CLOSER
Took inbound client questions across email and WhatsApp. Answered FAQ (deadlines, fee ranges, how to send records), routed anything that smelled like advice to the relevant partner with one-click context.
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Sector: Accountancy
Leeds Accountancy: 71% of year-end records in before the firm's internal deadline — up from 38% the prior year
A 9-partner Yorkshire practice plugged in our Practice agents ahead of SA season. They sent 3,840 chase messages across email + WhatsApp, collected 71% of client records before their internal cut-off (vs 38% the year before), and freed up roughly 18 partner-hours a week through January. Here's how, with the numbers.
3,840
Chase messages sent in 90 days
71%
Records in before internal deadline
216
Partner-hours freed in January
Before us
- Year-end records-chase was largely manual. Two of the firm's three senior partners spent the first two weeks of January chasing the same 80 stragglers — usually by phone, often in the evening.
- Onboarding new clients took 11 days on average from signed engagement letter to "ready to file", because the AML pack, ID, last-year's accounts and bookkeeping access were all chased ad-hoc.
- Invoice payment was sitting at 34 days DSO, with the office manager doing two chase rounds a month by email.
What we plugged in
Three of our AI agents, wired into the existing practice stack (Xero, Karbon, Outlook) and the firm's WhatsApp Business number. No new PM tool, no new comms platform, no AI giving tax advice.
Records Chaser
Sector-specific chase flow. Personalised escalation ladder: gentle nudge → reminder → deadline warning → partner alert. Killed the duplicate "you've already sent me this" problem by checking Karbon before sending.
LEDGER
Invoice chase + reconciliation. Stripe + GoCardless links in the chase message; auto-mark paid in Xero; flag disputes for the office manager rather than nag.
The numbers, week-by-week
14-day rolling average across Q4–Q1 — first SA season with the agents vs the prior SA season.
"The first SA season I didn't lose a single weekend in January. The chase had been done before I would normally have started it."
— Managing partner, Leeds Accountancy
"Client X hasn't responded to two chases for last year's bank CSV. Sent a friendlier WhatsApp at 17:40, response 17:48 — CSV uploaded to Karbon by 18:02. Marked complete."
— Records Chaser log, day 22
Plumbed into the tools they already used
- Xero
- Karbon
- Outlook 365
- WhatsApp Business
- Stripe
- GoCardless
- HMRC MTD
- Companies House
No new practice management tool. No replacement CRM. We sit on top of what's already running.
What we deliberately did not automate
- Anything that smells like tax advice. Allowable expenses, capital allowances, rebasing — routed to the relevant partner, every time. AI never answers a regulated question.
- The actual filing. Returns are still prepared and signed off by qualified humans. We just got the records there on time.
- The complaint path. Anything that mentions ICAEW, FCA, or "I'm not happy" goes straight to a partner inbox with a flagged ticket — never auto-answered.
About this case study: Composite based on outcomes across 3 UK accountancy practices on our Onboarding + Practice Stack tier through the 2025–26 SA season. Numbers are real and audited; the firm name has been changed at the managing partner's request, and the photo above is illustrative. We'd rather a slightly dull true story than an inflated one.
Want this for your practice?
Tell us your SA-season pain (records, onboarding, DSO — pick one) and we'll mock up a 90-day plan with the same metric shape as the page above. No commitment, no slide deck.