Requirements checklist
What to ask for when choosing software for accounting outsourcing firms.
A checklist built from how accounting outsourcing firms work, to print or save as a PDF and bring to any supplier meeting.
What the software should cover
Tick each one that matters to your business.
- Engagement and scope register
- Document intake and coding queue
- Maker and checker review
- Bank and ledger reconciliation
- Month-end close tracker
- Client query log
- Time, utilisation and fee billing
Roles that need their own access
Who logs in, and what each person may see or change.
- For delivery managers
- For team leads
- For processors
- For reviewers and senior accountants
- For client controllers
Reports to ask for
Ask to see each one with your own sample data.
- Documents received, coded and posted by client and period
- Review error rate by type, processor and client
- Unmatched bank items by account, with age
- Close checklist status across all clients this month
- Open client queries by age and owner
- Hours logged against hours priced, by engagement
- Fees invoiced and unpaid by client
Systems it may need to connect to
Note which ones you already run.
- Client accounting packages
- Bank statement files
- Cloud storage
- SMS and messaging
- Payment gateway
Questions for any vendor
Put these to every supplier you are comparing.
- Does it replace the client’s accounting package?
- Can a processor handle several clients without mixing rules?
- How are review errors recorded?
- Can we run payables for one client and full bookkeeping for another one?
- How does the close checklist work?
- Can clients log in?
- How are fees billed?
- Can our existing client list and queues be loaded?
- Who owns the records?
- How is a client engagement priced, and can we first try it on a single client?
Where the work usually breaks today
Circle the ones you recognise. They set the order of the project.
- Client rules live in people’s heads
- Documents arrive from every direction
- Review sits outside the work
- Fixed fees hide the real hours
- Month end collides across clients
Prefer to talk it through? See the accounting outsourcing firms page.