Software for UK accountants and bookkeepers

You didn’t get qualified to chase Excel files on a Sunday evening.

It’s Sunday evening. You’re sending six gentle reminders from Karbon to the clients who still haven’t uploaded January’s bank statements. By Tuesday, three of them still haven’t, and you’re doing the Christmas books in mid-March. The MTD ITSA April-2026 wedge is twelve weeks away - 180 self-assessment clients moving to quarterly is 720 submissions a year instead of 180 - and the bookkeeper is already at capacity. The HMRC AML supervision visit is on Tuesday and the audit pack is currently a Word doc with PDFs from Thirdfort, Credas and SmartSearch stapled together in your head. Fifty of your clients are still on the fee you quoted in 2019. The engagement-letter refresh conversation is the one you keep deferring to next month.

We make custom software for UK accountants and bookkeepers - scoped per practice, sized to the bit between email reminder fired and records actually uploaded, quarterly submitted, AML evidence audit-ready, fee uplifted, January-pack collected. Not another client portal nobody logs into. Not a Karbon / Senta / AccountancyManager / IRIS Elements replacement - practice-management is what those tools do and they do it well enough. The MTD ITSA wedge isn’t a problem to mitigate; it’s a fee-base expansion you can run profitably if the chase loop runs itself. Tell us what your Sunday evening looks like and we’ll come back with a sketch.

What you spend your week on that you shouldn’t have to

• Six clients on Sunday evening getting another email reminder from Karbon they won’t open until Wednesday lunchtime - if ever. Then the same three you always have to ring.
• The HMRC AML supervision visit on Tuesday - and an audit pack that’s a Word doc with provider PDFs (Credas, Thirdfort, SmartSearch, Veriphy) stapled in your head rather than actually assembled.
• Fifty clients on the 2019 fee - the inflation-adjusted engagement-letter refresh you keep deferring because the conversation is the bit nobody owns.
• 180 self-assessment clients moving to quarterly under MTD ITSA next April. 720 submissions a year instead of 180. Bookkeeper at 100% capacity already.
• New-client onboarding - proposal accepted, then seven manual steps across GoProposal / Ignition → Credas → Xero HQ → Karbon workspace - and the new joiner who keeps forgetting step five.
• Three failed GoCardless DDs this month, half of which need a phone call you don’t have time to make and an email the client won’t read.
• Companies House confirmation statements going out at random; the ECCT identity-verification rollout confusing half your dormant-company clients.
• A receipt-bot stack (Dext, AutoEntry, the Hubdoc-replacement of the year) costing more per month than it saves on the half of clients who actually use it.
• The year-end pack the same six clients drag every January - two of whom owe you fees and would rather you fired them than asked.
• Spring Statement landed this week and the practice newsletter to 380 clients is now in next weekend’s drawer.

These aren’t problems for Karbon alone, or Senta alone, or Dext alone. They’re the bit between the practice-management tools and client cooperation - the chase that has to land where the client actually reads, the AML evidence that has to assemble as you go, the engagement-letter refresh that has to happen not be diarised again. That’s the bit we can take off your plate. And the bit that turns MTD ITSA from a capacity crisis into recurring fee.

Example problems we could solve

Six things we hear most often from accountants and bookkeepers - with what the solved version looks like in your week. Every build is scoped per practice: a sole-practitioner bookkeeper probably needs the first two; a mid-tier with 25+ staff and a tax-specialist boutique might want all six. None of it means binning the practice-management tool the firm already runs on.

1. The MTD ITSA quarterly chase that runs itself

The 720-submission moment: 180 self-assessment clients moving to quarterly next April. Four cycles a year instead of one. Bookkeeper at 100% capacity. The honest answer in the partner meeting was “we hire two more people” and the honest second answer was “we can’t”.

Solved looks like: every client carries a quarterly clock against their MTD ITSA submission window. Day-0 the records-pull request lands on the channel the client actually replies on - WhatsApp first where you’ve onboarded the number, email-with-a-one-tap-upload-link second, SMS third. Day-5 the bookkeeper-voice nudge fires automatically (“hi Sarah, still need April-June bank statements and the rent-roll - tap here to upload, or reply with the PDFs”). Day-10 a WhatsApp voice-note from the partner. Day-14 it escalates to a phone-task on the bookkeeper’s queue with the gap surfaced. The firm-wide dashboard shows who’s late, who’s at risk, who’s escalated, who’s clean - by client, by partner, by submission window - so the partner meeting has the picture, not the anecdote. The capacity expansion isn’t more bookkeepers; it’s the same bookkeepers running a closed loop that doesn’t need them in the middle of every reminder. The longer version lives at Recurring Service Recall - the regulator-clock variant of the cross-practice recall engine, running against the quarterly cycle with a firm-wide tracker on top.

