Case Study

Estate Genius: a custom web app that tamed IHT400 probate admin

When Oakwood Estate Planning Ltd needed a smarter way to track estates and complete IHT400 inheritance tax forms, PCs Unlimited designed and built Estate Genius from the ground up.

Custom Web App IHT400 Probate Estate Planning

3 mo

From brief to beta

IHT400

Forms auto-populated

100%

Tailored to Oakwood

Cloud

Secure access anywhere

The Challenge

Keeping track of IHT400 forms was eating into client time

Oakwood Estate Planning Ltd guides families through wills, trusts, lasting powers of attorney and probate across Hampshire and nationwide. As their caseload grew, so did the paperwork that follows every estate, especially the IHT400 inheritance tax return.

The team was working across spreadsheets, Word templates and scanned PDFs. Client details were re-entered several times, deadlines were tracked in separate diaries, and it was hard to see the full picture of an estate at a glance. A single missing field could delay an IHT400 submission for weeks.

Bayarmaa Howard, Managing Director, wanted one clean system that her team could trust from first instruction through to HMRC submission.

          What was going wrong
          Re-typing the same client data into multiple forms
No single view of progress across open estates
Deadlines and HMRC response dates slipping through the cracks
Version mix-ups between drafts and final PDFs
Admin work cutting into the time available for clients

        

The Solution

Estate Genius: one system, one source of truth

PCs Unlimited built a secure, cloud-based web application that puts every estate detail, document and deadline in one place.

Smart IHT400 wizard

A step-by-step questionnaire walks the team through each schedule, validating numbers as they go and flagging missing fields before submission.

Estate dashboard

Every open case is visible on one dashboard: deadlines, document status, next actions and assigned team members.

Document upload

Wills, death certificates, valuations and correspondence are attached directly to each estate, so nothing is lost in an inbox.

Secure by default

Role-based access, encrypted cloud storage and automatic backups keep sensitive client data protected.

The Result

Fewer errors, faster submissions, calmer clients

With Estate Genius, the Oakwood team no longer starts each IHT400 from scratch. Client information is entered once and flows into the right forms, letters and schedules. The dashboard highlights what needs attention each day, so deadlines are met and families are kept informed.

The app has also cut the time spent on admin between client meetings, freeing up the team to focus on the parts of probate that need a human touch.

"Estate Genius has completely changed how we handle probate. We no longer dread the IHT400 process, and the time we save on each estate means we can give clients more of our attention."

Bayarmaa Howard

Managing Director, Oakwood Estate Planning Ltd

Visit oakwood-estate-planning.co.uk

Professional Wills, Trusts, Lasting Powers of Attorney and Probate services across Hampshire and nationwide.

About the Client

Oakwood Estate Planning Ltd

Oakwood Estate Planning Ltd is a Hampshire-based firm led by Bayarmaa Howard. They specialise in wills, trusts, lasting powers of attorney and probate, with home visits across the county and a new office in Portsmouth.

The Estate Genius web app was built to support their growing team and the increasing complexity of modern estate administration.

Could a custom web app help your business?

Whether you need to streamline forms, manage cases or replace a spreadsheet with a real application, we can design and build it.

Call 07900 936116 Get a Quote