Understanding Engagement Letters
51.5% of accountants said one of the biggest workflow challenges they face is the administrative and non-revenue-generating tasks consuming time and bandwidth, which subsequently leads to missed deadlines.
Paralelly, over 20% of the accountants reported that task management, overall workflow, and collaboration become much more efficient after using accounting automation software.
Accounting practice softwares and its functions are precisely designed to fill this gap by allowing accountants to focus on more meaningful tasks and reduce monotonous work.
If you’re running an accounting firm in 2024 and don’t use engagement letter software — you’re missing out on potential revenue opportunities here. Trading man hours to improve efficiency and scale your firm can only take you so far. However, even basic automation and workflow systems can significantly save you more time and allow you to focus on other essential tasks.
Creating engagement letters is one administrative task that happens frequently during tax season or the client onboarding or renewal process.
Manually adding relevant standards, updating client information, customizing service offerings, defining scope and terms and conditions, reviewing, iterating, etc.– all these endless tasks can easily consume hours of your day before arriving at a ready-to-use engagement letter.
Engagement letter software solves all these challenges and delivers a final draft within a few minutes. In this blog, we reviewed the 7 best engagement letter software that can help you save hours of work.
8 Best Engagement Letter Software for Accountants and Growing Audit Firms
- Cone
- Knuula
- Pandadoc
- Proposify
- Canopy
- GoProposal
- Anchor
- BrightPropose
Key Features to Consider
- Templates: To save you from hours of draft creation process
- Customization: To help you set relevant terms and conditions with clients
- Collaboration: To help onboard clients without any friction or delays
- Compliance: To ensure all your proposals or engagement letters align with industry standards and laws
- Supporting Functions: eSignatures, reporting, follow-ups and all the nitty gritty tools that can significantly simplify the process
- Automation and Workflow: To help you achieve efficiency and reduce manual workload
- Billing and Payments: To reduce liability and get paid on time without discrepancy.
- Security protocols: To ensure your client and firm data health is maintained at all costs.
- Integration: To support your existing workflow and tool stack for better collaboration
The best way to choose engagement letter software for your firm and your team is to look for the above features and their ability to meet your firm's demands and requirements.
The Good thing? We did all that work for you and reviewed the seven best engagement softwares to help you find the best accounting solution.
Accounting Engagement Letter Software Options - Deep-dive
#1. Cone - Automates Engagement letters, billing and payments at 8$ per month
Cone is comprehensive engagement letter software that can help you engage your client with standard engagement letter templates, receive e-signatures, automate payment collection, billing and payments in a single platform. Equipped with easy-to-use proposal and engagement letter creation tools paired with powerful automation, Cone helps you quote and onboard clients seamlessly.
Cone is a go-to option for growing accounting and bookkeeping firms looking for an easy-to-setup engagement letter solution that integrates quickly with their current workflow and automates tasks such as engagement letter creation, billing, and renewals.
Learn more about accounting workflow and the benefits.
Imagine how many needle-moving tasks you can complete by saving 40+ hours every month by automating your manual work– that’s precisely what Cone can help you achieve.
It offers a comprehensive suite of tools containing ready-to-use, highly customizable proposals, an intuitive editor, automation to time bills and invoices, and a centralized place to communicate and engage clients.
Among all the popular engagement letter software, Cone stands out as an affordable solution that efficiently caters to growing accounting firms with the required customization and automation capabilities.
While many engagement letter solutions are bundled with core accounting software plans, which range from $70 to $100, Cone offers similar yet powerful capabilities at just $8 - $11 per month.
If you’re an accounting firm attempting to automate standard administrative tasks like engagement letter creation, Cone is your safe bet to know how these tools can be instrumental in scaling your firm’s growth.
In addition to its useful functions, Cone offers supporting features like eSignatures, automated reminders, and an analytics dashboard to equip you with all the required tools to improve your overall workflow.
Why Choose Cone?
- Several accounting services proposal templates like bookkeeping proposal, CFO services proposal are ready to be customized with drag-and-drop features to align with your service offering and brand personality.
- Maintain all your quotes and prices in the built-in pricing tool for easy accessibility and consistent quoting without discrepancy.
- Automatically sends out bills and invoices on set data to reduce liability risk.
- Provides multiple payment options, such as direct debit, ACH debit, and credit or debit cards, for your clients to clear their invoices without processing fees.
- Integrates with Stripe and GoCardless.
- Cone also notifies and automatically sends reminders to renew contracts and proposals in bulk to ensure your engagement is officially up to date.
