Client communication for small accounting firms: the chasing problem
Most of a practice's communication is chasing documents against a deadline. What to automate about that, how to handle deadline season, and where professional judgement has to stay.
Rebecca Pearson11 min read
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An accounting practice's communication is overwhelmingly one activity: asking clients for things they have not sent, before a deadline that will not move.
Everything else — the advice, the planning, the work clients actually value — sits behind that. A practice where chasing is handled well has capacity for the valuable work. One where it is not spends January doing something no client is grateful for.
This page is about automating the chasing, and being clear about where a practice should not automate at all.
What we'll cover
Why chasing is the whole problem
Worth being precise about the shape, because it explains why generic automation advice does not fit.
The deadline is external and fixed. You cannot negotiate with a filing deadline, which means the practice absorbs every client's lateness.
The work cannot start without the client. Unlike most services, you are blocked by the person you are serving, repeatedly, and you have to ask repeatedly.
Chasing is socially awkward. Nobody enjoys sending a fourth email to a client they like. That awkwardness is why chasing gets deferred, and deferral is why January is what it is.
The volume is per client, per item. Not one chase but a bank statement, a mileage log, a dividend voucher, a signature, each with its own state.
Automating this removes the awkwardness by removing the decision. Nobody has to steel themselves to send a reminder that sends itself, and clients receive a consistent process rather than a reflection of how busy their accountant felt that week.
Making the request specific
Most chasing is ineffective because the original request was vague.
Ask for a named list, not "your records". Bank statements for these months, the mileage log, the dividend vouchers, the loan statement. A client who receives a list can work through it; one who receives a general request does not know when they are finished.
Say what each thing is for, briefly. Clients supply documents faster when they understand why, and it reduces the ones that arrive in the wrong format.
Give one obvious route to send it. A portal, a link, a reply — one route. Offering four means documents arrive across four channels and somebody has to reconcile them.
Track item by item. The unit is the document, not the client. A client who has sent three of five things needs a reminder about two things, not a repeat of the original list, and the difference is very visible to them.
Acknowledge what arrives. A client who sends something and hears nothing assumes it may not have arrived, and either sends it again or worries. Automatic acknowledgement removes a category of follow-up in both directions.
The chase sequence that works
Start earlier than feels necessary. The first request should go well before the deadline, because the whole problem is that clients are slow and the practice absorbs it.
Escalate in tone, not in frequency. A gentle reminder, then a clearer one naming the deadline, then one setting out what happens if it is missed. Three well-spaced messages that change outrank six identical ones.
Name the consequence at the right point. Not in the first message, and clearly before it is too late. Clients respond to a specific date and a specific consequence in a way they do not respond to a general prompt.
Escalate to a person for the persistent ones. After a set number of unanswered chases, a phone call from someone at the practice. Some clients need a conversation, and the automation's job is identifying which ones rather than replacing the call.
Stop when it arrives. The most common complaint about automated chasing is a reminder for something already sent, and it undermines trust in everything else the practice sends.
Report the state internally. Which clients are outstanding, what is missing, how long it has been. A weekly view of that is what lets a practice manage a season rather than discover it.
That sequencing — tracking items per client, escalating tone, stopping on receipt, escalating to a person — is straightforward to describe and fiddly to assemble across a practice's systems. On CodeWords you describe it in plain language and Cody, the automation builder, builds it, connects it to the systems the practice already uses, and deploys it. Automations connect to more than 3,000 integrations. The free plan covers light use, with Pro at $39 per month and Business at $100 per month as usage grows; details are on the pricing page.
Deadline season
The period the whole year is shaped around, and where the automation earns its cost.
Segment by risk, not alphabetically. Clients who were late last year will be late this year. Starting with them, earlier, is more effective than working through the list in order.
Know your capacity before you need it. How many returns can the practice actually complete in the final fortnight? A count of outstanding work against that number, weekly from November, turns a January crisis into a November decision.
Make the internal view the shared one. Everyone in the practice should be able to see what is outstanding without asking. The alternative is three people each holding part of the picture.
Decide the cut-off and say it early. A stated date after which you cannot guarantee completion, communicated in advance, is both fairer to clients and better for the practice than absorbing everything and working through the night.
Protect the last week for work, not chasing. By then, chasing has largely failed. The automation should have front-loaded it so the final period is production.
Onboarding a new client
The process that sets the tone, and the one most small practices run inconsistently.
