Client Onboarding Software vs Automating Your Own Stack

For a UK accountancy practice, law firm or adviser, choosing client onboarding software comes down to one decision: rent a dedicated platform per seat or per client, or automate the tools you already pay for. If you already run practice-management software, an e-signature tool and an ID-check provider, connecting those can fit better than adding another platform, particularly when the practice-management system has to stay the record. If a platform’s journeys match your process, buying usually costs less in fees at modest volumes, though not always once staff time is counted.

This article maps a good client onboarding process against UK anti-money-laundering rules, compares published prices and works through an illustrative three-year cost. Our own client onboarding automation starts from £5,000 for one client journey, or from £12,000 for regulated intake with ID checks built in, and we say below when you should not spend it.

Key takeaways

• “Client onboarding software” covers four different jobs, so work out which one you need before comparing tools.
• For UK firms in scope of the Money Laundering Regulations, onboarding has to identify and verify the client, understand the purpose of the relationship and keep the evidence for five years after it ends.
• In our illustrative three-year example (10 staff, 200 new clients a year), a dedicated platform costs at least £18,000 in fees, against at least £24,971 for automating one client journey (e-signature extra on both). Automation closes that gap if it saves your team about 28 minutes per new client, and from about 790 new clients a year it is cheaper on fees alone.
• Automating your existing stack makes sense when your practice-management system or CRM has to stay the record, or when steps are specific to your firm.
• No software makes a firm compliant. The firm stays responsible for the checks and the judgement calls.

Which kind of client onboarding software do you need?

Client onboarding software is any tool that takes a new client from first contact to fully set up: collecting their details and documents, checking who they are, agreeing terms and creating their record. It covers four jobs that most “best of” lists mix together. Prices below are from each vendor’s own pricing page at the time of writing (October 2026).

Job	Who it suits	Example tools	Our view
Customer onboarding projects	SaaS customer-success teams	Rocketlane (from $49 per team member a month, billed annually, 5-member minimum), Dock (free plan; Standard $350 a month for 5 seats), GUIDEcx (price on request)	Buy; custom rarely beats a mature product
In-app product onboarding	Software product teams	Product-adoption tools such as UserGuiding	A different problem; buy
Client portal	Freelancers and small agencies	Portal tools such as SuiteDash	Buy; custom rarely pays at this budget
Regulated intake	Accountants, law firms, financial advisers	ID and AML checks, e-signature and practice management	Buy the checks; consider automating the joins

The rest of this article is about regulated intake. Law firms doing in-scope work, such as conveyancing, corporate transactions or tax advice (SRA), and accountants and bookkeepers (HMRC) check identity, run anti-money-laundering (AML) checks, agree an engagement letter and create the client in their systems, usually in that order.

What a good client onboarding process looks like

A sound client onboarding process for a regulated UK firm has four steps, and each one leaves evidence behind.

Step	What it collects	What it has to evidence	Where it usually lands
1. Intake	Contact and company details, what the client needs	The purpose and intended nature of the relationship	A web form, email or spreadsheet
2. ID and AML check	Identity documents, directors and beneficial owners, risk answers	Who the client is, verified against a reliable independent source	The ID-check provider’s portal
3. Engagement letter	Scope, fees, terms, signature	What was agreed, and when	The e-signature tool
4. System record	The client, the job, billing details	One current record of the relationship	Practice management, CRM and accounting

The legal backbone for step 2 is regulation 28 of the Money Laundering Regulations 2017, as amended. For firms in scope, it requires identifying the client, verifying their identity and assessing the purpose and intended nature of the business relationship. For a company client, that means:

• obtaining and verifying its name, company number and registered office address (and principal place of business, if different)
• taking reasonable measures to determine and verify its constitution and the names of its directors and senior managers
• identifying any beneficial owner and taking reasonable measures to verify who they are

An electronic identification process can count if it is secure from fraud and misuse and gives the assurance the risk calls for. The same regulation requires ongoing monitoring, so the onboarding record has to stay current.

Under regulation 30, verification normally has to be finished before the business relationship is established, and the exceptions are narrow. In a mapped flow, that usually puts the ID and AML step before the engagement letter is countersigned or work starts.

Are e-signatures valid for engagement letters?

Yes. For England and Wales, the Law Commission concluded in 2019 that an electronic signature is capable in law of executing a document, including a deed, provided the signer intends to authenticate it and any execution formalities are met. A deed must still be signed in the physical presence of a witness, even when both people sign electronically, so a deed flow needs more design work than a standard engagement letter.

This section summarises public sources and is not legal advice; your AML supervisor’s guidance and your advisers decide what your firm must do.

