A client portal for accounting firms in Australia, run one way across the team
When a firm grows past one person, document collection stops being a memory problem and becomes a coordination problem. FirmHello is the layer that makes it the same job for everybody.
No card and no sales call. Your portal carries your firm's name from the first client you add.
Company return 2025
11 of 15 received1 item overdue — FirmHello is chasing
- Trial balance Received 3 Apr
- Bank reconciliations Received 3 Apr
- Loan agreements Received 5 Apr
- ! Director remuneration Overdue
- Depreciation schedule Assigned to J. Okonkwo
- Engagement letter 2025 Approved 14 Jan
Whitcombe Ashby's portal, as their client sees it.
A sole practitioner can hold every outstanding item in their head. A firm with nine staff cannot. Work gets picked up by whoever is free, a client gets asked for the same statement by two people, and the partner reviewing the file has no way to tell whether it is waiting on the client or on the team.
FirmHello gives the firm one shared surface for everything client-facing. Request templates are set at firm level so every preparer asks for the same things in the same words. Staff get access per client. Partners get a single view of every engagement that is blocked and why.
What breaks when a practice grows staff
Every preparer asks differently
Two people with the same job title send a client two different document lists, because the list was never written down anywhere but in their own habits.
The client gets asked twice
Nothing is more corrosive to a client relationship than being chased for something they already sent to somebody else at the firm.
Partners cannot see what is stuck
Review conversations start with "where are we on Ferndale?" and the honest answer is that nobody knows without opening three inboxes.
Handover loses the thread
When a job moves between staff, or a seasonal preparer leaves, the history of what was asked and what arrived leaves with them.
One standard, applied by everyone
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Step 1
Set the firm's templates once
A partner defines what a company tax return, a set of year end financials or a STP finalisation requires. Nobody has to remember, and nobody improvises.
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Step 2
Assign work, not inboxes
A job is assigned to a staff member with access to that client only. Anyone picking it up can see the full history of what has been asked.
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Step 3
Review by exception
Partners see every engagement that is blocked, what it is blocked on, and how long it has been waiting, rather than asking around.
Running an Australian firm through lodgment season
Your lodgment program spreads individual returns across months, and BAS clients owe you records every quarter on top of them. The firm dashboard lists every engagement waiting on a client, oldest first, with the item it is stuck on and who owns it.
Work done by staff who are not registered agents has to run under the supervision and control of one who is. Per-client access and a firm-wide audit trail show which staff member touched which client and when.
One template per return type
Individual returns, company returns and quarterly BAS each get one firm-wide list in the firm's wording, and every accountant sends that list.
Seasonal staff
Give a seasonal accountant the clients they are working on and nothing else, and take them back when the season ends. There are no seats to buy for them.
Where the data is held
FirmHello does not offer hosting in Australia today. If your practice needs documents held onshore, you should know that before you choose us.
More than one office
On the Group plan each office or trading name can carry its own branding, while partners see the whole firm's outstanding work in one place.
What accounting firms use most
Every featureRequest lists
Templates owned by the firm rather than by individual staff, so the twelfth preparer asks for exactly what the first one did.
Automatic chasing
Reminders go out from the firm on a firm-wide rhythm, which means no client is ever chased twice by two people about the same item.
Client vault
One permanent record per client that survives staff turnover, with prior years, engagement letters and identity documents in one place.
Audit trail
Actor-level logging, so a partner can see who asked for what, who opened it and when, across the whole firm.
Your brand, your domain
A single branded portal for the firm, not a different arrangement per staff member or per office.
Intake forms
New client onboarding runs the same way every time, whoever takes the first call.
Firm-level controls
Roles, not shared logins
Owner, staff and limited access, with per-client grants on top. A seasonal preparer sees their jobs and nothing else.
Single sign-on
On the Group plan, staff sign in with your existing identity provider, so leavers lose access the moment their account is disabled.
Exportable oversight
Export the audit trail for a client, an engagement or the whole firm when a review or an insurer asks for it.
Client documents are the most sensitive thing a firm holds
So the portal is built to hold them properly: encrypted, access granted one client at a time, and every action recorded. Nothing travels as an email attachment.
How FirmHello is built- Encrypted in transit and at rest
- TLS 1.3 on every connection and AES-256 encryption for stored documents, with keys managed separately from the data they protect.
- Access is per client, not per firm
- A client can only ever load their own space. Staff access is granted per client, so a junior can be given three files and nothing else.
- No documents in email
- Notifications tell a client that something is waiting and link them to the portal. The material itself never leaves it as an attachment.
- Complete audit trail
- Views, uploads, downloads, approvals and permission changes are all recorded with actor, time and IP, and the log is exportable.
- Retention you control
- Set how long documents live per client or per matter, and hold or purge on request, so the portal matches the retention policy you already have.
- Hosted in your region
- Choose United States, Canada, the EU or the United Kingdom, and your firm's data stays in that region.
Questions from accounting firms
Can we stop two staff chasing the same client?
Yes. Reminders belong to the request, not to a person, so the client gets one follow-up from the firm regardless of who is working the job.
Do you support single sign-on?
Yes, on the Group plan. Staff authenticate through your identity provider, so access follows your existing joiner and leaver process.
Can a partner see everything without touching each file?
Partners get a view of every engagement with outstanding items, sorted by how long they have been waiting, with the blocking item named.
What happens when a staff member leaves?
Remove their access and the work stays exactly where it is. Nothing client-facing lived in their mailbox, so nothing leaves with them.
Can we run several offices or trading names from one account?
Yes. Branding and domains can be set per office or trading name while oversight and templates stay shared at firm level.
Where to go next
Every page on the site, grouped by the question it answers.
Ready when you are
Tell us how your firm is structured and we will set the templates and roles up with you.
No card and no sales call. If you would rather tell us about your firm first, use the longer form.