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Accounting practice software development

For partners and practice managers in multi-partner accounting firms who need a client register, recurring job scheduling by deadline, a portal for document requests and approvals, secure messaging, onboarding checklists and fee billing designed around how their firm actually runs a year-end, rather than a generic practice tool bent to fit.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

A four-partner firm with six hundred client entities runs its year on a deadline spreadsheet that one manager owns.

  • Each row is an entity, a year-end and a service; each column is a month.
  • Jobs are assigned by writing initials in a cell.
  • When a senior leaves, her initials stay in the cells until someone notices.
  • Document requests go out by email from whichever accountant picks up the job, so the same client receives three slightly different lists for three services, and sends the bank statements back to the one person who is on holiday.

Where it gets harder

Approvals of draft accounts are a PDF attached to an email and a reply that says “fine”, which has to be found again months later.

  • Onboarding a new client involves a checklist in a Word document, an identity check whose result is recorded in a different system, and an engagement letter signed through a third tool.
  • Fees are raised from yet another spreadsheet, so a recurring retainer that should have gone up with the new engagement did not.
  • The partners cannot see, on any given Monday, which jobs are at risk this month, who is overloaded and which clients have not responded to a request in three weeks.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom accounting practice build normally covers the client register and everything that hangs off it. The register holds clients and the entities under each, with year-ends, services engaged, the responsible partner and manager, and the contacts authorised to approve. Recurring job scheduling creates jobs from each engagement by deadline type, assigns staff, tracks status through the stages you define and shows the month’s due list. Task checklists per job type give every accountant the same steps for the same job. The client portal issues document requests built from a list per service, tracks what has arrived, chases what has not and holds approvals with a signature capture and a record of who approved what and when. Secure messaging keeps client conversations against the client rather than in individual inboxes. An onboarding checklist records each step including the identity verification result and date, the engagement letter and the handover from a previous adviser. Fee billing raises invoices from completed jobs and recurring retainers and sends them to your accounting system. A staff workload view shows jobs per person by month against capacity.

We work through the firm with you first: how many entities and services, which deadline types drive the calendar, how jobs move between stages and who signs them off, what each service needs from a client, how approvals are evidenced, what onboarding requires and how fees are raised today. Each becomes a named workflow stage in the scope document.

Deliberately out of scope

  • The accounts production and tax software itself, which the firm keeps and which receives data through integration
  • Filing or submission to any authority, which stays with the firm and its filing tools
  • Any tax or financial advice, which the system never gives. The system records deadlines the firm enters and chases documents
  • The figures and their filing remain the firm’s professional responsibility

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A firm with three offices and a payroll bureau wants jobs scheduled by deadline type with office-specific staff pools, a portal where a client with four entities sees one request list, approvals that require two named signatories for some entities, and retainers billed monthly with a year-end true-up. The two-signatory approvals and office pools make this a custom build, and the scope document says so plainly.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes from mapping how a year-end job runs through your firm from request to approval
  • A written scope document naming each job stage, deadline type, request list, approval rule and billing trigger, and what is left out
  • Designs of the client register, the job board, the portal request list and the approval step on phone and desktop
  • The build, deployed to your hosting or ours, with job types and checklists configured from your working papers
  • Migration of clients, entities, year-ends, open jobs and recent documents from your spreadsheets and folders
  • Training for partners, managers and administrators, and a short guide for clients using the portal
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access to your deadline spreadsheet, client list, document request templates, engagement letter and the accounting system that raises fees.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Discovery with a partner, the practice manager and a senior accountant; job types, stages, request lists, approval rules and billing triggers are written into the scope document.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    The portal designed for a client on a phone; the job board, register and workload view designed for staff at a desk.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Built in layers: register and engagements, then job scheduling and checklists, then the portal with requests and approvals, then messaging, onboarding and billing.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    One office runs a month of real jobs and a handful of willing clients use the portal; the firm tells us where stages, requests or approvals do not match how it works.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Changes from the review are made and re-checked against the scope document.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Register and open jobs migrated and checked by the practice manager, fee export verified against a real month, portal invitations tested, launch checklist signed off.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    The firm runs its deadline calendar, requests, approvals and billing on the new system; hosting and maintenance continue under their own agreement if taken.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Accounting and bookkeeping platforms for fee invoices and retainer billing
  • Accounts production and tax software, receiving client and job data where an interface exists
  • Identity verification providers, as a record of the result and date on the onboarding checklist
  • E-signature providers for engagement letters and approvals
  • Email and calendar platforms for request chasers, deadlines and staff diaries
  • Document storage the firm already uses, so portal uploads land in the client file
  • Payment providers for card or direct debit collection of fees

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A three-office firm with a payroll bureau and two-signatory approvals

The situation

A firm with three offices and a payroll bureau wants jobs created by deadline type and assigned from an office-specific staff pool, a portal where a client with four entities sees a single combined request list, approvals that require two named signatories for certain entities before accounts are marked approved, and monthly retainers billed from the system with a true-up at year-end.

Why it is a custom build

The custom route is needed because multi-signatory approval rules and office-based staff pools go beyond the single-approver portal and firm-wide assignment the package offers.

The scope we would propose

  • An office attribute on staff and jobs with pool-based assignment, request lists generated per engagement and merged per client in the portal
  • An approval rule per entity naming the required signatories and holding the job until both have signed
  • A retainer schedule per engagement with a year-end adjustment line sent to the accounting system

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Number of clients, entities, services and staff, and the number of offices
  • Deadline types and job types to schedule, and the depth of each checklist
  • Portal requirements: request lists per service, approval rules and signature evidence
  • Onboarding steps and the identity verification provider to record from
  • Billing complexity: retainers, true-ups and the accounting system to connect
  • Accounts production, tax and document systems to integrate
  • Volume and condition of client records, open jobs and documents to migrate
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Accounting practice portal package

Client register with entities and year-ends, recurring jobs by deadline with staff assignment, a client portal for document requests and approvals, secure messaging, onboarding checklists, workload view and fee billing for multi-partner accounting practices.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How do you decide whether we need a custom build or the package?

During discovery we compare how your firm runs jobs and the portal against the accounting practice portal package. If firm-wide assignment, one approver per client and standard retainer billing cover your practice, we quote for the package. Office pools, multi-signatory approvals or integration with specific accounts production software point to the custom route.

Does the system file anything with the authorities?

No. It schedules jobs by the deadlines your firm enters, collects documents and records approvals. Filing and submissions stay with your filing software and your professional judgement, and the dates and figures are the firm’s responsibility.

Can clients approve accounts in the portal?

Yes. The draft is presented in the portal, the authorised contact signs on screen and the system records who approved, when, from where and which version. Whether that evidence meets your professional requirements is for the firm and its body to decide.

How does billing reach our accounting system?

Completed jobs and retainer schedules produce invoice lines that are sent to your accounting platform through its interface, or exported for upload where no interface exists. The invoice itself lives in your accounting system.

Who owns the system afterwards?

You do. The source code and your data are handed over at delivery. Hosting and maintenance are optional and separately agreed, and you can move the system to another provider.

Get a project quote for accounting practice software

Answer a few questions about your business, your current systems and what should change. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.

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