Client onboarding software for accountants and law firms

The best client onboarding software for accountants or a law firm is the set of tools that covers steps 2 to 4 without staff retyping data: usually an ID and AML check provider, an e-signature tool and a practice-management system. The prices below are from the vendors’ own pages at the time of writing (October 2026). None says whether VAT is included, so check before comparing.

Tool	What it does in the flow	Published price	Worth knowing
Amiqus Client Onboarding	ID, AML and source-of-funds checks, client journeys	Standard from £15 per client; Scale from £10 per client	Standard has a £500 a month minimum contract; API connectivity and integrations with your internal systems, including practice management, are listed on Scale, which is pitched at 2,000+ clients a year
IRIS Elements AML	Client ID checks, risk scoring and document storage	Licence priced by the number of clients you expect to perform AML duties against: £250 for 30 clients, £1,057 for 250 and up to £4,578 for 3,000, on a 12-month contract; £4.00 per UK ID check	£8.50 per UK company report; the page does not say whether the licence price is per year
Karbon	Practice management: workflow, client email and billing	Team $59, Business $89 per user per month, paid annually	US-dollar list prices (the page also offers a pound sterling view); eSignatures are listed on every plan
DocuSign eSignature	Engagement letters and other signed documents	Standard £20 per user per month, billed annually	100 envelopes per user per year; Business Pro (£33) adds web forms and payment collection
Content Snare	Collects client documents and information	Basic $35 a month, billed annually (2 users, 20 active requests); Plus $71	US-dollar list prices

Some ID and AML providers publish little pricing: Thirdfort lists only a starting fee for its Essentials plan (from £83 a month for accountants, £167 for law firms) plus per-check charges it does not publish, and Credas quotes on request. Client-portal platforms such as Moxo ($5,000 a year on its Team plan) cover workflows, file requests and e-signatures but list no ID or AML checks.

Companies House checks add another step. Since 18 November 2025, company directors and people with significant control must verify their identity with Companies House. Verifying through GOV.UK One Login is free, while an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) may charge. For accountants handling clients’ filings, it is one more piece of evidence to track.

Your supervisor sets the detail. At the time of writing, accountancy firms are supervised for AML by a professional body such as ICAEW or ACCA, or by HMRC, and work to the sector’s CCAB guidance. In England and Wales, solicitors’ firms doing in-scope work are supervised by the SRA and follow the HM Treasury-approved Legal Sector Affinity Group guidance. For law firms, step 4 is matter opening in the case-management system; our legal and professional services page covers sector workflows.

How to choose AML and KYC onboarding software

Whichever route you take, you will almost certainly buy the ID check from an AML and KYC onboarding provider, and your firm decides whether that provider meets the regulation 28 test.

• Is it on the register? The government’s register of digital verification services lists identity providers certified against the UK trust framework. Being listed does not make your AML process compliant on its own.
• What does the price include? Ask which checks are in the headline price and which cost extra, such as company reports, source of funds and ongoing monitoring.
• Can results leave the portal? Check whether results, documents and risk scores can reach your other systems through an API or webhooks.
• Where is the evidence kept? Ask where documents are stored, for how long, and whether you can delete them on your own schedule.
• What happens when you leave? Agree how you get your records back if you change provider.

Automating client onboarding with tools you already pay for

Client onboarding automation joins your existing tools so a client’s details are entered once and reach every system that needs them. The simplest version is one guided journey: forms, documents and the e-signed engagement letter collected in order, with automatic chasing for anything missing, while your team runs the ID check in the provider’s own portal. A regulated firm often wants more: KYC and identity checks built into the flow, a branded client portal for progress and uploads, the client created across practice management and the CRM automatically, and an audit trail for every client. Those are our two tiers, from £5,000 and from £12,000.

We have built several of these pieces, though not an AML onboarding platform for an accountancy or law firm. For the energy broker SBU, the automation enriches records with Companies House data and generates and attaches the Letter of Authority each customer signs, while the team keeps working inside Salesforce. For an international events group, we connected Pipedrive, SmartDocs and Xero without replacing them: a signed contract updates the CRM and the invoice is raised in Xero automatically. For Connect by CoCentric, we built onboarding by QR code plus an SMS access code, so frontline workers without a corporate email can join.

A no-code connector is sometimes enough. Zapier, Make or Power Automate can link two or three systems with standard connectors at modest volumes, for far less than a build. They get harder to trust when ID documents are copied between tools, runs leave no audit trail, or nobody owns failed runs.

Keep one system of record for ID evidence. Onboarding stitched together by hand leaves copies of passports in inboxes, shared drives, the CRM and practice management, which makes the retention rules hard to follow. Under regulation 40, firms must keep due-diligence records for five years from the date they know, or have reasonable grounds to believe, that the business relationship has ended, then delete personal data obtained for those purposes unless an exception applies. A well-designed automation stores the evidence in one place and links to it elsewhere.

