Utica MBA Student Creates App to Transform Tax Preparation

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Utica MBA Student Creates App to Transform Tax Preparation

Pratiksha Bista, in purple top and lon gdark hair, smiles at camera.

Namnu is a free mobile app that allows users to track their annual expenses by simply uploading invoices and then generating a report they can send directly to their accountant – without ever granting access to their bank accounts or sensitive information.

Often the most sought-after innovations are ones that offer simple solutions to common problems. For Pratiksha Bista G’25, MBA candidate at Utica University, that journey of discovery began during tax season.

While interning at an accounting firm, Bista saw countless clients carrying bags and shoeboxes of invoices and receipts to meetings with their tax preparer. Away from the office, she watched as her sister-in-law, who is a tax preparer, similarly struggled with large stacks of client receipts.

She knew that, for these clients, the only alternative was a monthly bookkeeping service, which can prove costly and require the sharing of bank logins and other private information.

“I was like, can we create something that could record the transaction in a very systematic way so that during the tax season, it makes life a little bit easier for people like my sister-in-law and, really, anyone who has to collect receipts?” says Bista.

Before long, she was able to answer that question in the affirmative with Namnu. Developed by Bista, Namnu is a free mobile app that allows users to track their annual expenses by simply uploading invoices and then generating a report they can send directly to their accountant – without ever granting access to their bank accounts or sensitive information.

“You just take a picture of the invoice or receipt, choose a category (for the expense), and the app records the expense,” she explains. “During tax season, you can export a clean file and share it with your tax preparer, and it’s all free. No monthly fees – nothing.”

Namnu is now live on the App Store.

Bista credits her MBA faculty and coursework – as well as the mentorship of several relatives and close friends from back home in Nepal who had gone through Utica’s MBA program before her – with helping shape the app’s vision and growth strategy.

“The MBA program is very challenging. The faculty prepare us not just for our careers, but for leadership roles. They get us to think outside the box to solve problems,” she says.

Bista’s journey from Nepal to Utica began at a young age, and today the decision is paying dividends.

“Coming to the United States has always been on my bucket list, especially for my studies. My uncle studied at the University of California, and when he used to visit us during holidays, he talked so fondly about his life at the university. That kind of made me dream as a young girl already of coming to study in the United States,” says Bista, who earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Nepal.

“Life at university in Nepal and in the United States are completely different. When I decided I wanted to pursue my MBA, I looked at programs in the U.S. and thought, ‘Why not? Let’s give it a shot.’”

One of Bista’s friends who graduated from Utica helped nudge her in the direction of becoming a Pioneer. “When I was talking to him about wanting to do my MBA, he told me I’d never find a university that provides as high quality an education as affordably as Utica does,” she says.

Bista will graduate from Utica in December, after which she plans to return home to Nepal, which has undergone severe social and political unrest in recent months resulting in a change of national leadership. In addition to resuming her career in finance, which she put on hold to study in America, she plans to pursue teaching with an eye to making a positive contribution back home. While the challenges facing Nepal are far from simple, Bista wants in some small way to be part of the solution.

“Whatever I’ve learned from the University, from my professors,” she says, “I’d like to bring back to help my home country.”