- Integrates with your QBO, Xero etc, to ensure uniformity and consistency in projects and books.
- Access a report dashboard that accurately forecasts and keeps track of your cash inflow and revenue potential to make better decisions.
Ideal For
- Suitable for teams of all sizes, from individuals and small firms to mid-market and large firms.
Pricing
Monthly Pricing
Essential - $11 or 9£ per month
Growth - $15 or 12£ per month
Monthly Price if paid annually
Essential - $8 or 6.5 per month
Growth - $11 or 9£ per month
Learn in-depth about getcone.io offers here
#2. Knuula
Knuula is engagement letter software specially crafted for the giants of the accounting and audit world—who find themselves issuing upwards of 30 engagement contracts regularly. One unique feature of Knuula is that it bases contracts, templates and workflow on client information stored in a central database.
As your engagement letters are automatically tailored based on your client data, all the relevant terms and conditions are applied directly based on the service offering. This significantly minimizes the hours dedicated to manually personalizing each client's contracts.
Knuula is an ideal solution for accounting firms that deal with clients in bulk. Its ability to add relevant client info in just a click, auto-inclusion of regulation and standard, highly customizable templates that suit your company's workflow, etc., makes it easier for you to create and send out engagement letters in bulk.
Key Features
- Any alteration in your client database is immediately reflected in your engagement letters, ensuring perfect harmony in service offerings, scope, and terms.
- Template content evolves as you update client information, maintaining the integrity and relevance of your communications.
- Effortlessly integrate annexures or additional lists without compromising the contract's structure or formatting.
- A comprehensive dashboard to access, edit, and systematically organize all contractual documents under a single roof.
- Time follow-up accurately with a status-tracking function that lets you keep tabs on client engagement.
- You can quickly send, revoke, and renew contracts from the Knuula dashboard anytime.
Ideal For
- Large accounting and audit firms
- Firms of accountants working with multiple entities
Pricing ( Monthly )
Starter Plan:
- 30 contracts - $90
- 100 contracts - $290
- 500 contracts - $990
Enterprise Plan:
- 1000 contracts - $1900
- 1500 contracts - $2700
- 2500 contracts - $3900
Managed Plan:
- 1000 contracts - $3900
- 1500 contracts - $5700
- 2500 contracts - $8900
- 5000 contracts - $11900
Also Read
Sample bookkeeping engagement letter
#3. Canopy
From a broader point of view, Canopy is a full-on accounting practice and management software built with automation capabilities to primarily minimize manual standard tasks.
Similar to other tools, Canopy engagement letter solutions come with essential features such as templates, a centralized client portal, and eSignature with an intuitive workflow. Besides its engagement letter softwares, its automation and pre-populated workflow are a few factors that make it a superior option.
In contrast to Knuula, Canopy engagement letters are built based on your service offering. You can create a set of terms and conditions for your services to populate this content at a click while building an engagement letter for your clients.
While this platform does not entirely automate your engagement creation process, it simplifies the client onboarding workflow. Paired with the central database, service details hub and built-in inbox, it's easier to sync your onboarding process with Canopy.
Why Use Canopy?
- All work listed in the contract will be turned into tasks as your clients approve your engagement letter.
- Canopy engagement letter templates allow you to maintain complete transparency with clients by providing dedicated space to break down scope, rates, service offerings, terms and conditions, and insights.
- Similar to Ignition, you can collect payment details from clients as soon as they sign your engagement letter.
- You can view and track the status of your engagement letters in one single dashboard.
- Offers step-by-step walkthrough for your clients to easily approve and sign the document sent via a secure link.
- Add as many engagement items as you like and import the rates, scope and relevant terms and conditions with a few clicks.
- Building an engagement letter with Canopy is a matter of a few clicks if you have populated all your service-related terms and conditions in the client and service database.
- Other Canopy solutions include document management, workflow automation, tracker and billing, and reporting.
Ideal For
- Accounting firms aim to automate their client onboarding process and workflow.
Pricing
Monthly Pricing
- Starter Plan - $45 per user
- Essentials Plan - $66 per user
Monthly Price if paid Annually
- Starter Plan - $540 per user
- Essentials Plan - $792 per user
Growing firms can customize their plan by adding the required practice management tools and add-ons. Individual costs are charged for add-ons and other features you include in your custom plan.
Also Read
Top 10 Canopy Alternatives for Accounting and Tax Firms in 2024
#4. GoProposal
GoProposal specializes in facilitating proposals, creating engagement letters, and AML functions. Similar to Canopy, GoProposal engagement letters are automatically populated based on the services you’re offering to the client.