The judgement stays with people. Automation can run the checks, chase missing documents and route a failed or borderline result to your compliance lead. It does not decide whether to take on a high-risk client, and nothing we build makes a firm compliant. If the job is only connecting two or three systems, it is systems integration rather than a new onboarding product.

What it costs: buying vs automating (illustrative)

On fees alone, the dedicated platform in this example costs less over three years. Fees are not the whole cost, though: the platform still leaves client details to be keyed into practice management, and automation removes that step. The example is a 10-person firm onboarding 200 new clients a year, using the published prices quoted above and excluding VAT and discounts; staff time is counted separately below the table.

Route	What you pay for	Year one	Three years
A. Rent a dedicated platform (Amiqus Standard)	Per-client fees, £500 a month minimum	From £6,000	From £18,000
B. Automate one client journey (CodeLeap)	Build, support, ID licence and checks	From £11,657	From £24,971
C. Regulated intake with ID checks built in (CodeLeap)	Build, support, ID licence and checks	From £18,657	From £31,971
E-signature (every route)	DocuSign Standard, 10 users	£2,400	£7,200

The assumptions behind each row:

1. Route A: 200 clients at £15 is £3,000 a year, below Amiqus’s £500 a month minimum, so the minimum applies. We assume the per-client fee counts towards it and includes the standard ID and AML check; the page does not say, so confirm with Amiqus. Standard lists no practice-management integration, so client details are still keyed in there.
2. Routes B and C: a build from £5,000 (B) or £12,000 (C), plus support from £400 a month. You keep paying for the practice-management system and CRM you already have.
3. ID checks in B and C: an IRIS Elements AML licence for 250 clients at £1,057, renewed yearly, plus one £4.00 UK ID check per client (£800 a year), before £8.50 company reports. That assumes only each year’s new clients count towards the licence; an existing client book needs a bigger tier, such as £1,504 for 500.
4. Route C needs an ID provider whose checks can be triggered by API at similar prices, so confirm that first (Amiqus, for example, lists API connectivity only on Scale).

Count the staff time. Route B costs £6,971 more than route A over three years, about £2,324 a year. At £25 an hour, the example rate in our guide to where automation pays off, that is about 93 hours of staff time a year, or about 28 minutes per new client. If keying each new client into practice management and the CRM, the step the platform leaves to your team, takes longer than that, automating one client journey is the cheaper route even at 200 clients a year. For route C, the equivalent is about 56 minutes per client.

Where the lines cross. On these inputs, route B’s three-year total matches route A’s at about 790 new clients a year, once IRIS’s 1,000-client licence (£2,214 a year) applies. Route C still costs slightly more at 1,000, and above that it needs a bigger licence; on the 3,000-client licence (£4,578 a year), it matches route A at about 1,220. Below those volumes, buying is cheaper on fees alone, before the staff time above.

Per-client fees grow with your client list; build costs don’t. At 1,000 new clients a year, the same £15 per client would come to at least £15,000 a year, while the build cost in routes B and C stays fixed. Support is the biggest line in those routes, because the tools at either end of an automation change their APIs over time.

When should you buy client onboarding software instead?

Buy a dedicated tool when it fits the way you already work. Many firms end up with a mix: they buy the ID check and the e-signature tool, then automate the joins.

Buy off the shelf if:

• you are a SaaS customer-success team, a freelancer or a small agency
• a platform’s built-in client journeys match your steps with little change
• you have no practice-management system or CRM worth keeping as the record
• you need something live within weeks and your volumes are modest

Automate your own stack if:

• staff retype the same client details into three or more systems
• your practice-management system or CRM has to stay the single record
• the tools you would keep can share data through an API or webhooks on your current plan
• your flow has steps a platform does not model, such as multi-entity clients, witnessed deeds or a document generated for the client to sign
• per-client or per-seat fees are growing faster than the work they support
• copies of ID documents are scattered across email, drives and systems

If most of your ticks are in the first list, buy the tool and spend the difference elsewhere. If the CRM itself is the problem, our guide to bespoke CRM versus HubSpot or Salesforce covers that decision.

Next step: map your onboarding flow

Write down each onboarding step, the system it touches, who does it and where data gets retyped. That one page usually shows whether a dedicated platform fits or whether the gaps sit between tools you already own.

If automation is the answer, our client onboarding automation starts from £5,000 for one client journey, or from £12,000 where KYC checks, a client portal and an audit trail are built in. Scope and price are fixed before work starts, you pay in milestones as each stage is delivered, you can cancel within the first 21 days for a full refund, and all code and IP are yours once delivered and paid for.

Bring that page, or just the list of tools you use, to the free 20-minute consultation below. We will map the flow with you and tell you which route fits, including when an off-the-shelf tool is the better answer.