2. The AML evidence vault that’s ready before the supervisor visits

The Tuesday-AML moment: HMRC AML supervision visit on Tuesday. They want the actual provider verification audit trail - risk assessment per client, ongoing monitoring, SoF narrative for the high-risk cases, SAR-to-NCA references where any. You’ve got Credas PDFs in one Drive folder, Thirdfort in another, SmartSearch in a third, Veriphy on the senior bookkeeper’s laptop. Two days clearing the weekend before the visit isn’t unusual.

Solved looks like: every Credas / Thirdfort / SmartSearch / Veriphy / FirstAML / Ecospend verification files automatically into a single per-client AML record the moment it runs - timestamp, provider, result, PDF, sanctions / PEP / adverse-media flags. The anniversary re-check calendar drives the re-verification loop per client risk tier (low risk five-yearly, high risk annual, enhanced quarterly), with the next-action surfacing on the bookkeeper’s dashboard the week before it’s due. Open-banking source-of-funds capture lands where the client consents, with the relevant transactions auto-highlighted for the SoF narrative. The audit pack assembles on demand against your supervisor’s expected format - HMRC vs ICAEW vs ACCA vs AAT vs CIOT vs IFA vs AIA vs ICB vs IAB - one URL, every evidence trail intact, every risk assessment named-and-dated. The supervision visit becomes a routine when the evidence record is the operational artifact, not a Word-doc tick-list assembled the weekend before. The longer version lives at Compliance Evidence Record.

3. The engagement-letter refresh that finally clears the 2019-fee backlog

The fifty-clients-on-2019-fees moment: fifty clients still on the fee you quoted in 2019. Each one needs a new engagement letter, an AML re-check, a scope discussion. The conversation never happens because it’s always next month, and every quarter the partner meeting says “we’ll batch the uplifts in the new year” and the new year arrives and the backlog hasn’t moved.

Solved looks like: clients on stale fees (older than 18 months, configurable per firm) auto-flag in a partner-approved batch. Per client, a templated fee-uplift calculation runs - inflation-indexed, scope-adjusted, complexity-tier-aware - and generates a draft revised engagement letter against your firm’s template. AML re-check triggers automatically alongside (see problem 2). The new fee, the revised engagement letter, and the AML re-check land in the client’s portal - and on WhatsApp or SMS where the client actually reads - with a one-tap sign link and the Tuesday-morning “got a minute on the phone if you want to talk it through” offer. The Xero or QuickBooks monthly DD adjusts on signature. The conversation that never happens because it’s always next month becomes a Tuesday-morning batch of three signed engagements, every Tuesday morning, until the backlog is gone.

4. The practice onboarding stack that runs as one guided flow

The seven-manual-steps moment: new client signs the proposal in GoProposal. Engagement letter has to generate. AML check fires through Credas. Xero HQ client record opens. Karbon workspace seeds. GoCardless DD sets up. First-month welcome sequence kicks off. Seven manual steps; the new joiner forgets one every other onboarding, and the partner finds out on day twelve when the AML check never ran.

Solved looks like: the onboarding sequence runs as one guided flow from the moment GoProposal or Ignition fires the proposal accepted event. Engagement letter generates from your firm’s template against the client’s scope and fee structure. AML provider runs the ID + sanctions + PEP check; the result lands in the AML vault from problem 2. Xero HQ client record opens with the right tax-year and VAT settings; Karbon or Senta workspace seeds with the matter-type task templates (self-employed, Ltd, payroll, VAT, charity - different spines). GoCardless DD sets up against the agreed monthly fee. The first-month welcome cadence (your firm’s here’s-how-we-work explainer + the records-channel onboarding + the year-end-pack heads-up) kicks off in the client’s voice - partner’s voice, bookkeeper’s, whichever the firm runs with - across email + WhatsApp + the client portal. Seven steps become one launch event; the new joiner can’t forget step five because there isn’t a step five.

5. The mendbuddy-shaped client agent that handles the inbound FAQ volume

The five-questions moment: the same five questions land on email, WhatsApp, the missed-call SMS, and Slack every week - when’s my Self Assessment due, did you receive the January statements, can I email receipts to a single address, is the Xero DD coming out next Friday, can you confirm the corporation-tax return is filed. The partner answers each one personally and an hour of every evening is gone.

Solved looks like: an inbound agent that picks up across voice, email, WhatsApp, web chat, and missed-call SMS - in the practice’s voice, trained on your scope language, your client portfolio’s live status from Karbon or Senta, and your standard explainer answers. Records-chase status (“yes Sarah, we received the January PDFs on the 14th - they’re with the bookkeeper, you’ll have draft accounts by the 28th”), submission status (“your Self Assessment was filed on the 12th, HMRC acknowledgement reference 9HK7 etc, payment due 31 Jan”), deadline questions, DD timing - all answered factually, in your firm’s voice, citing your client’s actual state. The scope-of-advice line stays clearly on the human side: anything substantive, anything that looks like a change in scope, anything that smells like a complaint, escalates to a partner the moment it lands. PCRT - Professional Conduct in Relation to Taxation - is the regulatory frame the build respects: the agent triages, status-reports, and answers high-frequency factual questions; the regulated advice stays with you. The longer version lives at Trainable Inbound AI Agent; the practice version is anchored on records-chase + status-FAQ deflection with strict scope-of-advice guardrails.

