Highlights
- Partnership with a Real Estate P2P Lender Funded Over $10 Million: with advanced tax calculation features to be created, our client significantly improved customer experience, providing more clarity and confidence to investors and leaders.
- Under-Pressure Business-Enhancing Functionality Development: balancing communication issues and delays with the financial platform’s support that have been already used by the client, lack of initial requirements, and dependency on development tools.
Client
The client is a real estate crowdfunding company, dealing with a chronic lack of funding in the construction industry. The company aims to unlock the property market for investors and provide a vital source of finance for property builders.
In the first two years of operation, the company managed to help fund the construction of over 100 houses, and it has only grown exponentially since then. As of 2024, the client operates as a licensed crowdfunding service provider across the European Union.
Product
The product is an online platform for investing in real estate debt and enables real estate developers to receive funding directly from investors. The platform operates through Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending enabling individuals to lend and borrow money directly from one another, without the involvement of traditional financial intermediaries such as banks or credit unions.
The platform offers investors access to attractive, property-backed loans, connecting experienced property developers with lenders to make property finance faster, more efficient, and more reliable.
Goals and objectives
- Incorporate the Capability to Produce Tax Reports: streamline the tax reporting process for the users of the client platform. Allow the users to generate tax reports directly within the platform, saving time and effort, rather than manually compiling data or using separate software for tax reporting.
- Integrate the New Feature with Existing Functionality: seamlessly integrate tax reporting capabilities with the existing functionality and interface of the client platform to ensure a smooth user experience and minimal disruption to existing workflows.
- Ensure Robust Security: prioritize security measures to protect user data and ensure compliance with data privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Project challenge
- Incomplete Requirements: Not having all the requirements provided at the beginning of the project was a significant challenge. It made it difficult to plan effectively, estimate the scope of work accurately, and allocate resources appropriately.
- Lacking Some Formulas for Tax Report Calculation: The project relies on having accurate formulas for tax report calculation on time, so our team had to work out solutions when we faced this issue.
- Communication Issues with a Third-Party Vendor: We had to deliver results despite the delays and breakdowns in communication with a third-party vendor’s support, which impeded progress and resulted in project bottlenecks.
- Dependency on Development Tools: implement the tax reporting functionality solely through development tools, as the only way possible in this case. While development tools can provide flexibility and customization options, they also have limitations as we needed specialized expertise to develop certain features.
Solution
To implement the project that took us 7 months to be completed, we assembled a team comprising two vetted JavaScript developers.
We started with the discovery phase, while proactively communicating with the developers of the third-party white-label platform that our client is using for product support. The goal of this stage was to ascertain the feasibility of integrating a new tax calculation feature into the product.
This initial phase of discovery allowed us to outline a comprehensive scope of work. Subsequently, throughout the development phase, ongoing communication with the support team was essential for the success of the new feature. We collaborated to ensure seamless integration of our developed feature and sought clarification on various aspects related to financial operational statuses within the report.
At the planning stage, we systematically segmented the established scope of work into four distinct stages. Following this segmentation, we estimated the timelines for each stage and proceeded to compile detailed project plan documentation. This documentation served as a crucial tool for enhanced visibility and effective tracking of the entire development process.
Utilizing pure JavaScript through dev tools, we successfully implemented a tax calculation feature, enabling the generation and storage of reports tailored to specific user roles. Our developer conducted testing locally, and then the client’s Head of Operations and Accounts verified that all the calculations functioned as intended. With the help of third-party white-label platform support, the feature was integrated into the system.
Tech Stack
- JavaScript
- Bootstrap
- Moment.js
- Alertify.js
Our results
We successfully delivered planned functionality according to client expectations and within a planned timeline, overcoming a set of case-specific and communication challenges.
- Delivering Automated Tax Calculation Feature: leveraging JavaScript, we enabled the accurate and automatic generation and storage of tax reports for individual customers of the client platform for a certain period.
- Seamless Integration into the Existing System: weintegrated the new feature into the client’s platform without any disruption of business processes.
Highlights Client BlackHawk Network Inc. (BHN) is a U.S.-headquartered, globally leading provider of branded payment technology solutions, whose history...
Explore Case