What an account manager owns for a client
What a client's account manager owns in Achekam, why no new client can be marked active without one, and how to hand a client over cleanly.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Ask a client who their contact at the firm is, and the answer is revealing. Some name one person immediately. Others hesitate, then name three: the person who does the books, the manager who did last year's statements, the partner who signs. The second kind of client is the one most likely to feel neglected, to receive conflicting answers, and eventually to leave without the firm seeing it coming.
An account manager is the firm's answer to that hesitation: one named person who owns the relationship, whoever does the individual pieces of work. Achekam builds this role into how clients are set up and protected. This article explains what the role covers, where Achekam enforces it and how to hand a client over when people move.
One person accountable
The account manager is not necessarily the person who does the most work for a client, and not necessarily the partner who signs. They are the person accountable for the client's overall experience:
- knowing what the client buys and what is due;
- noticing when something is late, wrong or worrying;
- being the first person the client calls, and the person colleagues ask about the client;
- raising new needs with the partner;
- making sure the client hears one consistent story from the firm.
Write those expectations down. A role that exists only as a name on a record will be filled by whoever has the most time that week, which is rarely the right person.
The client's own record is the account manager's main working tool. Staff can open any client's Client 360 record, which reads the client's services, contacts, timeline and profile from the server. An account manager should know that record well enough to answer most client questions without opening anything else; see what to keep on each client record.
Required before a client goes active
Achekam makes the account manager a condition of onboarding. The Onboarding page shows a readiness checklist for each new client, built from what the server holds, and offers "Mark active" only when every item is met. The items are the client's registration and income tax numbers, an active service, a contact, an engagement, and an account manager.
That last item is deliberate. A client without an account manager is a client nobody is responsible for. By refusing to mark such a client active, Achekam forces the decision to be made at the start, when it is easy, rather than months later, when the client is already unhappy. The full checklist is covered in client onboarding readiness.
Choose the account manager on purpose. Consider who has capacity, who knows the client's industry, and who the client will relate to. Assigning every new client to whoever ran the onboarding meeting produces uneven portfolios quickly.
The Account Manager Cockpit
Each professional has a My Work list and a Professional Inbox, and the review desks show supervisors, managers and partners their levels' queues. Account managers have a view of their own: the Account Manager Cockpit, which, like the Practice Command Centre and the Work Dashboard, reads its figures from the server rather than from anything kept in the browser.
Use the cockpit as the starting point of a short weekly routine:
- Scan your clients for anything that has changed since last week.
- Open Client 360 for any client that needs attention and read the timeline.
- Contact any client you have not spoken to in longer than the firm's agreed interval.
- Note anything the partner needs to know.
A routine of this kind turns the role from a label into a habit.
Always able to open a restricted client
Some clients are restricted. Partners and administrators can restrict a client, or one engagement, to named people with a reason, and a restriction is lifted rather than deleted, with who did what and when recorded.
The client's account manager can always open a restricted client, as can the engagement's partner and manager. That rule protects the relationship: a restriction placed for good reasons, such as a sensitive matter or a client known to staff, never cuts off the person accountable for the client.
It also means the account manager should be chosen with the restriction in mind. If a client is restricted because of a conflict or a confidentiality concern, the account manager must be someone who would properly be on the access list anyway.
Handing a client over
Account managers change: people are promoted, go on long leave or leave the firm. A firm administrator can invite colleagues, give each a role, and suspend, reactivate or remove them. Before anyone is suspended or removed, their clients need a new account manager.
A clean handover:
| Step | Who |
|---|---|
| List every client where the person is account manager | Partner or administrator |
| Choose a successor for each, with the partner | Partner |
| Change the account manager on each client record | Administrator |
| Brief the successor from Client 360 and a conversation | Outgoing account manager |
| Tell the client who their new contact is | Outgoing and incoming together |
The last step is the one firms skip, and it is the one clients notice most.
Quality systems expect responsibilities like this to be assigned and documented. IFAC's Quality Management Toolkit for Small- and Medium-Sized Firms offers illustrative policies, checklists, sample letters and forms for implementing the IAASB's quality management standards, and is a practical place to start writing the firm's own policy.
This week, list every active client with its account manager, and look for two things: clients with nobody named, and people named on far more clients than they can serve.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
