iMessage for accountants and tax preparers

Accounting practices have a workload problem shaped like a document problem. The work cannot start until the client sends things, the client will not send things until they are prompted, and the prompt arrives in an inbox they check on Sundays. Every week of delay compresses into the same deadline crunch.

Chase the specific thing, never “your documents”

'Please send your documents' is unactionable and gets deferred. 'We still need your Q3 bank statements' is a five-minute task someone can do standing in a kitchen. Name the item, name the deadline, give an upload link.

export const practice = {
  documentChase: (c: Ctx) =>
    `${c.firm}: still need your ${c.itemName} to finish your ${c.jobType}. ` +
    `Upload here: ${c.uploadLink} — takes about a minute.`,
 
  deadlineWarning: (c: Ctx) =>
    `${c.firm}: ${c.deadlineName} is ${c.daysOut} days away and we're ` +
    `waiting on ${c.outstandingCount} item(s) from you. ${c.uploadLink}`,
 
  readyToReview: (c: Ctx) =>
    `${c.firm}: your ${c.jobType} is ready to review and sign. ` +
    `It's in the portal: ${c.portalLink}`,
 
  filed: (c: Ctx) =>
    `${c.firm}: ${c.jobType} filed today. Nothing further needed from you.`,
};

Schedule the whole season in advance

Do not chase reactively in the last three weeks. Build the sequence from the deadline backwards — an opening request, a reminder at four weeks, a specific outstanding-items list at two weeks, a final warning at one. Then let it run, with cancellation cascading the moment a client submits. Scheduling and cancellation.

Keep the numbers out of the message

Client financial detail — figures, liabilities, refund amounts — belongs behind a login, not in a bubble that appears on a lock screen. The text says something is ready; the portal holds what it is. Same discipline as law firms.

And send the 'filed' confirmation. It costs nothing, it closes the loop on the most anxious part of a client's year, and it is the message practices most often skip.