Accounting firm CRM for tax and advisory practices
The best enquiries of the year arrive in the middle of busy season, when every partner is buried in returns. An accounting firm CRM answers them that day, sorts the business owner worth an annual engagement from the one-off return, sends the proposal and onboards the new client, so growth does not stop for deadlines. Your practice management and tax software stay where they are.
For firms with 10 to 250 staff- Website enquiry answeredSame afternoon, during busy season
- Discovery meeting bookedFollowing Tuesday, 30 minutes
- Proposal signedMonthly fee, card on file
- Onboarding checklist sentID, prior accounts, software access
- Client referrals
- Your website
- Google Business Profile
- Banks and lenders
- Solicitors and lawyers
- Financial advisers
- Software partner directories
- Local networking
- Past enquiries
- Clients leaving another firm
New business arrives when you have least time for it
Accounting firms sell in the wrong season. Business owners look for a new accountant when a deadline is close, a lender asks for accounts, or their current firm has not called back. That is exactly when your partners and managers are working through returns. The enquiry waits until the weekend, the reply is rushed, and the business owner signs with the firm that answered on the day.
The firms that get past this have stopped treating sales as something a partner does between returns. They answer every enquiry the same day, ask a few questions that separate a business with monthly bookkeeping, payroll and advisory needs from a one-off personal return, and send a fixed-fee proposal while the prospect still remembers why they called.
Then onboarding drags. The new client is asked for identification, prior-year accounts and software access in separate emails, nobody chases, and the first month of fees is spent waiting. Meanwhile the existing clients who would pay for advisory never hear about it, because the only time anyone speaks to them is when the records are late.
Busy-season enquiries wait
The best prospects of the year get a reply days later, after they have signed elsewhere.
Every enquiry gets a partner call
One-off returns and growing businesses take the same senior time before anyone knows which is which.
Proposals go unchased
A fixed-fee proposal is sent in March and nobody follows up until it is too late.
Advisory is never offered
Clients who would pay for planning only hear from you when their records are late.
Enquiries answered in busy season.
Proposals followed up.
New clients onboarded on time.
Every enquiry answered the same day, even in busy season
The platform replies on the channel the enquiry came in on, reads what the business needs and puts it in front of the right partner or manager.
Instant lead response
- Trigger
Starts when
A business owner enquires through your website, a referral email, a missed call or your Google Business Profile
Enquiry captured
Every source lands on one contact record, so no enquiry sits in a partner's inbox.
InstantFind the contact
Match on email or phone
- New contactNot in the CRM yet
Same-day reply
A personal reply goes out with a few questions and a link to book a discovery meeting.
Under 60 secondsWait for an answer
Up to 2 minutes
Need read
AI labels the need: one-off return, annual accounts, bookkeeping, payroll or advisory.
Seconds- Ready to talkWants a call or a time
Call-back within 5 minutes
The owner is connected to the lead
Partner alerted
The right partner or manager gets the enquiry, the answers and the booked meeting.
InstantProspect opened
The prospect moves through discovery, proposal sent, signed and onboarding.
Instant- Done
- Just lookingNo time yet
Moved to nurture
Useful follow-up on a rhythm
- End
- Ready to talkWants a call or a time
- Existing clientAlready in the CRM
Sent to their account owner
With the full history attached
Owner notified
By text and in the app
- End
- New contactNot in the CRM yet
- Website form: limited company, current accountant not respondingnew
- Reply sent with three questions and a booking linksent
- Answers in: monthly bookkeeping, payroll for 14 staff, year-end
- Labelled: annual engagement, assigned to the business services partner
- Discovery meeting booked for the week after the deadlinebooked
- Prospect opened at discovery booked, source: websitedone
Illustration of a typical enquiry answered while the partners were on deadline work.
Where new client enquiries leak before a signed engagement
Put in your own figures for a typical month in busy season. The result is your arithmetic, not a promise.
Based on the figures you entered
This is your own arithmetic on the figures you entered, not a result levelpartner.ai has produced for anyone.
How this is calculated
value of a booked meeting = your close rate × first-year value
low estimate: enquiries with no reply × your conversation rate × your booking rate × value of a meeting
high estimate: the low estimate + enquiries replied to without a conversation × your booking rate × value of a meeting
The low figure counts only enquiries nobody replied to. The high figure adds enquiries that got a reply but never became a conversation. Not every one of them was winnable.
Worked example. 100 enquiries, 80% replied to, 60% of those reach a conversation, 40% of conversations book, 25% of meetings close at 5,000: 20 enquiries get no reply and 32 never reach a conversation, roughly 6,000 to 22,000 of first-year revenue at stake each month.
What an accounting firm CRM needs to do
Practice management runs the work. A CRM runs the growth: enquiries, proposals, onboarding and the conversations that lead to advisory. Six parts of the platform matter most.
A same-day answer for every enquiry
An AI agent answers website chat, text and WhatsApp from your own information: services, typical fees if you publish them, and who you work with. It asks your qualifying questions and offers a discovery meeting. Missed calls get a text back from the number the caller dialled. Run the agent in suggestion mode until you trust its drafts.
A pipeline from enquiry to onboarded
Stages for enquiry, discovery booked, proposal sent, signed, onboarding and active, each with the annual fee. Booking a meeting or a signed proposal moves the prospect on its own, and a stale rule flags any proposal that has sat unanswered for the days you set.
Proposals and engagement letters
Send a proposal or engagement letter from a template with the client's name and fee filled in, collect an e-signature with an audit certificate, and take a card or direct payment for a monthly fee. A follow-up goes out if it is not opened within the days you choose.