Collect what you need in a structured way. Identity verification, authority to act, previous accountant details, the systems they use, who to contact about what.
Handle the professional obligations properly. Client identification, engagement letter, professional clearance. These are mandatory and they are exactly the sort of thing that slips when somebody is busy, so automating the sequence and the chasing is genuinely risk reduction.
Set expectations in writing at the start. What you need, when, how, and what happens if it is late. A client who was told this at onboarding responds differently to the third chase in January.
Get the recurring requests scheduled immediately. If you will need quarterly figures, set that up at onboarding rather than remembering each quarter.
The queries that interrupt the work
The other drain on a practice, and a smaller one that is still worth addressing.
The same questions recur. When is my deadline, how much do I owe, have you received my records, what do I need to send, what is my reference number. Several of those are answerable from information the practice already holds.
Route by type rather than by who opened the email. A technical query, a deadline question and a fee query go to different people, and routing them automatically removes a triage step.
Acknowledge with a realistic timescale. A client who knows they will hear within two days does not send a follow-up on day one.
Keep the substantive answers with people. Covered next, and it is the important boundary.
Where professional judgement has to stay
The section that matters most, because this is a regulated profession and the temptation to over-automate is real.
Never automate advice. Anything about what a client should do, how something should be treated, or what a figure means is professional judgement carrying professional liability. An automated system producing something that reads as advice is a serious problem regardless of how carefully it was worded.
Keep the boundary visible in the messages themselves. An automated message should be recognisably administrative — a request, a reminder, a confirmation — and should route anything else to a person rather than attempting an answer.
Client identification and anti-money-laundering checks are yours. Automate the collection and the chasing of documents; the assessment is a professional obligation and stays with a person.
Be careful with client data. Practices hold unusually sensitive information. Any system touching it needs considering properly: where data is processed, who can reach it, how long messages are retained, and what your professional body and your insurer expect.
Check your engagement terms cover the channel. If you are going to communicate by messaging, that belongs in the engagement letter rather than being assumed.
A chasing calendar that works backwards
Rather than starting when someone notices, working backwards from the deadline.
Sixteen weeks out: the request. The named list of what you need, why each item matters, and one route to send it. Most practices send this considerably later, which is why the rest of the sequence is compressed.
Twelve weeks: the first reminder, listing only what is still outstanding. A client who has sent three of five things should see two items, not the original list again.
Eight weeks: the clearer reminder, naming the deadline explicitly and what remains.
Six weeks: segment by risk. Anyone who was late last year, or who has sent nothing, moves to a phone call from a person. The automation has done its job by identifying who, early enough that a conversation still changes the outcome.
Four weeks: the stated cut-off. After this date you cannot guarantee completion. Said in advance and applied consistently, this is fairer to clients than absorbing everything and it protects the final fortnight.
Final two weeks: production only. Chasing has already succeeded or failed. This period is for doing the work.
The weekly internal view runs throughout: who is outstanding, what is missing, how long it has been. That report is what turns a season into something managed rather than survived.
Frequently asked questions
What should a small practice automate first?
Document chasing, tracked per item rather than per client. It is the largest single use of communication time, it is the task most often deferred because it is awkward, and deferring it is what makes deadline season difficult.
Will clients mind automated reminders?
Less than practices fear, provided the reminders are specific about what is outstanding and stop when it arrives. What clients dislike is a generic repeat of the original request, or a chase for something they sent a fortnight ago.
Can we use WhatsApp with clients?
Many clients prefer it and respond faster. The considerations are consent, keeping the channel covered by your engagement terms, applying retention policy to conversations, and making sure replies reach a person. Use it for administrative contact and keep advice in your normal channels.
How do we handle clients who never respond?
Escalate to a phone call after a set number of attempts, and have a stated point at which you cannot guarantee the deadline. The automation's value is identifying which clients need the call, early enough that the call can still work.
Does this help with the January crunch?
It moves work earlier, which is the only thing that actually helps. Chasing that starts in October and escalates properly produces a materially smaller January than chasing that starts when someone notices.
What about anti-money-laundering obligations?
Automate collecting and chasing the documents; keep the assessment with a person. That split is both compliant and practical, because the chasing is the tedious part and the judgement is the regulated part.
Should we build this or buy practice software?
Check what your practice software already does, since many now include document requests and chasing. The gaps are usually the escalation sequence, the internal view of what is outstanding, and connecting to whichever channel clients actually read.