6. The compliance calendar that runs AML, ECCT, P11D, auto-enrolment and the rest

The dates-running-away moment: auto-enrolment re-declaration every three years; ECCT identity verification phased through 2025-26; P11D coming up; AML anniversaries staggered across the client base; one Ltd’s confirmation statement is overdue and you only spotted it because the client rang asking why Companies House had emailed them. The dates are all knowable; nobody owns the running of them.

Solved looks like: every client carries a per-client compliance calendar projected forward - AML anniversary (per risk tier), Companies House confirmation statement, ECCT identity verification (configurable phase, not hard-coded), auto-enrolment re-declaration, RTI / PAYE deadlines, VAT quarter, CT600 anniversary, ATED if any, P11D, CGT 60-day if a property’s in scope, practising-certificate and CPD on the firm side. The partner’s compliance dashboard shows the next-thirty-days view plus the at-risk and the overdue, broken down by client and by date. The client-facing side sends the friendly nudge (“your confirmation statement is due on the 14th, taking ten minutes - tap here to confirm the details and we’ll file”) on the channel they read. ECCT’s still in motion as a rollout; the calendar treats it as a configurable phase so when the next tranche lands you reconfigure, not rebuild. The longer version lives at Compliance Evidence Record; the multi-regulator-per-client view (ICAEW + HMRC + Companies House + TPR + ICO) is the accountancy-distinct piece.

The closest things we’ve already built

• mendbuddyour own multi-channel AI agent platform for inbound conversations across voice, SMS, WhatsApp, web chat, Facebook Messenger, Instagram and inbound + outbound voice. The records-chase agent in problem 1 and the FAQ-deflection agent in problem 5 are accountancy-shaped versions of this - trained on your scope language, your firm’s voice, and the client’s live status in Karbon or Senta. See Mendbuddy.
• pharmaceutical-analytics.coma custom analytics dashboard we built for an analytics consultancy. The firm-wide MTD ITSA tracker in problem 1 and the per-client compliance dashboard in problem 6 are the same shape: operational data captured at every client touchpoint, decision dashboard for the managing partner. See Pharmaceutical Analytics.
• planpostour own social-media scheduling SaaS, used by accountancy practices for the marketing cadence around Spring Statement, Autumn Budget, year-end planning, MTD ITSA milestones, R&D rate changes. PECR-clean by default - service messages soft-opt-in, thought-leadership marketing explicit-consent - so the practice newsletter that’s been in the drawer two weekends running goes out properly, not at the wrong consent base. See Planpost.
• HC Electricala domestic and commercial electrician in Haverhill, Suffolk. Different vertical entirely, but a useful reference for the records-and-deadlines pattern: the cert-and-evidence engine, the recurring recall annuity, the letting-agent batch billing. Useful for the accountancy practice’s trade clients - what’s running their operational layer looks shape-similar to what we’d build for you. (Named pull-quote and final outcome figures hold until the permission checklist clears - full case study at Hc Electrical.)

Adjacent verticals

• Solicitorsthe matter-onboarding stack on the solicitors hub mirrors the practice-onboarding stack here; common AML supervisor, common Ltd-setup workflow, common professional-services chase pattern. Worth a read if your practice does company-secretarial work alongside a referring solicitor.
• Professional servicesthe chase-loop and onboarding-stack shape generalises across boutique advisory firms (consultancies, fractional CFOs, specialist tax boutiques the regulator doesn’t class as accountancy).
• Lettingsadjacent if a chunk of your client book is landlord SA / FHL / property-Ltd work; the lettings hub describes what the agent side is dealing with, useful context.
• Trades (the umbrella)most accountancy practices have a meaningful trade-client book; the trades hub describes what the client is dealing with on their side, useful for the conversation where the trade asks why their bookkeeping isn’t smoother.

FAQ

Tell us what your practice looks like

How many clients, what mix (self-assessment, Ltd, payroll, VAT, tax specialist, charity, FHL, contractor), which practice-management tool you’re on, what your AML supervisor is, what the MTD ITSA exposure looks like, and where the Sunday-evening admin actually sits. Send an enquiry - what you do, what’s slowing you down, what you’ve already tried. We’ll come back with a sketch of what we’d build and what it would cost. No calendar, no demo to sit through. Email reply, scoped sketch, you decide.