When it comes to liaising with clients, many accountants still prefer to maintain the personal touch rather than relying on software. John Stokdyk considers whether this attitude is changing.

A year ago, IT Zone's Guide to CRM for accountants [1] identified both behavioural and technological blocks to adoption of customer relationship management (CRM) systems within the profession.

According to some suppliers, accountants are still reluctant to entrust personal client relationships to automated systems. And on the technical side, adding a secondary CRM application such as ACT!, Goldmine or Salesforce.com would introduce yet another database to be reconciled with all the other client information held by firms.

Accountants remain a difficult market to crack for "client relationship management", but the developers who already have a foot in the door report growing interest for CRM-style functions.

According to CCH Software's Simon Crompton, there has been a surge in demand for email marketing tools. "That's all they want, noting more sophisticated. They just want to cross-sell and communicate more easily and cheaply."

Following focus groups with customers in larger firms, CCH added a more sophisticated Campaign Master tool to its ProSystem portfolio. Once again, the requirement was very specific - accountants wanted tools that would help them run seminars around tax changes and related issues.

"It's not just a tool for recording that they held it, but who they invited, who turned up and who expressed interest in follow-ups. It's a way to track information outside of Excel spreadsheets so they can go back and use the information in subsequent marketing efforts," Crompton explained.

Confirming that specialist developers had an advantage over generic CRM applications within accountancy, Crompton said that in one instance, CCH sold ProSystem Central and the associated marketing modules to a firm that didn't have any other CCH software. "They would have considered Salesforce.com, but opted for ours because it is written for accountants," he said.

Irish developer Relate Software targets smaller firms with DRIVE, the practice management application that it claims popularised CRM within accountancy. "CRM used to be the exception, but no more," said Relate's Laurence Pyzer.

"Because what we have done to publicise CRM as relevant to accountancy firms, it has become much more the norm that it ever was." But Pyzer admitted that once it had raised awareness and expectations in this area, other developers moved rapidly to offer similar functionality.

The specific tool that has been so successful is DRIVE's Communications module, which lists all the documents, emails, and telephone notes associated with a client in date order on a single screen. Where only DRIVE offered this facility in IT Zone's 2006 review of practice management applications, our 2009 review found it was a also available within IRIS, Sage, CCH and Digita software.

This "whole client" view is a standard feature for improving client service within CRM applications. When integrated seamlessly with marketing, time & billing and internal workflows in a typical practice management suite, it can greatly improve internal processes and flexibility, Pyzer noted.

Ben Bishop, the R&D director at Sage's Accountants Division, agreed. And anti-money laundering regulations made maintaining good client data an important compliance issue too, he added.

"It's all about that holistic view," said Bishop. As other accountancy specialists pointed out, accountants are reluctant to get to grips with software toolkits and the rigmarole required to adapt generic CRM tools to their peculiar needs and processes. Developers such as CCH, Relate and Sage were beginning to make headway in this field by splicing CRM functionality into established practice tools.

"So much depends on the information you hold and how you present it," said Bishop. "If you couple [client data] with the ability to create lists and call outs, you give the accountant the ability to use their own data to target their own clients."

One company attempting to infiltrate the accountancy market with CRM and related practice tools is Logical Office, which offers a collection of modules ranging from £100 to £250 a year. Director Rod Voyce acknowledged the difficulty in trying to get practitioners interested in marketing and CRM software.

"The problem with accountants is the same as with any other professionals. Some will not adopt to new technology because they don't want to learn and set up the system," he commented.

Yet unlike solicitors, accountants frequently carry out the same work for clients every year - exactly the sort of scenario at which technology can excel. Logical Office includes a basic CRM application along with campaign tools, document management and workflow tools. It also has a specialised engagement letter program that it bundles into a £600 a year "accountancy pack". Logical Office software will bolt into Microsoft Office, Sage 50 and can synch with management tools such as VPM and IRIS.

According to Voyce, there are opportunities among user firms who find the full practice management suites are too complex to use. "We have lots of IRIS users who have the Practice Management set up and working, but it's a bit clunky and requires a lot of training, so they don't get around to using it. They just use it for accounts production and tax, and use Logical Office for document management."

Even though Logical Office is building a niche within accountancy, Voyce admitted that some of the barriers remain in place when it comes to selling them marketing and customer relationship software.

"Accountants don't have a clue about CRM," he noted. "They have a core of regulatory work, so they are ring-fenced from the realities of recession that others face."

Further reading
IT Zone guide to practice management software - 2009 update [2]
Focus on practice technology [3]