The best phone system for accountancy practices

Chasing eighty clients for their records should not cost a member of staff a whole day: Skipcall turns it into one session.

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The situation

What holds you back today

01

Chasing records by hand, week after week

02

Practice growth with no process behind it

03

Client conversations that never reach the file

The answer

What Skipcall changes

A whole chasing round done in one session

The parallel dialer →

An AI summary filed against the client

Recording and transcription →

Sequences aimed at newly incorporated companies

Sequences →

Specific to your industry

What the ethical codes allow, and what they frame

Plenty of practices still believe the profession forbids them from approaching anyone. It does not. The ICAEW and ACCA codes of ethics let a firm advertise and solicit work; what they regulate is the form of the approach and the honesty of the claim. Those are the constraints that actually bear on an outbound call.

Approaching a prospect directly is allowed

A firm may market its services, including to a business that has never heard of it. The codes require the offer to be honest and truthful, free of exaggerated claims about the service or its outcome, and free of anything disparaging about another firm. What stays out of bounds is pressure and the promise of a result.

Confidentiality does not stop at the handset

Anyone chasing records handles information covered by the duty of confidentiality. That rules out naming a client in front of a third party, including by accident in an open plan office, and it means access to recordings stays with the people who work on that file.

Taking over from another firm

Before accepting an appointment, the incoming accountant asks the client's permission to write to the outgoing firm and asks whether there is any professional reason not to act. Unpaid fees owed to the previous firm are one of the matters that come up in that exchange. It is prepared before the closing call, not after the engagement letter is signed.

Prospecting lists

Prospecting a business stays lawful, subject to UK GDPR, which means a documented lawful basis, telling people where their details came from and acting on an objection, and subject to screening the number against the Corporate Telephone Preference Service. Companies House data being public exempts you from neither.

Recording calls

Telling the other party comes before the recording starts, with a defined purpose and a retention period. Chasing a client for their records and calling a stranger are not the same purpose, so the two are better not kept in the same place.

None of this stops a practice from growing on the phone. It only means knowing, before you dial, what basis you are calling on and what you keep afterwards.

The script

The script for a business development call, for a practice

You are calling the director of a recently incorporated company, or a local business someone has mentioned to you. The call is short and aims at a meeting. It stays inside what the codes allow: an honest description of the work, no promise of a result, no pressure.

The opener, with a director who has just incorporated

“Hello, [full name], chartered accountant at [firm] in [town]. I saw your incorporation on Companies House. I am calling with one question: have you got someone for the accounts yet, or is that still to sort out?”

Saying where the details came from in the first sentence answers the question that always follows, and it is also what the transparency rules ask of you.

If they say they have not thought about it yet

“Very common. The pressing part is not the accounts, it comes earlier than that: whether you register for VAT, how you pay yourself, and keeping the records straight from month one. Twenty minutes, video call or at our office, and you will know what to do even if you never work with us.”

A meeting about the deadline in front of the founder is harder to refuse than a presentation of the practice.

If they already have an accountant

“Fair enough, and I am not asking you to change. I am simply putting myself on the map: if one day the service stops matching what you need, you will know we exist. When does your engagement letter come up for renewal?”

The codes rule out running down another firm. Positioning yourself on a date, without a word about the incumbent, stays inside the line.

If they ask what it costs

“I cannot give you an honest number on the phone without knowing what you want and what volume it represents. Tell me the trade, the VAT position and how many transactions a month, and you will get a priced engagement letter in writing. I am not promising you a saving: I am telling you what the work covers.”

The promise of a result is precisely what stays out of bounds. Saying so yourself reassures more than a figure plucked out of the air.

If they say they are flat out and will call back

“I understand, and I would rather not leave it to you to call me. Give me a date, even six weeks out: I will write it down and I will keep to it. Which day suits you, first thing in the morning?”

Closing the call

“I will send you something in writing today with what we have covered and the date we have just agreed. If you would rather not be contacted before then, just reply and I will take you off the list.”

Repeating the right to object costs one sentence and settles the question of where the list came from.

At Skipcall, every call is recorded, transcribed and summarised, so the script gets corrected against what your reps actually say rather than what we imagine they say.

Avoid this

Three mistakes this industry makes on the phone

The mistake

Running the growth campaign in January, when the team is buried in self assessment.

Do this instead

Whoever is making the calls will be pulled back onto a return before the first follow up, and the prospect who agrees to a meeting will not be looked after. Put development where the practice could genuinely take on another client, usually late spring and over the summer, then September to November, with a weekly slot that gets kept rather than a one off push.

The mistake

Naming a client as a reference to reassure a prospect.

Do this instead

The duty of confidentiality forbids it, even when the reference is flattering and the prospect has never heard of the person. Talk in terms of sector, size and type of work, with no names. If you want to quote a client, get their permission in writing once and for all.

The mistake

Promising a tax saving or a figure to win the decision.

Do this instead

Claims about what the work will achieve are exactly what the ethical codes rule out, and they turn against you at the first year end. Describe what the engagement includes, what it does not, and what you deliver by when: that precision is what sets a practice apart, not a number offered on the phone.

A calendar full of meetings starts with a call.

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions, Accountancy Practices

Yes. The ICAEW and ACCA codes of ethics allow a member firm to advertise and to solicit work, provided the approach is honest and truthful, makes no exaggerated claim about the service or what it will achieve, and makes no disparaging reference to another firm. The confidentiality rules and the professional clearance process still apply once a prospect turns into a client, and client due diligence comes before the engagement rather than after it. On the marketing side, the number is screened against the Corporate Telephone Preference Service and UK GDPR governs the data behind the list.
Group the chasing instead of scattering it: one dedicated session a week, file by file, beats an isolated call squeezed between two jobs. Call at the time the owner is genuinely free, which for a trade or a shop is often early morning or late afternoon. Ask for a specific date rather than an agreement in principle, write it down, and send a short note repeating it. A tool that dials several lines in parallel and summarises each call is what lets you get through the whole round in one sitting.
A practice has two distinct uses: chasing its existing clients and winning new ones. Skipcall covers both, with four lines dialled in parallel, voicemail detection, recording, transcription and a summary of every call, a pre-CRM and sequences. It receives calls on the line they were made to, but it does not replace a switchboard: there is no IVR, no queue and no distribution to a group. If the practice's reception calls need routing, that stays a separate job.
Yes, provided you tell the other party before the recording starts, with a defined purpose, a retention period and a lawful basis recorded under UK GDPR. Confidentiality sits on top of that: access to the recordings has to stay with the people working on the file.
New incorporations are published by Companies House and free to search. The moment that works is the first few weeks, while the founder is still looking for an accountant and has no year end behind them. Plan a short call about the deadline that is worrying them, then something in writing, rather than a full tour of the practice. Data being public does not exempt you from saying where the details came from, screening the number or honouring an objection.

Other industries that prospect by phone

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Two markets to call at the same time, contractors and the agencies that supply them, from one tool.

Staffing & temp agencies

A shift to cover for tomorrow morning: call 40 temps in 10 minutes.

IT services & managed services

Placing a consultant and opening an account run on the same lever: the number of useful conversations.

See what it does on your own lists

A demo runs on your own contacts, not on a sample data set.

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