Requirements checklist
What to ask for when choosing software for chartered accountant firms.
A checklist built from how chartered accountant 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.
- Client masters and fee terms
- Compliance calendar by client
- Document request portal
- Acknowledgements and filed copies
- Notices and representations
- Staff timesheets
- Billing and recovery
Roles that need their own access
Who logs in, and what each person may see or change.
- For partners
- For managers
- For trainee assistants
- For office and accounts staff
- For clients
Reports to ask for
Ask to see each one with your own sample data.
- Filings due in the next seven, fifteen and thirty days, by client and by staff member, with the reviewer named beside each one and the date it was last updated
- Jobs pending with each trainee and each manager, oldest first
- Clients whose papers are still awaited, with the number of chases against each and the date of the last request, so the partner can decide which clients to call this week
- Filings completed this month, with acknowledgement numbers
- Fees billed, received and outstanding, client by client and by age, with part payments shown as balances, so the recovery follow-up starts from the real amount
- Work done for a client against the fee agreed for it
- Clients who have been billed nothing this year
Systems it may need to connect to
Note which ones you already run.
- WhatsApp click-to-chat
- Email reminders
- Accounting package export, agreed at set-up
- Excel imports of your client list
- Bank transfer and card payment records
Questions for any vendor
Put these to every supplier you are comparing.
- Can company registry filings and audit assignments be tracked, or only sales tax, withholding and income tax?
- Does it file returns on the tax authority portal?
- How does it follow up with clients who have not sent papers?
- Does it hold a signature certificate register or a sign-off number log?
- How does it work with our accounting package?
- Can our client list and pending work be moved from Excel?
- The professional institute offers members a practice management system of its own. Why pay for this?
- Who owns the client data?
- What does it cost?
- We already keep a due-date Excel that works. Why change?
- How long before the firm can drop its due-date sheet?
- What should partners prepare?
Where the work usually breaks today
Circle the ones you recognise. They set the order of the project.
- Clients send documents late
- The tracker is out of date
- The filed copy cannot be found
- Who is working on what is unclear
- Fees are billed late
Prefer to talk it through? See the chartered accountant firms page.