Identity Is Not a One-Time Setup
Building the Freelancer Identity feature, I realized I had been thinking about identity the wrong way. It isn't static: a person may live in France one year and the UAE the next, or move from employee to freelancer to company owner — same person, but a changing legal, tax, and financial identity. So we're redesigning it into My Identity: a page for every user that treats documents and country changes as identity events on a timeline. Because compliance isn't one correct form — it's continuity.
While developing the Freelancer Identity feature in SnapLedger, I realized that I had been thinking about identity in the wrong way.
At first, the feature was mainly designed for freelancer onboarding. We asked users where they lived, whether they were registered as a freelancer or sole trader, and what permits or registrations they already had.
Identity is not static
But identity is not static.
A person may live in France this year and move to the UAE next year. They may begin as an employee, start freelancing, register as a sole trader, obtain a permit, or later establish a company.
The person remains the same, but their legal, tax, and financial identity keeps changing.
Each change may create new compliance obligations.
From Freelancer Identity to My Identity
That is why I decided to redesign Freelancer Identity into a more general tool called My Identity.
The basic identity-management page will be available to every individual user, not only those who purchase the Freelancer Add-on. Freelancer-specific registrations, permits, and tax obligations will remain in separate sections under the add-on package.
SnapLedger already asks users for their legal name in their local language, together with their English first and last name. This should become the foundation for matching identity-related documents.
A document is more than a file
When a user uploads a national ID, visa, driving licence, freelancer permit, business registration, or sole trader declaration, SnapLedger should not treat it as an isolated file.
It should understand which identity the document belongs to, which country issued it, when it became valid, when it expires, and whether it creates or changes a compliance obligation.
The goal is not simply to store documents. It is to gradually build a reliable understanding of the user's identity.
Changing country is an identity event
I also realized that changing residence country should not be treated like changing a normal profile setting.
A move may affect tax residency, home currency, registrations, filing obligations, and required documents.
For this reason, the residence country shown under My Account → Individual Details should become read-only. Any change should be managed through My Identity.
This allows SnapLedger to treat the move as an identity event. The system can record the effective date, update the home currency, and optionally ask the user to upload new supporting documents.
Identity as a timeline
Most importantly, SnapLedger should not overwrite the old identity when something changes.
Identity should become a timeline.
The system should know where the user lived, which registrations they held, and which documents were valid during each period.
This matters because compliance does not disappear when a user moves country. An old tax account may still require a final filing. A permit may need to be cancelled. A document may expire. A previous registration may still create an obligation.
Compliance is continuity
One of the most important lessons I have learned while building SnapLedger is that compliance is not about completing one form correctly.
It is about continuity.
Once a user starts using SnapLedger, the platform should continuously manage the evolution of that person's legal and financial identity.
Traditional accounting software begins with accounts and transactions. But before a system can correctly determine how someone should report income, register for tax, or remain compliant, it needs to understand who that person is — not only today, but over time.
That is why My Identity is becoming a foundational part of SnapLedger.
Identity isn't a one-time setup — it's a timeline. A person's legal, tax, and financial identity keeps changing, and the system should record where they lived and what they held during each period, not overwrite the past.
When your circumstances change — a new country, a new registration, a company — should your software quietly overwrite the old you, or remember who you were and what that still requires?
Before software can tell someone how to report income or stay compliant, it has to understand who they are — not only today, but over time. That's why My Identity is becoming a foundation of SnapLedger.
Get the Founder Diary + regulatory updates for your country
One email per week, only when there’s something real — Richard’s founder diary and the regulatory updates that matter where you live. Free, unsubscribe any time.