Client portal for accounting firms: buy TaxDome, Karbon or Suralink, or build your own?
Most accounting firms start with email and a shared drive, then buy a client portal as part of a practice management tool such as TaxDome or Karbon. Per-seat pricing on those tools typically runs from about $700 to $1,100 per person a year (TaxDome, Karbon, October 2026), and rollout usually takes a few months.
For most firms, buying is the right answer. This guide explains why, compares the main options fairly using each vendor's own pricing page, and then covers the narrower case where a custom portal makes more sense. It's written for accounting and bookkeeping firms of 10-60 people - a people business, meaning a business that sells its people's expertise and time, like accountants, lawyers, agencies and consultants.
Why it happens
Firms look for a portal when email stops working: documents go missing, clients send bank statements to the wrong person, and nobody can say what's outstanding without searching three inboxes. The problem gets worse because client-facing work touches so many apps:
The ledger
, Xero or QuickBooks, which clients may log into themselves.
A practice management tool
such as Karbon or TaxDome.
A proposal and engagement letter tool
such as Ignition.
Receipt capture
with Dext or Hubdoc.
E-signature
for engagement letters and returns.
Email and file sharing
, through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.
Each of those is, in a sense, already a small portal. Clients end up with five logins and still email you. A good portal brings the client's side of all of this into one place.
The fix with what you already have
Before you buy anything new, check what you already pay for. Many firms already have a portal they haven't switched on.
- 01
Check your practice tool
If you're on TaxDome, its pricing page lists a web portal and mobile app, intake forms, e-signatures and secure messaging on every plan. If you're on Karbon, its pricing page lists the client portal on all plans, with client requests, and automatic client reminders on the Business plan.
- 02
Compare the main options on their own terms
Prices below are from each vendor's pricing page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; plans change.
| What it is | Portal | Published price | |
|---|---|---|---|
| TaxDome | All-in-one practice management with CRM, workflow, portal, billing | Web portal and mobile app on every plan | Essentials $700 per seat a year (solo users only), Pro $900, Business $1,100, each with a three-year commitment (TaxDome pricing) |
| Karbon | Practice management built around work, email and team collaboration | Client portal on all plans; automatic reminders on Business | Team $59 per user a month billed annually ($79 monthly); Business $89 ($99 monthly); Enterprise custom (Karbon pricing) |
| Suralink | Document request and audit collaboration platform for audit, tax and advisory teams | Customisable client portal and request list management in its core platform | No public prices; contact sales (Suralink pricing) |
How to choose fairly:
TaxDome
suits firms that want one app to run most of the practice, including the client side, and are happy to move their workflow into it.
Karbon
suits firms whose work lives in email and team collaboration, and who want the portal connected to that.
Suralink
suits firms with audit or complex document request work, where structured request lists matter most.
Questions to ask in every demo
Whichever tools you shortlist, ask each vendor the same questions, and ask to see the answer on screen rather than on a slide:
- How does a client upload a photo of a receipt from their phone, and where does it land?
- Can one client contact see several companies, and can a director see only their own?
- What happens when a client ignores a request? Show me the reminder they get.
- How does the portal connect to Xero or QuickBooks, and to the practice tool we already use?
- What does it cost when we add five more staff next year?
- If we leave, how do we get our clients' documents out, and in what format?
Write the answers into the requirements checklist as you go. Comparing three demos from memory a week later rarely ends well.
3. Set it up properly Whichever you choose, the portal only works if clients use it. Send one invitation with a short video, use it for every request from day one, and stop accepting documents by email except in emergencies. Our free client portal requirements checklist helps you write down what your firm needs before you watch any demos.
Setting up a bought portal, step by step
Most portal rollouts that fail do so in setup, not in the software. This is the order we'd suggest for TaxDome, Karbon or Suralink. Menu names change between releases, so check each vendor's help centre as you go.
- Decide what the portal is for. Write one sentence: "Clients use the portal to send us documents, answer our requests and see what's outstanding." Anything not in that sentence waits until phase two.
- Clean your client list first. Merge duplicates and archive clients you no longer act for in the practice tool. Every portal invite goes to a contact record, so a messy list means wrong people getting invites.
