Year-end paperwork that chases itself

Six people, 238 tax returns, and a January that started in October.

Kestrel is a six-person accountancy practice in York. Most of its clients are sole traders and landlords who need a self-assessment return every year, and every return starts with the same paperwork: bank statements, P60s, rental statements and receipts.

Collecting that paperwork was the slowest part of the job, and almost all of it was done by hand. The practice asked us to automate the chasing without making it feel automated to clients.

A day a week on the phone, asking for the same five documents.

Onboarding a new client took fourteen manual steps across four tools: a web form, the practice software, a shared drive and a spreadsheet. It often took a fortnight.

Documents arrived by email, WhatsApp and post, with names like scan0042.pdf, so someone had to open every one to work out what it was and whose it was. Chasing lived in a spreadsheet and in people's heads, and between October and January it cost the team about a day every week.

One form starts everything. A person steps in once, to approve.

A new client fills in a single form. The flow creates them in the practice software, sends the engagement letter for e-signature, runs the ID and anti-money-laundering check, makes their folder and builds their document checklist. A partner approves in one click, and the client gets a welcome message and their upload link, usually the same day.

If the ID check needs a second look, the flow asks the client again and tells the partner, instead of stalling quietly.

Polite, persistent, and quiet the moment the file arrives.

Each client gets a private page listing exactly what the practice still needs, where they can upload a file or take a photo. Reminders follow a schedule the practice set: an email after a week, a text after two, and a place on the team's call list after three.

Every reminder names only what is still missing, and it stops as soon as the file arrives.

AI reads every upload, and asks a person when it isn't sure.

Every file a client sends is read by AI, which works out what it is, renames it to the practice's convention, files it in the right folder and ticks it off the checklist.

When it is less than sure, or something doesn't match what the practice already knows, such as a property address, the file waits in a review queue with the reason spelled out. Nothing is filed on a guess.

Every client, every document, on one screen.

The team works from a year-end board that shows each client's checklist, what is still needed, the last contact and the next step. Anything that needs a person, whether a document to check or a call to make, rises to the top.

On Monday mornings the partners get a digest: returns ready to start, clients who have gone quiet and the week's deadlines.

The chasing still happens. The team just doesn't do it.

In the first filing season on the new system, most clients sent everything before a second reminder, and the team spent its January on returns instead of the phone.