A CRM for accountants is a different object from the sales CRM the word usually means. A sales team has a pipeline of strangers that closes and moves on; an accountant has a book of clients who come back every year and, for payroll clients, every month in between. So the record that matters is not a deal with a stage on it. It is a client with a fee, a calendar of the work the firm owes them, the person in the firm who owns each deadline, and the history of what was agreed and what was done. This page sets out what that record has to hold, in the order it usually starts to matter, and where a general CRM quietly fails an accountant.
The client is the unit, and the client renews
Everything in a sales CRM is built around a deal moving through stages to a close. An accountant's client does not close; it renews, and the second year's fee is priced from the first year's hours. The record has to carry the fee that was agreed, the date it was agreed, the hours the work actually took and the realization the firm achieved on it, because that is what the next fee review is argued from. A CRM that holds a contact and a deal value and nothing else has kept the least useful part of the relationship and lost the part that decides next year's revenue.
A payroll client is a calendar, not a contact
A client the firm runs payroll for has a pay frequency, a next run date, quarterly filings and a year end, and each of those is a deadline that somebody in the firm has to own. The record needs those dates on the client, with the owner's name against each, so that a filing does not depend on who happens to be in the office the week it falls due. The most expensive failure a small firm has is not a wrong number; it is a deadline that sat in one person's inbox while they were on leave, and the client found out before the firm did.
Where a general CRM lets an accountant down
General CRMs price per seat, so the administrator who checks the deadlines is a licence, and they are organised around activity, calls and emails, rather than around dates the work is due. They will hold an accountant's clients perfectly well as contacts and hold nothing about the work. The practical test is simple: can you open a client and see the next payroll run, the last fee, who owns the year end and what was billed last time on one screen? If the answer needs three tabs and a spreadsheet, the CRM is keeping the wrong things.
What the free worksheets on this site do for the record
The fee on a client record comes from arithmetic the firm should be able to show: hours at standard rates blended across partner, manager and staff, realized at what the firm actually bills. The blended rate worksheet works that on the page from your own figures, and the billable rate worksheet works what a staff hour has to charge from salary, burden, overhead and billable hours. Neither needs an account; the paid plan is what keeps the answer on the client once the fee is agreed.
Questions people ask about crm for accountants
Is a CRM for accountants the same as practice management software?
No. A practice suite runs workflow, documents, time capture and billing across a whole firm and is priced for one. The CRM here is the client book underneath: who the clients are, what the firm charges them, what it owes them and when. A small firm usually needs the book long before it needs the suite.
What should the client record hold at minimum?
The client, the fee and the date it was agreed, the services the fee covers, the payroll calendar if there is one, the filings and the year end with an owner against each, and the invoices raised. Anything less and the renewal is priced from memory.
Does Yearendo find new clients for a firm?
No. It keeps the ones you have and prices the work in front of you. This site sells no leads, no advertising and no directory listing, and never passes an enquiry to anybody who does.