- Set up folders and permissions. Agree one folder structure for every client (for example, permanent, year by year, then by job) and decide who can see what. For a company with several directors, decide whether each director sees everything or only their own documents.
- Build standard requests. In Karbon, create client request templates for your common jobs: year-end accounts, VAT or sales tax returns, personal tax returns. In TaxDome, build the intake forms and organisers. In Suralink, build request list templates for audit and complex tax work. Keep items short and specific.
- Brand it. Add your logo and colours where the tool allows, and write the invite email in your firm's voice, not the vendor's default.
- Pilot with ten friendly clients. Pick a mix: a sole trader, a limited company, a group, someone who isn't comfortable with technology. Watch where they get stuck and fix it before the wider launch.
- Launch in waves. Invite clients by service or by manager, not all at once, so your team can handle the questions.
A worked example: a 20-person firm
For example, picture a 20-person firm with three partners, two managers, about a dozen accountants and bookkeepers, a payroll specialist and two admins, acting for around 400 clients. It runs Karbon, Xero, Ignition and Dext, and clients send documents by email and a shared drive.
If it buys The firm is already on Karbon, so the portal is already paid for. It spends a month cleaning its client list and building request templates, pilots with ten clients, then invites the rest in waves by manager over a quarter. Within six months most routine documents arrive through the portal and the admins answer far fewer "did you get it?" emails. For this firm, that's the right answer, and there's nothing to build.
If it builds Now picture the same firm with a different client base: 60 of its clients are groups of three to eight companies, and its advisory clients want live monthly figures, not a folder of PDFs. Karbon still runs the work. The firm wants a branded client page that shows each group's entities side by side, pulls headline figures from each Xero organisation, lists outstanding requests across all of them and shows the stage of every job. That's a custom layer on top of Karbon and Xero, not a replacement for either. It would be the first build on a monthly plan; the same plan then builds, maintains and improves the next tools as the firm needs them, at a typical pace of about ten over three years.
The point of the example: the same firm can reach different answers depending on its clients. Start from what your clients need to see, not from the software.
When that stops working
Bought portals are good, and most firms should stay on them. These are the signals that the fit is wearing thin:
Your workflow lives in one app and the portal in another
, so staff copy requests and statuses between them.
Clients need to see something the portal can't show
, such as live management figures pulled from the ledger, a multi-entity group in one view, or progress on an advisory project.
You'd have to move your whole practice
into a new tool just to get a better client side.
Clients still email
, because the portal asks them to log in for every small thing.
Your brand and service are the differentiator
, and every client of every firm using the same vendor sees the same screens.
Per-seat pricing grows with your team
, while the portal is used mostly by clients.
What a custom build looks like
A custom portal isn't a rival practice management system. It's a small, branded client-facing layer that sits on top of the tools you already use, built for how your firm actually works with clients. It's one of the most common builds we do for accounting firms.
For a typical firm:
- One login, one place. The client sees their outstanding requests, their documents, their deadlines and the status of each job, drawn from your practice tool and ledger.
- Only what that client needs. A sole trader sees three things; a group with five companies sees each entity clearly.
- Simple uploads. Phone-friendly uploads that land in the right client folder and tick off the right request.
- Connected to what you already run. Karbon, TaxDome, Xero, QuickBooks, Ignition: the portal reads and writes through their official connections.
- People stay in charge. The portal never sends anything to a client that a person hasn't approved.
It uses the same building blocks as the client portal we built for a podcast agency, shaped to accounting work. We work in four steps - scope, build, roll out, improve - and roll-out includes training your team and helping clients make the switch, because a portal nobody logs into has failed.
Typical market prices for a client portal run $8,000-18,000 to build, plus ongoing support; our guide to client portal development cost goes into detail. Forge's prices are on the pricing page: a two-week ops audit at $2,500 (£2,000), credited to your first month, then a monthly plan at $2,000, $3,500 or $7,500 a month (£1,600, £2,800 or £6,000), with your first build included. The software runs on your own accounts, so you own it and pay those tool costs directly; we keep it monitored and fixed.