As you list the relevant service and choose the appropriate type of engagement letter, GoProposal automatically fills in your service offering, related terms and conditions, and pricing breakdowns to minimize the time spent manually creating and curating the data.
The client engagement platform also helps you avoid scope creep and potential revenue loss by allowing you to set deadlines for each task within your engagement letters, ensuring your clients and you are on the same page.
One of the unique pros of using GoProposals is that users/members will get a quarterly update about legislature or new standards revisions to ensure your firm and client arrangement are always on track.
Why Use GoProposals?
- Your team can consistently send accurate engagement letters as all members refer to a central repository of pricing and service quote data.
- As you enter relevant services and related standards, GoProposal summons all the related data and fills out the form on your behalf.
- Dedicated pricing list maintenance to access and pull all your service quotes whenever needed. It also allows your team to consistently follow a standard quote for all your clients, ensuring uniformity.
- Centralized library to store scope and service details to facilitate quick access when drafting a new client's engagement letter.
- Integrates with accounting practice softwares like QuickBooks, Xero, Karbon, etc., to help you sync proposals and engagement letters with your workflow and tasks.
Ideal For
- Accountant looking for comprehensive process management software
Pricing
Solo - £60.00
Basic - £90.00
Standard - £120.00
Premium - £190.00
#5. PandaDoc
PandaDoc offers a client engagement suite to successfully complete your onboarding paperwork. Paired with the flexible editor, advanced tracking and document management, it stands out for its customizable capabilities.
PandaDoc offers both proposals and contracts; however, you can find more than 1000 templates to fill out and customize for your brand. Besides its template editor, the standout feature is the real-time interaction function via comments, which takes client collaboration one step further.
It boasts useful collaboration options, such as content lock to avoid unauthorized edits, smart content to use industry-relevant language, and added verification options for better security.
Why Use PandaDoc?
- 750+ document templates paired with drag-and-drop functionalities make it ideal for branding and editing documents related to your service offerings.
- Add interactive media elements such as images, videos, or smart content to make your proposals engaging.
- Similar to other practice management softwares like Canopy, and Ignition, you can collect payment details or get upfronts cleared as soon as your client signs your contract.
- The comment function enabled in the document allows your client to drop suggestions or raise queries and sort them on the go, significantly reducing the back-and-forth in the email.
- Integrates with your CRM to ensure your data is up-to-date and consistent across all data points.
- Page analytics function provides metrics insights about your client activity in the doc.
- Real-time notification to track client activities and get appropriate renewal updates.
Ideal For
- Individual accountants
Pricing
Monthly Pricing
- Essential - $35
- Business - $65
- Enterprise - Custom Quote
Monthly Price if paid annually
- Essential - $19
- Business - $49
- Enterprise - Custom Quote
#6. Proposify
Proposify is a perfect combination of proposal designer and client activity tracker with pre-built templates offering flexible customization options. It has a central repository of pre-populated content, standard market fee insights, and a rich editing dashboard to help you brand and build proposals or client engagement documents.
Its customization option makes it an ideal tool for accountants despite being developed to cater to a broader set of service providers. If you’re keen on branding and setting a solid brand impression, Proposify will equip you with all the necessary tools to create and build impressive contracts and proposals.
Key Features
- Document organization system with a search filter that allows you to pull out any client-related document with just a click when needed.
- An excellent option for whoever is seeking flexibility in design to brand documents to reflect consistency and build a brand impression.
- Infinite opportunity to take your proposals from boring to aesthetically classic - drag-and-drop editors, ample text models, images and video supports etc.,
- Strategically put together collaboration features that secure your content from unauthorized editors.
- Comes with a powerful tracker that reports how your clients engage with your proposal – right from how long they stayed on a page and their end action.
- Status, engagement and activity metrics dictate data-driven suggestions to help you improve your proposal, impress your clients, and close more deals.
- Notifications are triggered based on client engagement so you know when to reach your customers with the right message.
- The client can customize the number of your deliverables to fit their budget instead of having an extensive meeting where you have to get back to your client and nudge them to review the proposal AGAIN.
- It supports 15 languages, integrates with CRM for unified client management, has an eSignature feature to reduce friction, and has all the supporting features to smoothly get you started on a project.
Ideal For
- Small businesses
- Service Providers
- Freelancers
Pricing
Team plan - $49
Business Plan - Custom Plan
Also Read:
Proposify Alternatives: 10 Competitor Proposal Software to try in 2024
#7. Anchor
Anchor is a billing and payments software solution that provides an efficient method of billing, collections, and payments. It generates and sends the proposals, agreements, and invoices for the job to be done. It includes features such as automatic reminders for payments, preset payments, and integration with QuickBooks to avoid nagging clients for a payment.
