Guide · Ireland
A client portal and onboarding flow for Irish accountancy practices
Small Irish practices run on two rhythms: taking on new clients, and the self-assessment crunch before the 31 October Form 11 deadline (later if the client pays and files through ROS). Both depend on getting the right documents out of clients, and both tend to happen over email.
Onboarding a new client
- Customer due diligence under the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010: identify and verify the client and any beneficial owners, and keep the records your professional body (CAI, ACCA, CPA Ireland and others) expects.
- A signed letter of engagement.
- The details you need to link the client to your agent account on ROS (Revenue Online Service).
The Form 11 records request
Each year the list is mostly the same: employment details, rental income and expenses, pension contributions, medical expenses, and anything that changed. A portal can carry last year's list forward, ask a few life-change questions, and chase only what is still missing. Reminders go out on their own, and the client sees exactly which item is outstanding.
GDPR, plainly
Your practice is the controller and whoever runs the portal is your processor, so you need a written processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR. If the processor is outside the EEA, you also need transfer safeguards such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. I'm based in India, so my agreement includes the SCCs, and hosting can be in the EU region. Files stay in storage you control and can be exported in full whenever you like.
Is it worth it for a small practice?
If your clients already use a portal that came with your practice software, probably not. If the October rush runs through your inbox, a small portal built around your own checklist can be live in about a week. You can try it free for 14 days before paying anything.
Try it · sample data only
The working example is the accounting portal with fictional clients. An Irish version uses the same request list and checks, with Form 11 wording and euro pricing.
Open the sample-data demo