Text messaging for accountants - how SMS helps financial management

The humble text message can have a massive impact on your bottom line.

Don’t believe us?

Our savvy CPA and Chartered Accountant partners are using text to contact clients, market their services and book more jobs – especially around EOFY and tax season.

But did you know that you can use automations to save time on manual processes, like contacting your debtors or setting up appointments? And that’s just the beginning.

Find out how to use SMS for accounting, taxation and business services.

Promote your financial services with SMS

Why?

You may think that your clients are sticky and won’t leave – after all, you know everything about them financially. And you probably have low customer attrition rates to back it up.

But level of client churn is inevitable. People move or retire, circumstances change, sweeping new laws get introduced or technology disrupts your space. So you need to be thinking about how to bring in new jobs to offset those you lose.

Accounting firms typically rely heavily on referrals for new business, rather than major advertising. So if referrals are an important part of how you drum up new business, why not ask for referrals proactively?

Request referrals via automated messages

Send automated texts asking clients to recommend your business and save hours that were previously spent communicating with clients. Because really, there are only so many phone calls you can make each day.

Don’t forget to personalise the message with your client’s name (using the first name placeholder) and use conversational language for best results.

Tax preparation marketing via text

Use text messaging to book as many jobs as possible at the most profitable time of year. Market your tax services this year with the humble text message - it’s quicker than you think and a super effective communication channel.

How tax professionals can get the most out of this season:

Text marketing broadcast: send a message to all current clients offering your services.
Support other advertising with inbound SMS: include your business number on your other promotional materials to allow leads to text you with enquiries.

Popular examples of SMS messages for tax specialists

Reengage with your annual clients with these tax-time templates.

💡 don’t forget: when sending these promotional messages, you must include an option for recipients to opt out.

Time saving tips for tax season

Level up your client communication - SMS has much faster response times than email, so you can cut down time spent back and forth getting more info. Use text messaging to:

Request information/documents
Schedule meetings
Send reminders about upcoming appointments
Confirm tax return lodgement

Text messaging is a powerful tool, so why not use it all year round?

Need more details to complete a job? Send a text message

Track down the information you need fast - whether you’re chasing invoices, journals, ledgers or legal documents. SMS is perfect for requesting details - thanks to quick open and response rates you can complete jobs faster.

Here are some time saving templates - just copy, paste and edit the fields in square brackets appropriately.

Hate chasing up invoices? Try SMS for accounts receivable

Send text messages when invoices are generated, about to fall due and (if needed) when overdue. You can even do this without coding using no-code text message automation. No need to contact businesses individually, these set and forget messages will save you the legwork.

And SMS nudges work. A study run by Westpac and the Australian Government found SMS nudges increase card repayment by 28%. While email reminders appeared to have no effect. So start texting your debtors to automatically handle a chunk of the work before you even look at it.

Get started with finance messaging automation

Thanks to no-code integrations, you don’t need to be a coder to automate messages. Connect SMS to your accounting software in a few clicks, for set-and-forget text messaging. Using integration platforms like Zapier, you can easily connect your accounting software with other software - and they have hundreds of connectors. Build Zaps to get the most out of the software you use every day.

Setting up automated invoice reminders with Zapier

Using Xero as an example:

Sign up for a Zapier account and connect Xero with ClickSend
Select ‘New Sales Invoice’ as the trigger
Choose ‘Send SMS’ as the action (or you know, you could opt for a letter, postcard, fax, MMS, voice call…).

You’re already minutes away from your new no-code invoice automation - follow the prompts to authorise your Xero and ClickSend accounts and create your Zap.

You could even add time delays to build out a journey, to send SMS when the invoice is generated, almost due, due and overdue.

Using similar steps, you can create Zaps to send texts when:

quotes are created
bank transactions are made
purchase orders raised
expense claims are received

As for creditors – break up with their billing department by automating messages when invoices are received, then again when payment is made 😎

Schedule meetings like a pro and reduce missed appointments

Cut out the time-consuming back and forth to schedule appointments by sending a link to your calendar via text message. If you use Google Calendar for your appointments, check out our direct SMS integration for sending meeting reminders.

We also integrate directly or with no-code partners for almost all the major calendar apps. Read more about appointment reminders and reducing no-shows here.

Delight your colleagues with payroll notifications

If you keep the payroll, proactively notify staff about payments to reduce interruptions in your day. Stop fielding questions about when pay will drop in - trigger text messages whenever the pay run has been done. Send payment summaries at EOFY - before you find yourself answering the same questions over and over.

Maintaining client and partner relationships with SMS

You can’t build a client relationship with one or two messages each year. Stay top of mind for whenever your customers need financial services with great customer service. Bonus - you could find opportunities for extra jobs with your current clients.

Use text messaging to tell your customers something interesting or valuable to them. Tap into your expertise to provide insights, for example:

what you can and cannot claim for tax deductions
little-known rules for small businesses
tips for retirement planning
budget items that businesses often under-estimate
changes to fringe benefits tax rules

It could even be the questions that your friends and family ask you about money.

For example:

Hi Richo, notice that your bills are more expensive now that you’re working from home? Find out what you can claim to maximise your tax return here smsg.io/1q2w3e.

Heard the news about FBT for covid tests Caroline? If you have any questions, we can help you with any taxation queries. Book an appointment at smsg.io/r5t6y7.

You can also use text messaging like this to keep regular contact with referral partners, or send updates to stakeholders.