Accounting firms are unusual in this category: you already own accounting software, you use it daily, and you are still probably invoicing badly.<\/p>\n
The reason is that practice billing is a different problem from client bookkeeping. Your own invoicing involves work in progress, recurring fixed fees, time recorded against jobs, and \u2014 depending on where you practise \u2014 client money held in a separate account that must never be touched.<\/p>\n
General invoicing software handles none of that well.<\/p>\n
Work in progress.<\/strong> Time recorded but not yet billed is an asset and a management problem. Firms that do not track WIP discover they have done three months of unbilled work on a client.<\/p>\n Fixed fees on a recurring cycle.<\/strong> Most practice revenue is monthly retainers for bookkeeping, payroll and compliance. These should bill automatically, and drift when they do not.<\/p>\n Job-based billing against a scope.<\/strong> A year-end accounts job has an agreed fee. Time over that fee is either a write-off or a conversation, and you need to see it before you invoice.<\/p>\n Write-offs and write-ups.<\/strong> Recorded deliberately, because the pattern tells you which clients are underpriced.<\/p>\n Client money separation.<\/strong> If you hold money on behalf of clients, it is not your revenue and must sit in a designated client account, reconciled separately. This is a regulatory requirement, not a preference.<\/p>\n Karbon<\/strong> \u2014 workflow, jobs, client communication and billing. Strong on the work management side, which is where most practice pain actually sits.<\/p>\n Senta or Glide<\/strong> \u2014 practice management aimed at UK firms, with deadline tracking, workflows and billing.<\/p>\n Xero Practice Manager<\/strong> \u2014 jobs, time, WIP and invoicing, integrated with Xero. The natural choice for Xero-centric firms.<\/p>\n Intuit Practice Management<\/strong> \u2014 QuickBooks-centric equivalent.<\/p>\n Ignition<\/strong> \u2014 proposals, engagement letters, payment collection and recurring billing in one flow. Worth naming separately because it solves the engagement-to-payment problem specifically, which most firms handle manually.<\/p>\n Xero<\/strong> or QuickBooks<\/strong> \u2014 you probably already run one for the practice. Adequate for simple fixed-fee billing; weak on WIP and job-based billing.<\/p>\n Harvest<\/strong> or Toggl Track<\/strong> \u2014 time to invoice, straightforward. Fine for a small practice with simple billing; no practice workflow.<\/p>\nThe Options<\/h2>\n
Practice management with billing built in<\/h3>\n
General accounting software for your own books<\/h3>\n
Time and billing specialists<\/h3>\n
How They Compare<\/h2>\n