Quill.
Accountancy firms drown in admin, client records, engagement letters, deadlines, invoicing, scattered across overpriced tools like Engager and Senta. Quill is a custom platform built for a UK chartered accountancy firm: every client, service, letter and invoice in one simple, compliant system, with the source code owned by the firm.
The problem
Practice admin is stuck in spreadsheets and £400/mo tools.
Most firms run on a patchwork of Engager or Senta, spreadsheets, and email. The commercial tools are expensive, clunky, and built for everyone, so they fit no-one exactly. New-client onboarding is a nine-step chore. Letters live in Word. Nothing is auditable.
The firm didn’t need more features. It needed fewer clicks, no jargon, smart defaults, and a system its non-technical staff would actually open every morning.
So we built exactly that, and handed over the source code. No per-seat licence, no lock-in, no vendor holding the data hostage.
What it does
Everything a practice runs on.
Client management
Seven UK client types, Limited Co, LLP, Partnership, Charity, Trust, Sole Trader, Contact, with a five-step new-client wizard, not the nine-step slog of off-the-shelf tools.
Companies House auto-fill
Type a company number and the system pulls the name, registered address, officers, and year-end from the free public API. No re-keying.
17 UK services & fees
The standard UK accounting services, Bookkeeping, VAT, CT600 and more, each with per-client flat-fee pricing.
Engagement letters
A builder with toggleable sections that outputs a branded PDF, plus status tracking from draft to sent to signed.
Tasks & invoicing
Work items linked to clients and assigned to staff, plus manual invoice creation with PDF generation.
Dashboard & audit log
Practice KPIs and a live activity feed, backed by a full audit trail built for ICAEW and UK GDPR.
Built to a standard
Regulated data, handled properly.
Accountancy client data is regulated under UK GDPR, AML 2017, and the ICAEW Code of Ethics. Security wasn’t a phase, it was the foundation.
Role-based access
Five staff roles, Partner, Manager, Senior, Junior, Admin, enforced on every action.
Hardened auth
bcrypt password hashing, HMAC-signed session cookies, and TOTP 2FA for every staff member.
Encrypted PII
Sensitive fields like UTR and NI number are encrypted at the application layer.
Retained audit
Soft-deletes with hashed PII and a 7-year audit trail, the AML and ICAEW standard.
Full stack
Why custom over Engager / Senta?
Off-the-shelf bills per seat forever and still doesn’t fit. A custom build costs once, fits the firm exactly, and the firm owns the code outright. Over a few years it’s cheaper and entirely theirs.
Off-the-shelf software fighting your workflow?
We build custom platforms that fit your business exactly, and hand you the source code. Tell us what your team is wrestling with.