Development

INNERLUXES's .NET, JavaScript, and Azure developers handled the full process — coding, data storage setup, and deployment — while QA experts ran all necessary testing to ensure smooth performance and full data security. The SaaS solution reproduced all core features of the legacy tool:

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

The Client also received automation features to power its customers' workflows:

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

INNERLUXES also transformed the legacy billing workflow, implementing a modern automated billing system for scheduled creation and distribution of recurring customer invoices via a third-party subscription service, plus convenient customer payments through the app's portal.

Higher Revenue with a Competitive Cloud Accounting Product

The Client gained future-ready, user-friendly SaaS software with robust automation and full visibility of accounting workflows. INNERLUXES's advice on automation features, architecture, and tech stack helped the Client optimize development and operating costs and improve user satisfaction, while the shift to a more profitable subscription billing model helped generate higher revenue. Now cloud-deployed, the product is easier and cheaper to maintain, scale, and evolve, and runs 24/7 at 100% uptime. The Client later partnered with INNERLUXES again for a 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.