A tax client portal for virtual tax firms, where the portal is the office
When there is no office for a client to walk into, the portal is not a convenience. It is the entire client experience, and it has to carry the credibility a reception desk used to.
Free for 14 days, no credit card. Your portal carries your firm's name from the first client you add.
2024 return — onboarding and documents
7 of 10 received1 item overdue — FirmHello is chasing
- Identity verification One-time code used
- Prior year return Received 6 Mar
- Income documents 5 files
- ! Crypto disposal records Overdue
- Confirm residency dates Reminder tomorrow
- Engagement letter Approved 2 Mar
Northlight Tax's portal, as their client sees it.
A virtual practice competes without the signals a physical one gets for free. No address, no waiting room, no handshake. A prospective client decides whether you are real from your website and from the first thing you ask them to do, which is usually to send you their financial life through a link.
FirmHello is built to be that first step and to survive the scrutiny it gets. Your domain, your branding, a clear list of what you need, identity verification where it matters, engagement letters approved in the same place, and a client who never has to be told how any of it works.
Running a practice with no front door
Four things a virtual firm has to get right that an office-based one can afford to be casual about.
Onboarding has to work with nobody in the room
An office-based practice can fix a confused client in five minutes at a desk. A virtual one cannot, so onboarding has to be self-explanatory or it silently loses people. A public intake form that creates the client, their access and their first document list means a prospect can go from enquiry to actively sending you documents without a call.
- One public link that opens a client record and a first request
- No account creation required before a client can send anything
- Works properly on a phone, which is where most clients start
Identity, without an in-person check
You cannot look at a passport across a desk. Identification becomes an item on the list with its own instructions and, where you want the higher bar, a one-time code sent separately before the item can be opened or uploaded against.
- Per-item one-time code requirement for identification
- Clear instructions on each item, so documents arrive acceptable first time
- Timestamped record of what was provided and when
Looking established is a competitive requirement
The link you send is, for many clients, the only piece of infrastructure they will ever see. If it carries a vendor's name on a vendor's domain, you have introduced a third party into the one moment where the client is deciding whether to trust you with their financial records.
- Your own domain, not a subdomain of ours
- Notifications sent from your firm's address
- Your logo and colors on the login page and every email
The whole engagement closes without paper
Engagement letter approved in the portal, documents collected in the portal, the completed return and the client's copies filed in the portal. A genuinely paperless engagement from enquiry to archive, which is the thing a virtual firm is selling — with the honest exception of anything that legally needs a signature.
- Approvals on the same checklist, recorded in full
- Answers and confirmations as items, not only file uploads
- The client keeps a permanent, searchable copy of everything
What a remote practice leans on
Every featureIntake forms
A public link that turns a website enquiry into a client, an access grant and a first document list with no call in between.
Your brand, your domain
Your domain and your name on the one piece of infrastructure a remote client actually sees.
Request lists
Identification, documents, answers and approvals on a single list, each with the instructions that make it arrive correct.
Approvals on the record
Engagement letters approved and filed without printing or scanning, with a record of who approved them and when.
Client vault
The client's permanent copy of every return and document, which is what replaces the filing cabinet they never visited.
Automatic chasing
Automatic follow-up, which matters more when there is no chance of catching a client in person.
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 virtual firms
Can a client onboard entirely without a phone call?
Yes. An intake form creates the client record, their access and their first request list. Many virtual firms only speak to a client once the documents are already arriving.
How do we verify identity remotely?
Identification is an item with its own instructions, and can be set to require a one-time code sent separately before it is opened or uploaded against. What was provided and when is recorded.
Can clients approve engagement letters online?
They can approve them, as an item on the same checklist, and the approval record captures the person, the wording, the time and the document version. That is not an electronic signature — if your regulator expects a signed engagement letter, use a qualified e-signature provider for that one document.
Will it look like our firm rather than yours?
Entirely. Your domain, logo, colors and sending address. Clients do not encounter our name, which for a virtual firm is the whole point.
What about clients in different regions?
Your firm's data is held in the region you choose at setup. Clients access it from wherever they are.
How is this different from your accountants page?
That page assumes a practice that also meets clients. This one is about the parts that have to work when nobody ever visits: remote onboarding, remote identity checks, and looking established without an address.
Related
Where to go next
Every page on the site, grouped by the question it answers.
- Choosing a portal
- Security checklist
- Large firms
- Virtual tax firms — you are here
- Paperless practice
Ready when you are
Tell us how you onboard today and we will set the intake form and templates up with you.
No card and no sales call. If you would rather tell us about your firm first, use the longer form.