Skip to content

Accounting and bookkeeping blueprint

Accounting client document chasing

Each client asked for exactly what is still missing, reminded on a schedule that stops the moment it arrives, with everything filed to the right client folder and named the same way.

At a glance

The job

Half of January is spent asking the same forty clients for the same four documents

Systems

Practice management system · Client portal or secure upload · Email · Document storage · Calendar

Steps

7, of which 1 stay with a person

Build time

3 to 4 weeks

Free to use, adapt and build from. No email needed and no attribution asked for.

How it works now

  • A spreadsheet lists who has sent what, updated by whoever remembers, which means it is accurate for about a day after somebody sits down with it.
  • Reminders go out as individually typed emails, so a client who sent two of four documents is asked for all four again and replies annoyed.
  • Documents arrive as phone photographs, as replies to the wrong thread, and occasionally as a fax to a number nobody watches.
  • Filing and renaming is done by hand at the point of use, so the same statement exists in three folders under three names.

The workflow

Every step, in order, including where it forks and where a person stays.

  • Trigger
  • Automated
  • Decision
  • Person
  • Done
  1. TriggerStep 1 of 7Once per client, per cycle

    The season opens, or a client is onboarded

    A checklist is generated per client from their engagement type, so a sole trader is not asked for payroll records and a company is not asked twice for the same schedule.

  2. AutomatedStep 2 of 7Immediately

    Ask, with a link and a list

    One message naming exactly what is outstanding, with an upload link that does not require the client to remember a password they set last year.

  3. DecisionStep 3 of 7

    What arrived, and is it what was asked for?

    Each upload is read, matched to a checklist line, and checked for the obvious problems: a blank page, a screenshot of a login screen, a document for the wrong year.

    • Matches a lineFiled, renamed to the firm's convention, and the line is ticked.
    • Readable but unmatchedFiled to a holding folder and queued for a person, with what it appears to be and why the match failed.
    • Unreadable, or clearly wrongThe client is asked again for that one item, with what was wrong with it, rather than for everything.
  4. AutomatedStep 4 of 7Day 4, day 10, then weekly, then every second day inside the final fortnight

    Remind only about what is still missing

    On a schedule that shortens as the deadline approaches, and only ever naming outstanding items. This is the whole difference between a useful reminder and a nagging one.

  5. PersonStep 5 of 7

    The accountant handles anything unclear

    Ambiguous documents, clients who reply with a question instead of a file, and anybody who has gone quiet as a deadline approaches. Chasing a client who is avoiding you is a phone call, not a workflow.

  6. DecisionStep 6 of 7

    Is the file complete?

    Every checklist line ticked and every document filed.

    • CompleteThe engagement moves to preparation and the reminders stop that instant.
    • Still short, deadline closeEscalated to the partner with a list of what is missing and every message already sent, so the conversation starts from the facts.
  7. DoneStep 7 of 7

    Complete, or on the partner's desk

    Nothing sits in an ambiguous state. Either the file is ready or a named person knows exactly what is holding it up.

What breaks

Every one of these has happened. A workflow that has not been designed against them is a demo rather than a system.

The same document sent four times

A client who is not sure it went through sends it again, and again, and then forwards the original email as well.

Uploads are hashed, so an identical file is recognised and quietly ignored rather than filed four times. A near-duplicate is flagged for a person rather than either filed or dropped.

A photograph of a screen, at an angle, in low light

It is the fastest thing for a client to do and it will not stop happening.

Legibility is checked before filing. Where it fails, the client is asked again for that item with a sentence explaining what is wrong, which works far better than a second identical request.

A reply that is a question, not a document

Clients answer a request for a statement by asking whether it needs to include the closed account.

Anything that is not a document becomes a task for a person with the thread attached. The workflow never answers a client's question about their own affairs.

The deadline moves

Filing dates get extended, and a schedule anchored to a hardcoded date then chases people about a deadline that has passed or is no longer real.

Every schedule is relative to a deadline held in one place per engagement type. Changing it once changes every client's reminders, and the change is logged.

Rules that bear on this

Safeguarding taxpayer data, United States

Paid tax preparers are subject to the FTC Safeguards Rule under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the IRS sets out what a written information security plan should cover in Publication 4557. Client financial records moving through a workflow are exactly the data these rules are about.

What the workflow does. Documents move over an encrypted upload route rather than as email attachments, access is per client folder rather than firm-wide, credentials live in a secrets manager, and every access is logged. This describes what the workflow does; it is not legal advice, and your firm needs its own written information security plan whether or not anything here is automated.

What changes

Hours on chasing, per cycle

The bulk of them

Because chasing becomes exceptions rather than the whole client list. What it is worth turns on how many clients and how many documents, which the ROI calculator will work out with your numbers.

Reminders naming the wrong thing

None

Mechanical. A reminder is generated from what is outstanding at the moment it sends, not from a list somebody updated last week.

Documents filed and named consistently

All of them

Filing happens at arrival under one convention, rather than at the point of use by whoever is doing the work.

Before it is worth building

  • A checklist per engagement type. Most firms have one in somebody's head; writing it down is the first job and it pays for itself alone.
  • A secure upload route. Email attachments carrying client financial records are the thing this should be replacing, not automating.
  • A file naming convention the firm actually agrees on.

How it changes by business

Bookkeeping on a monthly cycle rather than an annual one
The same workflow runs twelve times a year with a shorter schedule. The reminder cadence tightens to days, and the escalation goes to the bookkeeper rather than a partner.
Clients who never use a portal
A monitored email address becomes an accepted route, with the same reading, matching and filing applied to attachments. Meeting a client where they are beats a portal nobody logs into.
A firm with several offices or partners
Ownership is set per client so escalation reaches the right person, and the reminder signs off in their name rather than the firm's.

Want us to build this one?

Three weeks or so, then a flat monthly fee to run it. Or take the specification above and build it yourself, which is genuinely fine and is why it is up here.

Start with the auditor email contact@zhorx.com