The free payroll calculator is live. PF calculations work. ESI, PT, and TDS run in the browser. Thousands of employees have been calculated through the tool already.
So what's next?
We get this question a lot — from people who've used the tool, from CAs who've shared it with clients, and from other founders who are curious about the business model underneath. This post is our honest answer.
Where we are right now
The core payroll engine is done. The hard part — parsing messy salary sheets in any format, mapping arbitrary column headers to salary components, and running the full PF/ESI/PT/TDS rules for every Indian state — that's all working.
What's not done yet is the output side. Right now the tool calculates everything correctly, but it only generates the PF ECR file. The other three outputs — ESI statement, PT challan, payslips — are still in progress.
| Output | Status | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| PF ECR file | Done | EPFO-ready text file for monthly PF filing |
| ESI statement | Next | CSV with employee + employer ESI contributions |
| PT challan summary | Next | State-wise Professional Tax challan data |
| Payslips PDF | Next | Branded payslips for every employee, bulk download |
| TDS working sheet | Later | Form 24Q summary with annualized projection |
The order matters. ESI and PT come before payslips because they're the compliance filings — that's where the pain is highest and the stakes are clearest. Payslips matter to employees, but a wrong ESI challan gets you a notice. We're solving the scarier problem first.
The thing nobody talks about: direct filing
Right now, the tool generates the file. You still have to log into the EPFO portal, upload the ECR, enter the challan details, and complete the filing yourself. That's five steps we're not touching yet.
Eventually, we want to close that gap. Not just generate the file — but file it. Click once, it's done. No portal logins, no format errors, no deadline panic.
We're not there yet because direct EPFO/ESIC filing requires an institutional relationship we haven't built. But it's the natural end state. The person doing payroll doesn't want a file. They want confirmation that it's filed.
"I don't want to download a file and upload it somewhere else. I just want it done."
We've heard this in almost every user conversation. It's the north star.
After the tool: the API
Here's something we haven't talked about publicly yet.
The payroll rules engine we've built — the thing that knows PF caps, ESI thresholds, PT slabs for all 28 states, TDS projections — it's not just powering our tool. It's infrastructure. And infrastructure is worth something to other people too.
We're exploring a payroll API. The idea: CAs, HR software companies, and accounting tools that need accurate Indian payroll calculations can call our API instead of building and maintaining the rules engine themselves. Indian payroll rules change constantly — new PT slabs, PF circulars, budget amendments. Keeping that current is an ongoing job that most teams don't want.
The API pitch in one sentence: You handle the product. We handle Indian payroll compliance. ₹X per employee per month — you decide the markup to your users.
We don't have pricing or launch timelines for this yet. We're talking to the CAs and HR teams who've used the free tool to understand what the integration would actually look like. If you're building something that needs Indian payroll calculations, reach out — we'd like to talk.
The honest version of the roadmap
Next 4 weeks: Ship ESI statement, PT challan, payslips PDF. Get the full free tool to "complete."
Next 3 months: Get 50 real users running payroll through the tool every month. Learn what's wrong. Fix it. Talk to every person who uses it.
Next 6 months: Launch the API in private beta with 3–5 CA firms or HR tools. Figure out pricing. Figure out what they actually need vs. what we assumed they need.
Long term: Direct filing, attendance, full payroll-as-a-service. But only once the foundation is trusted.
That's it. No roadmap deck, no investor narrative. Just what we're actually doing and why.
If you're using the tool and want to tell us what's missing — or if you're building something where an Indian payroll API would be useful — send us an email. We read everything.