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Keep clients involved in the work, without exposing the internal review.
A diagnostic finding can lead to a question only the client can answer. That question belongs with the work it supports, not in a separate email trail.
BrokenBooks connects the built-in QBO diagnostic to client requests, supporting information and published results in one engagement.
Once the client approves cleanup, the system creates the related client questions from the review and posts them to the portal. Your firm does not have to recreate each request by hand.
Clients see their milestones, requests and results. Your firm keeps its internal notes and diagnostic reasoning separate.
A portal should do more than collect another PDF.
Keep client messages and attachments with the engagement instead of scattering them across email.
Show diagnostic milestones and the requests that need the client’s attention.
Publish firm-approved reports and see when a client has opened them.
Support proposal response, signature, deposit checkout, and project payment visibility where configured.
A client portal should support the engagement.
For bookkeeping diagnostic and cleanup work, collecting information is only part of the process.
The client needs to understand what information the bookkeeper is requesting. The bookkeeper needs to know which question the answer addresses and how it affects the review.
The diagnostic drives the work; the portal keeps the client’s part connected to it. Your firm evaluates the responses and supporting information before relying on them.
Start with a client-ready intake instead of building one.
BrokenBooks includes a structured accounting-engagement intake. Your firm can customize supported wording and instructions while keeping the underlying questions intact. Client-portal testing is underway.
When you are ready to send it, copy the hosted link or copy the iframe and embed it into the experience your firm already uses.
The client-facing side is not an add-on that has to be assembled separately. It is part of the same system that carries the client’s responses, requests, documents, conversations, and progress into the accounting engagement.
Start with structured intake for your firm.
Your firm uses the structured intake and customizes supported wording and instructions. The client’s answers stay with the engagement.
Those answers stay with the engagement, giving the reviewer client context before beginning the diagnostic.
The bookkeeper can refer back to that information throughout the review and identify where further clarification is needed.
Keep clarification connected to the issue.
Some accounting questions cannot be resolved from the QuickBooks Online file alone.
Questions and responses stay connected to the engagement. For approved cleanup work, BrokenBooks generates the client questions from the review and posts them to the portal alongside the tasks it creates for the firm.
That helps the reviewer understand:
- What information was requested.
- What the client said.
- Which issue the response relates to.
- Whether further investigation is needed.
The answer remains available when the bookkeeper returns to the review.
Preserve client input and professional judgment separately.
A client’s explanation may help the reviewer understand an item. It may also raise another question or require supporting evidence.
The client’s answer informs the review. The bookkeeper determines what it supports.
BrokenBooks preserves client-provided information while keeping the reviewer’s professional determination distinct.
The reviewer can distinguish what the client reported from what the available evidence supports. Clients do not see the firm’s internal diagnostic reasoning.
Give clients a view of diagnostic progress.
Between requests, clients can follow the diagnostic milestones and see when published results are available.
The portal brings together diagnostic milestones, outstanding requests, documents and published reports, so clients have a place to check their part of the engagement.
A submitted document is still subject to the firm’s review. Progress information reflects recorded workflow status, not a promise that someone is working on the file at that moment.
Make the client’s next step clear.
The portal gives clients a place to find requests, answer questions, and see the action items that need their attention.
Their responses stay connected to the engagement and the accounting issue that prompted the request. The bookkeeper can use that information in the review while preserving their professional determination separately.
Clients can follow diagnostic progress and respond to requests. Your firm evaluates the information and performs the accounting work.
Support continuity as the work progresses.
Client-provided information does not have to stop being useful when the diagnostic ends.
BrokenBooks connects client context with scope, proposals, cleanup requests, project work, recurring onboarding, and published deliverables so the firm can keep the client experience tied to the engagement.
The firm can carry that context into cleanup and ongoing work while keeping client-facing information separate from its internal review.
Built for bookkeeping and accounting professionals.
BrokenBooks is in prelaunch. In use at For The Love of Bookkeepers, with client-portal testing underway. Not yet available to other firms.
Get occasional BrokenBooks development news, feature updates, and launch announcements by email. No beta-testing obligation.
Built by Candice Thompson, founder of For The Love of Bookkeepers LLC
Built for the people who fix the books. QuickBooks Online diagnostic and cleanup workflow software.