Onboarding that chases itself
When a proposal is signed, the new client gets one checklist: identification, prior-year accounts, authority forms and software access, with uploads through a form that writes to their record. Reminders stop when everything is in. Your identity checks still run in the tool you use for them.
Advisory meetings that get booked
Booking pages for discovery meetings, year-end reviews and tax planning, with reminders by text and email. Send a review invitation to a client segment in one go, and let each client choose a time that suits them.
Email that keeps clients close
A short newsletter to clients and past enquiries every month or quarter: deadline reminders, a change worth knowing about and an offer of a review. The prospect who was not ready in March still knows who to call in September.
- When a proposal is signed
- Then send the onboarding checklist with an upload link
- If items are missing after three days, remind by text
- Else tell the manager the client is ready to start
- Always log each message on the client record
What runs when, through the year
Deadlines differ by country and client type, so these are set up on your own dates. The point is that each one runs without a partner remembering it.
Before the peak
Book planning meetings and year-end reviews with existing clients, and send the records checklist early with reminders that stop once the client has uploaded.
During the peak
The AI agent and missed-call text back answer new enquiries the same day. Prospects who only need a one-off return get a clear price and a booking link; business owners are offered a discovery meeting after the deadline.
After the peak
Follow up every proposal sent during busy season, book the discovery meetings that were deferred, and ask clients whose work went well for a review.
Quiet months
Send a short newsletter to past enquiries and clients, and offer advisory reviews to the clients whose numbers suggest they would benefit.
From partner inboxes and a proposal tool to one system
A typical firm handles new business across a shared inbox, partners' own email, a booking link, a proposal tool, an email newsletter tool and a spreadsheet of prospects. Practice management, the client portal for working papers and your tax software stay exactly where they are.
The usual firm stack
- Enquiries in partners' own inboxes, answered after the deadline
- Prospects tracked in a spreadsheet, if at all
- Proposals, booking and newsletters in three separate tools
- Onboarding requests sent and chased by hand
One platform
- Every enquiry on one record, answered the same day
- A pipeline with the annual fee of every prospect
- Proposals, signatures, booking and email on one licence
- An onboarding checklist that chases itself
One licence with unlimited users, so seasonal staff and new managers add no seat fee.
One licence, no tiers
Every feature is available on one licence, with no tiers to climb and no per-seat fees. Usage is billed as used, including WhatsApp, premium workflow steps, local listings sync and AI; implementation and custom work are priced separately and agreed before any work starts.
levelpartner.ai
€7,512
a year, the platform licence
- Every feature is available on one licence, with no tiers
- Unlimited users and unlimited contacts, no per-seat fee
- 30 hours of onboarding included, plus a 30-day check-in after launch
- Implementation beyond the included hours at €85 an hour, scoped and approved first
- Custom builds quoted to scope
- Usage billed as used: email, SMS, calls, WhatsApp, AI, premium workflow steps and local listings sync, at published rates
Guides worth reading first
Automate customer onboarding: how it works and how to set it up
Automate customer onboarding from the moment a deal is marked won: send the agreement, create your team's tasks at once and chase unsigned paperwork.
Sales follow up: how it works and how to set it up
The personal half of sales follow up: a dated task for every touch and a library of tested snippets each salesperson adapts so it never reads like a template.
Email nurture campaign: how it works and how to set it up
Run an email nurture campaign for leads who are interested but not ready, choose who enters, space the emails sensibly and stop the moment they respond.
The same platform, written for other professional firms: law firms, financial advisers and insurance agencies. If most of your fees are advisory projects, the consultants page may fit better. The CRM, invoicing and back-office jobs every service firm shares are on the AI back office page. Or see every industry we write for.
Questions buyers ask
What is the best CRM for an accounting firm?
The one that handles the work practice management does not: answering enquiries quickly, separating annual engagements from one-off returns, sending proposals and engagement letters, onboarding new clients and booking advisory meetings. It should sit beside your practice management system, not replace it.
Do accounting firms need a CRM if they already have practice management software?
Practice management runs jobs, deadlines, documents and billing for clients you already have. A CRM runs growth: prospects, proposals, follow-up and marketing to clients and past enquiries. Many firms use the CRM features of their practice management tool for existing clients and add a CRM for everything before the engagement is signed.
How do accounting firms get more clients?
Mostly from referrals and from being the firm that answers. Ask for reviews and introductions when work has gone well, answer every enquiry the same day even in busy season, follow up every proposal, and stay in touch with prospects who were not ready. Each of those can run on its own once it is set up.
Can it collect documents and identification from new clients?
Yes, through forms with file upload that write to the client record, with reminders until everything is in. Working papers and ongoing document exchange usually stay in your client portal, and identity and anti-money-laundering checks stay in the tool you use for them. Check your professional body's rules on where client data may be held.
Can we send proposals and engagement letters for signature?
Yes. Templates fill in the client's details and fee, the client signs online, and you get an audit certificate. You can add a second signer, an expiry date and a follow-up, and take a card or direct payment for a monthly fee on signing.
What does it cost for an accounting firm?
The licence is €7,512 a year with unlimited users and 30 hours of onboarding included. Implementation beyond that is €85 an hour, agreed before any hours are billed. Email, SMS and voice usage is billed as used at the published rates.
Find where your new business stalls
Bring last year's enquiries and proposals. On the call we trace where prospects dropped out and tell you plainly which fix would pay first, before next busy season.
Book a strategy call
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Keep winning clients through busy season
An accounting firm CRM that answers enquiries the same day, chases proposals and onboards new clients while your team works through the deadline.