Auto-replies and welcome packs for new leads
What Achekam can send new leads automatically, from a short acknowledgement to a welcome letter and fee-less proposal, and the checks before anything goes.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A prospect who fills in a form at nine at night would like to know someone received it. A prospect who fills it in on a Saturday would like something more useful than silence until Monday. Firms know this, and many would happily send something automatically.
What holds them back is the firm's name on the message. An accounting or audit practice cannot let software promise a fee, a deadline or a turnaround it has not agreed to, and professional rules on how firms describe their services do not relax because an e-mail was generated rather than typed. Those rules start from the five fundamental principles set out in the IESBA's International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants.
Achekam offers two automatic sends to new leads, each with its own limits. Both are off until the firm switches them on.
Two different things to switch on
| Acknowledgement | Welcome pack | |
|---|---|---|
| What goes out | A short e-mail confirming the enquiry | A welcome letter and a service proposal that names no fee |
| Written by | AI, from a fixed preset | AI, tailored from a template a person approved |
| Read before sending? | No | The template is approved once; each tailored send is checked automatically |
| Who receives it | Each lead a connector captures | Each new connector lead, or a lead staff choose |
| Switched on by | An administrator | The firm, with templates approved first |
Connector leads are those arriving through the firm's capture routes, such as the Zapier hook described in Facebook lead ads via Zapier.
The acknowledgement and its limits
The acknowledgement is a short e-mail to each lead a connector captures. AI writes it from a fixed preset, and it is sent without anyone reading it first. An administrator switches it on under SETTINGS > CRM & Sales > Lead auto-responder & outreach. By default, an address receives at most one acknowledgement per day, so a prospect who submits three forms in an afternoon does not receive three replies.
Because nobody reads each message, the acknowledgement should do very little: thank the person, say the firm will be in touch, and stop. It is not the place to describe services or set expectations about timing.
The welcome letter and a proposal with no fee
The welcome pack goes further. With it switched on, each new connector lead is sent a welcome letter and a service proposal that names no fee. AI tailors both from a template that a person approved once for that industry and service. Staff can also send a pack by hand from the lead's page.
The proposal deliberately has no fee and no accept link. It describes what the firm would do, so the prospect can see whether the firm is a fit, but it does not commit the firm to a price or invite the prospect to agree to terms nobody has discussed.
That design matches the rest of the CRM. The firm's service catalogue keeps prices blank until a person types them, and the starter list Achekam adds carries none. When AI drafts a proposal's sections or an engagement letter's clauses, it never drafts fees.
The template a person approves once
Until its template is approved, the pack for that industry and service is held, not sent. Approval is a single step, but it is the step that matters: the approved template sets the limits of everything the AI may say in that firm's name for that service.
A partner must approve the templates for audit and review services. That reflects the extra care those engagements need: independence considerations, the difference between an audit and an independent review, and the terms that ISA 210 or ISRE 2400 (Revised) expect to be agreed before work starts. A generic welcome that blurs those lines would be worse than no welcome at all.
Sends stopped when the wording adds facts
The final safeguard runs on each tailored message. If the tailored text adds a date, an amount or a percentage that is not in the approved template or in the lead's own details, the send is stopped.
That catches the errors that cause real trouble: a promised turnaround, an invented discount, a filing deadline stated wrongly. The AI can adjust tone and mention the prospect's industry, but a new date, amount or percentage stops the message. A promise made in words alone, such as "we respond quickly", contains no figure for the check to find, which is one more reason to read the template carefully before approving it.
The same thinking applies to proposals staff send later. Achekam will not send a proposal whose wording breaks the professional guardrails or, for audits and reviews, before a partner has reviewed it. The path from that proposal to a signed letter is in from proposal to engagement letter.
Before switching anything on
- Decide whether the firm wants the acknowledgement at all, and keep it to a few lines.
- List the industries and services the welcome pack should cover, and write a template for each.
- Have a partner approve the audit and review templates personally.
- Read the approved templates as if you were the prospect. Remove anything that sounds like a promise.
- Send a test pack from a lead page to a colleague and read the tailored version.
- Decide who follows up, and how quickly, once a pack has gone. Sequences that stop when a lead replies are covered in follow-up sequences.
Automation buys the firm a prompt, polite first contact. The relationship still starts when a person picks up the phone, so switch on the acknowledgement or the pack only once the firm has agreed who makes that call.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
