kapil: From CA to software publisher for tax filing, Kapil changes path and gets an award | Jaipur News
After being convinced by his father’s suggestion that he should do something other than get into a government job like him, Kapil Goyal opted for commerce even though he had the best results in science and mathematics. He cleared CA on the first hit in 1998 and started practicing. But soon he discovered that the world was somehow ruled by more than just talent.
“I had clients. But after two years, I was disappointed. It was not possible for me to change the rulebook and do as the customers wanted. It was then that I sought diversification and started working for banks and financial institutions as an investigator. But it’s just to survive while my heart was elsewhere,” says Kapil, CEO and Founder of KDK Software. One day he was attending a CA event and came across a hoard of reporting software. He was intrigued by this hoarding. “As I was good at science and math, I had a fascination with computers and software. The next day, I did a feasibility analysis of making software and selling it to CAs. The results of the Excel sheet encouraged me. I worked on the project even though I later discovered that Excel analysis painted a rosy picture. At that time, I was already creating the software,” Goyal said.
The fact that the government introduced an online option for filing declarations in 2006 came as a hope. But KDK Software had to wait a few years to reach the milestone it was looking for. In 2010, when the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) decided to endow its small and medium CAs with
software, he opted for KDK’s software.
“The umbrella organization ICAI came up with the idea of helping small and medium CAs because they didn’t have the money to invest in technology. Our software has been enlisted and approved for the whole country. In accordance with the agreement, the first two years are free. This brought our product to a broader national market,” says Goyal, adding that today KDK is one of the top three companies in the country and controls 14% of the tax filing and compliance software market share. .
A defining twist came in 2014 for KDK Software. It was bought by the American multinational Intuit, an accounting software publisher with a 98% market share. KDK became a wholly owned subsidiary of Intuit, with Kapil running the company as a unit head but as an employee of the global company. “The idea of going with Intuit was that I was the sole director of KDK. I thought the company should not be dependent on one person. As per the agreement, I was leading the unit,” explains Goyal.
After operating the unit for a year and a half, the American company suddenly announced India as an experimental market. It meant they were going to scale down operations here. Kapil suddenly sensed that the KDK might face an uncertain future. One day, one of Intuit’s top executives suggested to him if he would be interested in buying the company. Goyal was in trouble.
“I told them to give me a month to make up my mind. I went to a consultant and asked for his opinion. He weighed the merits and demerits. In the meantime, I searched the net for such deals, but I couldn’t find any cases of a takeover of the entire company,” Kapil recalls. But he accepted the proposal believing that the fate of so many employees was linked to the agreement. More than that, it was her own baby. “I agreed to buy the company. Over the two and a half years, Intuit had scrapped several KDK ventures because it didn’t align with their overall vision and changed many services. Despite the changes, I bought it back and restarted many services they had shut down,” Goyal says.
It was more of a moral and emotional decision that he made consciously. Financially, the case was not rewarding.
When the GST came around in 2017, he thought it would give a good boost to business. Several changes to the software platform and a sketchy rollout delayed this bargain. CAs remained the main market for his software, not the individual companies he had expected earlier. “Only 5% of declarations are filed by individuals. 95% are by CAs. But the current trend is good because the GST has stabilized now. People would prefer software to produce their returns instead of CAs. I think the CAs will remain advisors only and will intervene if there are legal problems. This will expand our market,” says Kapil.
With around 27,000 customers, KDK sees individual segments of the market growing rapidly from here. But he is now focusing on another business where companies can reduce their working capital needs. The fintech, focused on book receivables, will create a buyer profile for companies to get payments on time.
Kapil says that throughout this trip, his wife Sangeeta stood behind him like a rock.
“I had clients. But after two years, I was disappointed. It was not possible for me to change the rulebook and do as the customers wanted. It was then that I sought diversification and started working for banks and financial institutions as an investigator. But it’s just to survive while my heart was elsewhere,” says Kapil, CEO and Founder of KDK Software. One day he was attending a CA event and came across a hoard of reporting software. He was intrigued by this hoarding. “As I was good at science and math, I had a fascination with computers and software. The next day, I did a feasibility analysis of making software and selling it to CAs. The results of the Excel sheet encouraged me. I worked on the project even though I later discovered that Excel analysis painted a rosy picture. At that time, I was already creating the software,” Goyal said.
The fact that the government introduced an online option for filing declarations in 2006 came as a hope. But KDK Software had to wait a few years to reach the milestone it was looking for. In 2010, when the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) decided to endow its small and medium CAs with
software, he opted for KDK’s software.
“The umbrella organization ICAI came up with the idea of helping small and medium CAs because they didn’t have the money to invest in technology. Our software has been enlisted and approved for the whole country. In accordance with the agreement, the first two years are free. This brought our product to a broader national market,” says Goyal, adding that today KDK is one of the top three companies in the country and controls 14% of the tax filing and compliance software market share. .
A defining twist came in 2014 for KDK Software. It was bought by the American multinational Intuit, an accounting software publisher with a 98% market share. KDK became a wholly owned subsidiary of Intuit, with Kapil running the company as a unit head but as an employee of the global company. “The idea of going with Intuit was that I was the sole director of KDK. I thought the company should not be dependent on one person. As per the agreement, I was leading the unit,” explains Goyal.
After operating the unit for a year and a half, the American company suddenly announced India as an experimental market. It meant they were going to scale down operations here. Kapil suddenly sensed that the KDK might face an uncertain future. One day, one of Intuit’s top executives suggested to him if he would be interested in buying the company. Goyal was in trouble.
“I told them to give me a month to make up my mind. I went to a consultant and asked for his opinion. He weighed the merits and demerits. In the meantime, I searched the net for such deals, but I couldn’t find any cases of a takeover of the entire company,” Kapil recalls. But he accepted the proposal believing that the fate of so many employees was linked to the agreement. More than that, it was her own baby. “I agreed to buy the company. Over the two and a half years, Intuit had scrapped several KDK ventures because it didn’t align with their overall vision and changed many services. Despite the changes, I bought it back and restarted many services they had shut down,” Goyal says.
It was more of a moral and emotional decision that he made consciously. Financially, the case was not rewarding.
When the GST came around in 2017, he thought it would give a good boost to business. Several changes to the software platform and a sketchy rollout delayed this bargain. CAs remained the main market for his software, not the individual companies he had expected earlier. “Only 5% of declarations are filed by individuals. 95% are by CAs. But the current trend is good because the GST has stabilized now. People would prefer software to produce their returns instead of CAs. I think the CAs will remain advisors only and will intervene if there are legal problems. This will expand our market,” says Kapil.
With around 27,000 customers, KDK sees individual segments of the market growing rapidly from here. But he is now focusing on another business where companies can reduce their working capital needs. The fintech, focused on book receivables, will create a buyer profile for companies to get payments on time.
Kapil says that throughout this trip, his wife Sangeeta stood behind him like a rock.