Requirements guide
Accounting practice management software requirements for UK firms
A practical requirements framework for partners, managers, and operations leads who want to compare platforms against the workflows their firm actually needs to improve.
Published 12 June 2026. Written for UK accounting and advisory firms preparing vendor shortlists, demos, and rollout plans.
Core requirements to document
Client and entity source of truth
- Client, contact, entity, service, owner, note, document, communication, and deadline data should live in one trusted record.
- The firm should be able to see relationships between individuals, companies, trusts, groups, and related contacts.
- Client records should be searchable, permission-aware, and useful for partners, managers, and delivery teams.
Workflow and deadline control
- Recurring accounting workflows should support owners, due dates, dependencies, review steps, approvals, and status changes.
- Managers should be able to identify blocked work, overdue requests, upcoming deadlines, and workflow bottlenecks quickly.
- Workflow templates should be maintainable without relying on one technical person in the firm.
Client requests and document collection
- Client requests should clearly show what is needed, who asked for it, the due date, and whether the client has responded.
- Documents should connect back to the relevant client, job, request, approval, and evidence trail.
- The client-facing experience should reduce email chasing rather than create another place clients ignore.
Compliance evidence and permissions
- AML-aware onboarding, review notes, risk decisions, document evidence, approvals, and audit history should be easy to find.
- Role-based permissions should protect sensitive client data and make ownership clear.
- The firm should be able to show who completed, reviewed, changed, or approved key records and when.
Reporting and management visibility
- Partners and managers should see workload, client status, blocked work, deadline risk, handovers, and team capacity.
- Reports should help the firm make workflow decisions, not only export static lists.
- Dashboards should be trusted enough to retire duplicate spreadsheets and manual weekly update requests.
Prioritise requirements before demos
| Priority | Meaning | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Must-have | Without this, the platform will not solve the firm's core operating problem. | Client source of truth, recurring workflows, document requests, reporting, permissions. |
| Should-have | Important for adoption or scale, but not always required on day one. | Advanced templates, client portal polish, integrations, custom dashboards, bulk actions. |
| Nice-to-have | Useful, but should not drive the buying decision ahead of core workflow fit. | Cosmetic preferences, rarely used automations, edge-case exports, optional alerts. |
| Future phase | A later improvement once the first rollout is working and trusted. | Deeper analytics, extra service lines, wider client self-service, advanced capacity planning. |
Evidence to ask for in demos
- 1.Create a new client, assign services, add contacts, and show where ownership lives.
- 2.Run a recurring accounts or VAT workflow from request to review to completion.
- 3.Ask a client for missing documents and show how the team tracks the response.
- 4.Attach AML evidence, review notes, and approvals to the client record.
- 5.Show all work blocked by the client versus blocked internally.
- 6.Show a manager dashboard for deadline risk, capacity, and overdue requests.
- 7.Change a workflow template and explain who can approve template changes.
- 8.Export or retrieve client data if the firm ever leaves the platform.
Red flags in requirements fit
- The system needs a spreadsheet to answer basic status questions.
- Client documents, messages, and jobs are disconnected from each other.
- AML or compliance evidence is treated as an upload folder rather than part of onboarding and review.
- The vendor cannot show messy real workflows with late clients, missing documents, and handovers.
- Managers cannot see the information they need without asking the team for manual updates.
- Implementation depends on one person remembering how everything was configured.
Use your requirements to test Bryxo
Bryxo is built around the operating requirements growing accounting firms usually need first: client records, workflows, document requests, AML-aware evidence, communication, reporting, and manager visibility.
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Frequently asked questions
What are the core requirements for accounting practice management software?
Core requirements usually include a client source of truth, recurring workflows, deadline tracking, document requests, client communication, AML-aware evidence, permissions, reporting, and implementation support.
How should a firm prioritise requirements?
Prioritise requirements by operational pain. Must-have items should solve the workflows causing the most manual chasing, deadline risk, client confusion, or reporting friction.
Should requirements be written before vendor demos?
Yes. Writing requirements before demos helps every vendor answer the same questions and stops the firm from being distracted by features that do not solve its core workflows.
What is the difference between a checklist and requirements document?
A checklist helps firms remember what to evaluate. A requirements document turns those items into must-have, should-have, nice-to-have, and future-phase criteria that can be scored consistently.