Modernizing Tax e-Filing With Flutter and Cloud

Berkheimer has over 80 years of successful collection and administration for the state of Pennsylvania. As the state’s largest tax administrator, efficient collection and distribution of state revenue is paramount. Building a mobile app with Flutter ensured that the app could be accessible to all taxpayers while keeping development costs as efficient as possible.

We built a best-in-class E-File app for Pennsylvania’s largest tax authority.

The Challenge

Tax authorities face growing pressure to deliver digital tools that are not only secure and reliable, but also intuitive for everyday users. For H.A. Berkheimer, Pennsylvania’s largest tax authority, the need was urgent: their existing electronic filing and payment systems were outdated, difficult to navigate, and not optimized for mobile.

Key challenges included:

Outdated technology that couldn’t scale or meet modern security expectations.
Poor user experience, especially for non-technical or first-time users.
Limited mobile support, leaving taxpayers unable to file or pay conveniently on their devices.
Lack of integrations with secure payment platforms and mobile document capture.

Our Solution

We partnered with Berkheimer to create a new, mobile-first E-File app built in Flutter. Our solution prioritized usability, security, and seamless integration, ensuring that taxpayers could quickly and confidently complete critical tasks. App elements included:

Seamless Integrations: Payment processing via the Official Payments platform and document capture with the Kofax SDK.
User-Centric Design: An intuitive wizard-style flow guiding users step-by-step.
Modern & Secure Cloud Backend: Infrastructure designed for performance, high availability, and compliance.

How We Did It

Delivering a secure, intuitive, and scalable app required a thoughtful approach to design and engineering. Our process included:

Design & UX Mapping: We created user journeys, prototypes, and interfaces that emphasized clarity, ensuring even first-time users could navigate complex filing tasks.
Technology & Architecture: Flutter was selected to deliver cross-platform consistency. Our team designed and deployed a secure cloud backend to handle sensitive taxpayer data with confidence.
Integrations: We implemented payment APIs for official processing and integrated Kofax SDK for document capture using mobile cameras.
Testing & Launching: Rigorous usability testing, performance stress testing, and security audits ensured the app was reliable at launch. Our team rolled this out incrementally to monitor adoption and refine the experience.

The Result

Multi-platform Mobile App

VGV used Flutter to create the best tax app for PA residents accessible to both iOS and Android mobile devices. Eliminating the duplicative costs of developing for multiple platforms was essential to Berkheimer’s efficiency goals.

Support & Enhancement

Since Berkheimer does not have an in-house mobile team, VGV has been a continuous partner to ensure long-term app success. Our experts monitor the app, apply updates, fix bugs, and continuously improve and enhance the product as its requirements and features grow.

Stats

100s of 1000s‍

Annual tax dollars processed

YoY user growth

Project Summary

Berkheimer Tax Innovations is Pennsylvania’s largest and most trusted tax administrator in Pennsylvania, processing millions of dollars in state revenue. As the industry leader, Berkheimer wanted to modernize and improve the user experience of filing and paying PA taxes. VGV created a clean, intuitive design and scalable Flutter app to streamline business operations and usher in a new era of customer experience.