If your main pain is documents rather than the whole client experience, read our guide on chasing clients for documents first. It may be all you need.
Common mistakes
Making the portal optional.
If clients can still email documents, most will. Set a date after which documents come through the portal, with an exception for genuine emergencies.
Inviting everyone on day one.
Four hundred invites on a Monday means four hundred sets of questions on Tuesday. Launch in waves.
Asking clients to log in for everything.
If every small request needs a password, clients drift back to email. Use reminders with direct links, and keep requests short.
Copying the old mess into the new tool.
Duplicate clients and a dozen folder structures make the portal as confusing as the shared drive it replaced.
Buying for a feature you'll use in year three.
Choose on what your clients need now, then grow.
Building when buying would do.
A custom portal is worth it when clients need something a bought one can't show. If they just need to send documents, buy.
What good looks like
For example, in a firm where the portal works:
- Clients know there's one place to send things and one place to see what's outstanding.
- New requests go out from a template in a minute, and reminders do the first chasers.
- Documents land in the right folder and tick off the right request without anyone filing them.
- Anyone on the team can answer "where's my return?" in a few seconds.
- Email from clients is for conversations, not attachments.
- A new member of staff can pick up a client file and see the full history of requests and documents without asking a colleague.
- Clients mention the portal when they recommend you, because it made working with an accountant feel easy.
Rolling it out and training the team
Your team has to believe in the portal before clients will. Start with a short session for everyone who sends requests: how to send a request from a template, how to see what's outstanding, what to do when a client emails a document anyway (reply once with the portal link, then file it). Name one person as the portal lead for the first three months.
For clients, keep it simple: one invite, a two-minute video showing how to upload a photo of a document from a phone, and a line in every email signature pointing to the portal. Older or less confident clients often appreciate a five-minute call to walk them through the first login; it's time well spent.
If you're bringing in a custom portal, the rollout is the same, with one addition: we sit with your team in the first weeks, take their feedback and change the portal to fit how they work, because a portal nobody logs into has failed.
Measuring whether it worked
Choose a few measures before launch and check them monthly for the first quarter:
Share of active clients who have logged in
at least once.
Share of documents arriving through the portal
rather than email.
Days from request sent to request complete,
typical and slowest.
"Did you get my email?" calls and emails
your admins handle in a week - a simple tally is enough.
What clients say.
One question in your next client survey: "How easy is it to send us what we need?"
If logins are high but documents still arrive by email, the portal is too hard to use for small things. If logins are low, the invite or the first experience is the problem. Either way, the numbers tell you where to look.
Who gets time back, and what they do with it
A portal mostly helps the people who answer client questions: admins, bookkeepers and managers.
When clients can see what's outstanding and what stage their return is at, your admin fields fewer "did you get my email?" calls and spends the time on proper client care - for example, a quick check-in call to new clients in their first quarter. Your bookkeepers stop hunting for attachments in inboxes and start work as soon as documents land. Your managers stop writing status emails by hand.
And your clients get something they notice: a firm that feels organised. In a people business, that feeling is a large part of why clients stay.
Questions, answered plainly
What is the best client portal for accounting firms?
It depends on how you work. TaxDome suits firms that want one app for most of the practice; Karbon suits firms whose work centres on email and team collaboration; Suralink suits audit and complex document request work. Check each vendor's current pricing page.
How much does an accounting client portal cost?
From the vendors' own pricing pages in October 2026: TaxDome from $700 per seat a year for solo users and $900-1,100 per seat for Pro and Business with a three-year commitment; Karbon $59-89 per user a month billed annually; Suralink by quote.
Should an accounting firm build its own client portal?
Usually not at first. Build when your workflow and your portal live in different apps, when clients need to see something bought portals can't show, or when the client experience is how you stand out.
Can a custom portal work with Karbon or TaxDome?
Yes. A custom portal can sit on top of your practice tool and ledger, reading and writing through their official connections, so your team keeps working where they already work.
How long does it take to roll out a client portal?
Plan for setup plus a few months of moving clients over. The firms that succeed use the portal for every request from day one and stop accepting documents by email except in emergencies.