Why you pay what you pay for our Services

Why you pay what you pay for our Services

Imagine this. You enter a footwear shop in your neighbourhood. You try on a bunch of shoes and finally select one. You then ask the shopkeeper how much it costs and he gives you a number. You are unsure if what he says is reasonable for the shoes or if you would be overpaying. You make some comparisons with other shops around, and you go ahead and buy the pair of shoes anyway. But there is still this nagging question in your head – “Did I overpay?”.

You can replace the footwear shop with any other service provider and you probably still have tons of questions around how fair their pricing was.

TRANSPARENCY:

One of the many things we’d like to focus on this year is transparency. Transparency in every aspect. We believe transparency starts with our clients and so, that’s where we’ll begin.

We get many questions from our potential clients on our fees and we realise that this bothers them. This is an attempt to provide you with as much information possible on our fees structure and help you understand why we charge what we charge.

Most of our clients (80%) are Small/ Medium Enterprises (i.e. Turnover upto ₹15 Crores). So I’ll use that as the anchor to explain the fees structure. Here’s what you would pay ThinkDigits in a Annual/Yearly plan:
 

The 2 Major components of our fees are:  

a. Filing Returns:  
      ₹ 18,000 per year (i.e. 1,500 per month) for filing monthly returns. It includes
  1. Filing Monthly/Quarterly GST Returns (GSTR-1, GSTR-3B, IFF)
  2. Mailing GSTR-2A/2B every month.
  3. Reconciling GSTR-3B with the auto-populated summary on the GST portal.
  4. Checking Communication between Taxpayers (every quarter)
  5. Checking issuance of any Notices (every 6 Month)
  6. Updates thru WhatsApp/Mail.
  7. Providing customized summaries of returns /documents over email.
b. Consultancy:  
      ₹ 2,500 for half hour and part for CA's and ₹ 750 per hour for others. Charged at regular interval. 
            (No fees charged upto 1 mail/ meeting /telephonic discussion for 30 mins per quarter)

What is the rationale behind our fees?  

To deliver the convenience and efficiency, both off/on premise, we operate:
  1. The Cloud Software – ThinkDigits Support Portal : That manages our emails, Website, dashboard, API engine, monitoring services, redundant servers, etc.
  2. The Cloud Storage Servers –The ones that hold the storage of over 10 years of client's data, RIs, hardware, Internet connections, Cloud-space in top-notch data centers.
  3. The Taxation Software Infrastructure – Tally Multi-User License, GST Cloud Software, Income Tax Software, TDS Software, Original MS Office License.
  4. The tools we use – Amazon Azure, Freshdesk, Zoho, Google Apps, Quickbooks, etc.
  5. Salary Cost: This also covers the salaries of all of our staff tthat serve you – The Administrative Team, Return filing team, Assessment team,  Tech & Product team and Research team.
    1. Technical Team: The team which works to keep this infra up and running
    2. Return Filing Team: The team which works on return filing assuring that returns are filed within 24/48 hours of receiving it.
    3. Assessment Team: The team which works on Scrutiny/Notices and other department related works.
    4. Research Team: The team which works do deep study and research to understand complex tax laws and make it easier for you.
We have essentially bundled most of these fixed costs into the fees that you pay. We do have specific fees for large enterprises which typically use more resources. For such clients, we tailor the fees to meet their needs.

Why a 12-month plan?  

In the past, we have tried various durations like 3 month, 6 months etc. as we wanted to test what duration made sense for both the client (you) as well as us. We have arrived at the 12-month period for the base plan as:
  1. GST is payable by us as soon as we raise our Invoice. But fees are generally paid by our clients on yearly basis around September i.e. during Audit Period or at year end. 
  2. Our fees are not received simultaneously with our bill. Follow-up with clients is a tedious and costly affair for us.
  3. Clients also prefer one-time payment rather paying on monthly basis.

What’s the deal with consultancy charges?  

The fees you pay for consultancy covers the variable costs that we incur for fulfilling these services. Also, our fees are tightly coupled with the number of hours that our team members are involved. We do add a markup for the other variable costs that we incur as well.  Generally, these consultancy involves various tedious/complex  issues that requires deeper study/research and brainstorming. If consultancy is given in haste or without updating our self with latest changes, it may result in huge tax losses to clients.

Also, inspired by Buffer, and in our effort to continue to be a trusted brand we’d like to show how we utilize the money that you pay us. For every ₹100 that you pay us, the following is how we spend it:




PS: The above is a representation of our costs as it existed a few months ago. As you can imagine, this is fluid and changes over time.

I hope this post provides you with some clarity on our fees structure and answers some 'hows and whys' of our fees. We are keen to get your thoughts on this and see if this cost structure resonates with you as well!
Our Fixed Cost especially  Salary increases by 10% every year yet we have not increased our fees from last 6 years due to Covid and other facts.

What is our USP? What makes our different from others?

We are a Legal firm, aiming to Bring Extensive Expertise To The Table, Ensuring Top-notch Service and Results, so that you may concentrate on doing business.

Our USP's:
  1. Use of AI, Technology
  2. Regular Updations + Our Research
  3. Unique and Comprehensive Solutions
  4. Customized and Client Centric Approach
  5. Expert Guidance
  6. Actionable Insights

Our Achievements

200+
Clients
1500+
Cases Resolved
300+
Appeals
45+
Search/ Survey Cases
10+

Experts


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