How do accounting firms chase client documents before deadlines?
Accounting firms chase client documents before deadlines by timing every request to the deadline it serves and handing the chasing to a system. The deadline sets when the request goes out and when the records must be complete. The request lists what is missing, reminders run on a schedule until each item lands, what arrives is checked against the list and filed to the client's record, and a stalled request goes to a named person in time to act.
Updated
How does document chasing run before a deadline?
The system works on top of the practice software the firm already runs, Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent, IRIS and Dext among them. Nothing is replaced, and every step below is a rule your firm sets rather than a black box.
Onboard every client the same way
Each new client is walked through the same steps: the engagement letter, the AML checks as your firm's own procedures define them, and the services and deadlines the client is signed up for. All of it is recorded once, in the client file, so every request that follows starts from the same facts, and the engagement letter comes up for renewal on the same schedule.
Work back from each deadline
The system holds each client's deadlines, the year end, the periodic returns and the filing dates the engagement covers, and works back from them: the date the request must go out, the date the records must be complete, and the time your team needs in between to do the work. A request is never late because someone forgot the calendar.
Ask once, for exactly what is missing
The request goes out as a checklist of the documents and figures that engagement needs, written for the client rather than for an accountant, with a single place to send them. A client who owes one bank statement is asked for one bank statement, not sent the whole list again.
Remind on a schedule, and stop when it lands
Reminders run on their own, on a sequence set by the deadline rather than by whoever has a quiet afternoon. Each names only what is still outstanding, and each stops the moment the item arrives, so a client who sent everything on Tuesday is not chased on Wednesday.
Check what arrives against the list
Each document is matched to the request, filed to the client's record in the practice software, and ticked off the list. A partial submission is acknowledged with what remains, so the client always knows where they stand.
Answer routine queries from the client file
When a client asks what you still need, whether the statements arrived or when the return is due, a reply is drafted from the client file and waits for a person to send it. The accountant checks a sentence instead of searching an inbox.
Escalate in time, and report the week
A request that stalls goes to a named person with the history already gathered, while there is still time to act and before the deadline makes it urgent. Each week you get a plain-language report: which clients are complete, which are not and what they owe, and the days from document request to complete records, the number the review measures first.
What does this replace?
The email and spreadsheet status quo
- Document requests sent when someone notices the deadline is close
- The same list emailed to every client, whether they owe one item or twelve
- Chasing done by the accountant who should be doing the work
- Statements and receipts arriving by email, by chat and on paper, filed by hand
- No view of which clients are complete until the week of the deadline
After
- Each request timed to its deadline and to the time the work needs
- A checklist of exactly what is missing, updated as each item arrives
- Reminders that run on a schedule and stop when the item lands
- Documents matched to the request and filed to the client's record in the practice software
- A weekly view of who is complete, who is not, and the days from request to complete records
What is the late paperwork costing the practice?
Every deadline starts with a client who hasn't sent the documents. We will not put a number on it before we have measured your client list, but the mechanism is plain. Work that could have been spread across a quarter is compressed into the days before the deadline, because the records arrived in the days before the deadline. The person doing the chasing is the person who should be doing the work, so the chase costs the firm twice. And the deadline does not move: what arrives late is done late, in a rush, often outside working hours. The number the review measures first is the days from document request to complete records, client by client, on your own data, before anything is built.
How long does it take to set up?
It starts with a review, about a week, that finds where requests and documents stall in your practice and what each fix is worth. A first working version is usually live in two to four weeks: one client journey, usually the document request for one service line, live in your practice software against a written baseline. Then onboarding, the routine queries and the engagement letter renewals, once the first journey holds. After that we run and extend it, monthly, and you can cancel at any time.
When is this not worth doing?
- If you take on only a few new clients a month and chase only a handful of records a year, a checklist and a person are enough
- If the practice has no client portal or checklist yet, buy the software first: that is what it is for
- If the work you want gone is the bookkeeping itself, that is a different service from ours
- If your records already arrive on time and you already know the days from request to complete, the gain is small and we will say so
- If you are about to change practice management systems, wait until that settles rather than building twice
Frequently asked questions
How do accounting firms chase client documents before deadlines?
By working back from each client's deadline to the date the request must go out, asking once for exactly what is missing, and reminding on a schedule that stops when each item lands. What arrives is checked against the list and filed to the client's record, and a request that stalls goes to a named person while there is still time. The system sits on top of the practice software the firm already runs.
Does this work with Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent, IRIS or Dext?
Yes. We build on top of the practice software the firm already runs, including Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent, IRIS and Dext, rather than asking you to move to a new platform. The documents are filed to the client's record where it already lives.
What happens to the AML checks?
They run as administrative steps in your onboarding, the way your firm's own procedures define them: the request for the documents, the chase until they arrive, and the record of what was received and when. What the procedures contain is your firm's decision, and a person signs off wherever your procedures ask for a person.
Will a client receive an email nobody at the firm has read?
Only the kind you choose. Every action sits behind one of three gates: confirmations, reminders and filing run on their own; replies, quotes and documents are drafted, then wait for a person to approve them; payments, anything sensitive and anything else leaving the firm, a person decides. Which gate each action sits behind is agreed before anything is built.
How much does it cost to automate document chasing?
It starts with a review, about a week, that finds where requests and documents stall and what each fix is worth. The build is then scoped and quoted at a fixed price, against acceptance criteria written before it starts: what the system will do, measured how, by when. If it misses, the fix is ours.
Will it replace the practice administrator?
No. It removes the sending, the re-sending and the filing, so the administrator's time goes on the clients who need a conversation. Anything the rules do not cover goes to a named person with the context already gathered.
See where the time is going
Book a private review. On a short call we map where work is getting stuck in your firm and whether there is a system worth building. No pitch, and if there is nothing there worth doing, we will say so.