Security wise, Anchor accepts payments by ACH and/or credit cards and ensures payments’ safety the same as the bank. It can effectively manage every single business transaction through a single control panel with real-time results. It is meant to minimize the work load, enhance cash flow and make billing less of a burden so that businesses channel their energy to growth.
Key Features
- Anchor offers automated proposals and agreements to streamline the client onboarding process.
- Automates billing and payments, scheduling them according to predefined agreements.
- There are reminders on payment made by the platform to make sure the clients pay on time; dunning emails are also used.
- It utilizes both ACH and credit card payment options.
- Anchor works well with QuickBooks to synchronize the invoices and billing readily.
- A real-time tool helps view payment status and monitor the company’s cash position at any given time.
- Pages of transactions are secure with the help of bank level security.
- Anchor offer clients dedicated account managers and round the clock technical support.
- The pricing model is transparent, with no subscriptions—Anchor gets paid only when you do.
Ideal For
- Freelancers
- Consultants
- Service-based businesses
Pricing
Anchor charges just $5 per transaction.
#8. BrightPropose
BrightPropose is an easy to use proposal solution that helps you create branded and professional proposals in minutes. It assists firms to convince clients by creating proposals, emails, and engagement letters that suit clients in every sector. The software offers pre-built templates tailored for accounting services, ensuring quick proposal generation.
With a built-in pricing calculator, it enables accurate service pricing to boost profitability. BrightPropose also integrates seamlessly with BrightManager, automating workflows and client data transfer. Clients can securely sign engagement letters digitally, making onboarding smooth and efficient.
Key Features
- Fully tailor your proposals, emails, and engagement letters to reflect your firm’s branding, style, and identity.
- Develop templates for accounting services to prepare high-quality work proposal in the shortest time possible.
- A built-in calculator ensures consistent and accurate service pricing, helping prevent undercharging and boost profitability.
- Edit proposals easily and generate engagement letters automatically with just one click.
- Connect with BrightManager to automate the transfer of client data and streamline your workflow.
- Enable clients to securely sign engagement letters online, ensuring a smooth transition from proposal approval to project start.
Ideal For
- Accounting Firms and bookkeepers
- Tax Consultants
- Freelance Accountants
Pricing
- Basic - €60 per month or €720 per year
- Essentials - €120 per month or €1440 per year
- Advanced - €180 per month or €2160 per year
Benefits of Using Accounting Engagement Letter Software
Engagement letters or proposal softwares are more efficient, error-free, and have a client-centric workflow. If templates can save you from creating drafts from scratch, accounting software can take you a step further through automatic data curation and advanced collaboration.
The transition from conventional templates to engagement letter software is a step towards enhanced efficiency, effective communication, assured accuracy and compliance, streamlined collaboration, and an elevated professional image. It helps you become a client-first firm, leveraging tech developments for improved customer experience.
Also Read
Proposal Software options for Accounting firms
About features and comparison of various accounting Practice Management Software options in 2024
Importance of Accounting Engagement Letter Software for Accounting firms
Accounting engagement letter software helps provide:
- Clarity and Transparency - This covers formal agreement between accounting firm and client which clearly outlines the terms, pricing and responsibilities.
- Risk mitigation - This is a legally binding contract that both parties need to adhere to.
- Avoiding scope creep - This helps avoid scope creep as the scope is clearly outlined in the engagement letter.
How to write an Effective Accounting Engagement Letter?
Please go through this article which covers in details of how an effective accounting engagement letter can be drafted and key elements to be included with samples and templates.
Bottom Line
The ability to generate precise, professional, and legal-standard documents at the click of a button isn't just convenient; it's integral to the smooth operation of a growing accounting firm.
As we've explored the leading engagement letter software options available, it's apparent that each has unique strengths, catering to the varied needs of accounting professionals. However, amidst all the options, Cone stands out for its affordability, efficiency, and versatility, proving to be an ideal option for growing firms.
Cone's impressive suite of features—including customizable templates, automated billing, and client engagement tools—is complemented by solid security protocols and seamless integration capabilities. It proves to be a go-to solution for growing firms that want to scale their revenue.
So, Cone is the ideal solution if you're seeking to step into the future of accounting with a tool that aligns perfectly with your drive for excellence. Discover more at Cone and empower your firm to operate at its peak capabilities.