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Every accountancy firm chases clients. For information. Documents. Signatures. Approvals. Most practices accept it as part of the job. But every follow-up email, phone call and reminder takes time away from advisory work, client service and growth. The firms that spend the least time chasing aren't necessarily the ones with the easiest clients. They're the ones with better processes. ✔️ Clear, specific requests ✔️ A secure client portal ✔️ Automated reminders ✔️ Better workflows Reducing client chasing isn't about sending more reminders. It's about making it easier for clients to respond. We've explored this in our latest article, including practical ways to reduce unnecessary admin and free up more time for higher-value work. 👉 Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/e_-yVb5B #UKAccountancy #PracticeManagement #WorkflowAutomation #ClientExperience #AccountingTech

Most firms started their MTD planning by choosing software. The firms making the smoothest transition started somewhere else. They understood their clients first. When every client follows the same process, teams spend more time chasing information, managing exceptions and reacting to deadlines. Segmenting clients by readiness helps you prioritise effort, improve communication and build repeatable workflows that scale. We've put together a simple framework to explain the approach. ⬇️ Swipe through. If you're reviewing your MTD processes, start a free MyDocSafe trial to see how secure document collection, automated reminders, e-signatures and workflows can support your practice. 👉 Start your free trial: https://lnkd.in/e8Qe7YGp #MakingTaxDigital #UKAccountancy #PracticeManagement #ClientOnboarding #WorkflowAutomation

The best teams don't prepare when the tournament starts. By the time the first whistle blows, most of the important work has already happened. Training. Planning. Testing systems. Building confidence. It's no different for accountancy firms. With Making Tax Digital on the horizon, the practices that will handle the transition best won't necessarily be the biggest. They'll be the ones that start preparing before they have to. That means identifying which clients are still emailing documents, which onboarding processes are still manual, and where the team is most likely to feel pressure when deadlines start to stack up. Preparation isn't about doing everything today. It's about making small improvements now that prevent bigger headaches later. The firms that invest in better processes today will thank themselves when MTD becomes business as usual. #MakingTaxDigital #MTD #UKAccountancy #PracticeManagement #DigitalTransformation

A major professional services firm withdrew an AI report this week after inaccurate content was identified in the findings. The AI had generated case studies that didn't exist. The report was published before those inaccuracies were identified. It's a useful reminder that AI doesn't know when it's wrong. It presents incorrect information with the same confidence as accurate information. The lesson isn't that AI can't be trusted. It's that AI needs governance. For accounting firms exploring AI, success won't come from adopting it the fastest. It will come from putting the right controls around it: • Human review before anything is published • Clear accountability for AI-assisted outputs • A culture where verification is standard practice The firms that get the greatest value from AI won't be the ones adopting it the fastest. They'll be the ones putting the strongest governance around it. #AIinAccounting #UKAccountancy #PracticeManagement #AIGovernance

Chasing clients for documents has become so normal in many firms that we rarely stop and think about how much time it actually consumes. The real cost isn't just the admin. It's the delayed work, missed opportunities and pressure it creates for teams. Thanks to App Advisory Plus for featuring our latest article.

One thing we're hearing from accountants again and again: The issue isn't winning new clients. It's having the capacity to take them on. Many firms have enough demand. What they don't have is enough time. Time spent chasing documents. Time spent following up on engagement letters. Time spent answering the same client questions. Time spent on admin that nobody enjoys doing. The firms growing most successfully don't always have more staff. They usually have better processes. If you could remove one recurring admin task from your week, what would it be?

Your most expensive client is not always the one paying the lowest fee. It's the one who: • Takes six emails to return a signed engagement letter • Sends documents in dribs and drabs • Responds only when there's a problem • Misses every deadline • Creates twice the work you expected On paper they look profitable. In reality, they're consuming hours of team time every month. Most firms know what their clients pay. Far fewer know what those clients actually cost to serve. As MTD approaches and capacity becomes more important, I think more firms will start looking at client profitability differently. Not just: "What do they pay us?" But: "What does it cost us to keep them?" Have you ever calculated the true cost-to-serve of your clients?

Your inbox shouldn't be your client portal. But for most smaller firms, it is. Engagement letters go out by email. Documents come back by email. Reminders, follow-ups, "just checking in" messages, all email. The problem isn't email itself. It's that email has no memory. You can't glance at your inbox and see: "12 clients onboarded, 3 still outstanding, 1 waiting on ID." You have to dig. Search. Cross-reference with a spreadsheet someone started in January and nobody's updated since March. Meanwhile, the client's experience is just as chaotic. They're trying to figure out which of your 6 emails has the form they need to sign. There's a reason no other industry onboards clients through email threads. Maybe accounting shouldn't either. #Accounting #ProfessionalServices #PracticeManagement

Quick question: where are your clients' passport copies right now? If the answer is "somewhere in our inbox", that's a data protection problem waiting to happen. The ICO has been clear: unencrypted email with no access controls and no audit trail doesn't meet UK GDPR standards for handling personal data. And accountancy firms, as data controllers, carry the responsibility. Passport scans. Bank statements. AML documents. Engagement letters with personal details. All sitting in inboxes that anyone with the password could access, forward, or lose. Most firms know email isn't ideal for this. But it's familiar, it's free, and changing feels like a hassle. The firms that have moved client documents out of email aren't doing anything revolutionary. They just stopped using a communication tool as a document management system. Still relying on email for sensitive client documents? See what the alternative looks like 👇 https://lnkd.in/eFYej8SV #Accounting #GDPR #UKAccountancy #ClientOnboarding #DataSecurity

Genuine question for practice owners: How many hours did your team spend last week on work that wasn't billable, wasn't advisory, and wasn't what they trained for? Not CPD or business development. The invisible stuff. The engagement letter that needed re-sending. The AML documents you're still waiting on. The new client who hasn't uploaded their ID two weeks after signing. It's a line we hear often: "It's just part of the job." But is it? At what point did qualified accountants become full-time administrators who occasionally do accounting? Now imagine the opposite. Your team arrives Monday morning and the engagement letters that went out Friday are already signed. AML documents uploaded over the weekend. Client records sitting in a queue ready for review. No chasing. No follow-ups. Just work that's already done. Some firms operate like this. What separates them from the rest? Genuinely curious. Has anyone here made this shift? What changed? #Accounting #ProfessionalServices #UKAccountancy