Practice Management for Small Accounting Firms One system instead of six tools and a shared drive.
When the practice is one to five people, the overhead is not the work — it is remembering where everything lives. One system for clients, engagements, documents, time and billing, with a client portal that does the chasing.
What a small practice usually replaces
Not one tool — the arrangement of tools that grew up around the practice and now has to be held in someone's head.
The shared drive
A document store with per-client folders, versioning and locking replaces the folder tree only one person fully understands.
The chasing inbox
Document requests with due dates track their own fulfilment instead of living in a mail thread you have to re-read.
The time spreadsheet
A timer and weekly timesheet, submitted and approved, so billable hours are a record rather than a monthly reconstruction.
The invoice template
Invoices with automatic tax, sequential numbering and a branded PDF, posted straight to a running client ledger.
The status question
Clients see their own engagements and progress in the portal, so the update call stops being part of the week.
The status chase
Clients read their own job progress and outstanding balances in the portal instead of emailing to ask.
A realistic first month
Configuration first, then one live engagement end to end, then the rest of the client base.
- Stage 01
Configure the firm
Practice entity, branding, tax settings, invoice numbering, payment terms and fiscal-year start.
- Stage 02
Write one workflow
Take your most common engagement and turn it into stages and tasks, marking the ones that genuinely must block.
- Stage 03
Bring in clients
Import contacts through the staged CSV wizard, reviewing each stage before it commits.
- Stage 04
Run one job live
Take a single real engagement through the whole thing — tasks, a document request, time, invoice, payment.
- Stage 05
Open the portal
Invite that client, watch a document request fulfil itself, then invite the rest in batches.
- Stage 06
Refine
Adjust the workflow now that a real job has run through it, and add the second and third templates.
Frequently asked questions
Is this too much software for a three-person practice?
How long does it take to get running?
Do I have to define workflows before I can start?
What does it cost as I add my first hires?
Explore the platform
- Jobs & WorkflowsTemplated engagements with stage gates, task assignment, recurrence and dependencies
- Time & BillingTime capture, approval, WIP ledger, invoicing, quotes and financial periods
- Client PortalSecure per-client access to jobs, documents, invoices, quotes and messaging
- Document ManagementCentral store, versioning, document requests, malware scanning and text extraction
- Automation & SLANo-code automation rules, per-job-type SLA targets, warnings and escalation
- Capacity PlanningAvailability, workload forecasting, utilization thresholds and load balancing across staff
- Reporting & AnalyticsWIP, aged receivables, realization, profitability and utilization reporting
- Security & Access ControlRole permissions, per-user data scopes, visibility rules and an immutable audit log
- Growing FirmsStandardised workflows, approval gates, SLA targets and per-team data scopes
- Multi-Entity FirmsPer-entity branding, invoice numbering, tax defaults and job codes under one firm
- Switching PlatformsStaged CSV import with review at each step, including CCH iFirm exports
See Praxio on your own engagements.
Book a walkthrough and we'll configure it around the way your firm actually works — your engagement types, your review steps, your billing model.