Standing monthly requests for bookkeeping clients
How a firm collects bank statements, invoices and slips from bookkeeping clients every month with request templates, reminders and timelines in Achekam.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
In a bookkeeping practice, the hardest part of the month is often not the bookkeeping. It is getting the documents: the bank statements for every account, the sales invoices, the supplier invoices, the slips for card purchases and the explanation for that large transfer on the 14th. Every month the same clients are late, every month someone sends the same e-mail, and every month the documents arrive in a different form through a different channel.
A standing monthly request fixes the routine rather than the symptoms. The client gets the same request at the same time every month, through the same link, and the firm can see who has answered and who has not. This article sets that up in Achekam.
What to ask for each month
Start from what the books need, client by client. A typical monthly list:
- bank statements for every account, including credit cards, savings and loan accounts;
- sales invoices issued, or the till or point-of-sale reports, for clients who invoice outside Achekam;
- supplier invoices received, and slips for anything paid by card or cash;
- payroll changes: new staff, leavers, pay changes, overtime and leave;
- loan and hire-purchase statements;
- answers to questions about transactions the bookkeeper could not identify last month.
Write each item as the client knows it: "statements for the business cheque account and the business credit card" rather than "bank". Questions belong in the request too. An answered question in the request is better than a reply buried in someone's inbox.
Clients have their own duty to keep these records, and a monthly routine helps them meet it. In South Africa, SARS's page on record keeping explains who must keep records under the Tax Administration Act, which records, books of account and documents to keep, and the five-year retention periods.
Templates under RFI Templates
Build the list once as a reusable request template. Templates live under RFI Templates, and staff create, send and track every request in the one RFI console, whichever screen a request starts from.
One template per type of client usually works better than one per client:
| Client type | Items specific to that type |
|---|---|
| Retailer | Daily till reports, card settlement reports, cash-up sheets |
| Professional services | Time or billing reports, disbursements, trust or client money statements where relevant |
| Construction | Payment certificates, subcontractor invoices, retention statements |
| Non-profit | Donation records, grant reports, restricted fund movements |
Then adjust the copy for each client's accounts and people. A request that lists the client's actual bank accounts by name is answered more completely than a generic one.
Sending each month
Achekam does not collect documents automatically from a mailbox, Google Drive, SFTP or on a schedule, so each month's request is sent by a person. Make it a fixed task on a fixed day, for example the first working day after month end, owned by the bookkeeper for that client.
The client opens the request from a personal e-mailed link, without an Achekam account. Links last 14 days by default, which suits a monthly cycle. For requests that carry sensitive items, such as payroll changes with identity numbers, the firm can also require a one-time code sent to the client's e-mail before the request opens.
On the request page, the client uploads files or whole folders and answers the questions. A client who keeps a "this month" folder on their computer can send it in one go.
Reminders and their limits
Automatic reminders go every 3 days by default, up to 5 per request, and they can be switched off. For monthly requests, the defaults usually do the chasing that a bookkeeper would otherwise do by hand.
Reminders have limits. They stop after the last one, and they cannot persuade a client who has decided the request is not a priority. When a client lets the reminders run out month after month, the fix is a conversation, not more e-mails. How reminders, returns and failed e-mails work in more detail is covered in request reminders, returns and delivery problems.
Where the documents are filed
Everything the client sends is filed in that client's vault folder. Executable file types are blocked, files are limited to 100 MB each by default, and files are virus-scanned only where the server operator has configured ClamAV; otherwise structural checks run and the record says which.
Staff accept or reject each item and can return the request saying what is still missing. Return incomplete requests quickly, while the month is fresh in the client's mind. "We have the cheque account statement but not the credit card" is easy to answer in the first week and hard in the third.
Spotting clients who never open the link
For each request, staff see a timeline of e-mails, opens, clicks, uploads and answers. A request is flagged 'Delivery failed' when the mail provider refused it or no provider is set up. Opens are detected with a tracking image, so treat an open as an indication, not proof; some mail programs block the image, and some open it automatically.
Use the timeline to sort clients into three groups each month:
- Answered: move on to the bookkeeping.
- Opened but not answered: the request reached them; a phone call usually finishes it.
- Never opened, or delivery failed: check the e-mail address first, then call.
Clients who repeatedly fall into the third group may simply prefer another channel. Some firms collect from those clients in other ways; see collecting documents without connectors.
A worked example in words: on the first working day of the month, a bookkeeper sends a retailer the retail template, adjusted to list its two bank accounts and its card machine. The owner uploads the bank statements and till reports within a week but not the card settlement report. The bookkeeper returns the request naming that one item, it arrives two days later, and the month's bookkeeping starts with everything in the client's folder.
Make it predictable
Agree with each client the day the request will arrive and the day the documents are due, and keep to it. Predictability is what turns a monthly request from a reminder into a habit.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
