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Curious to know how everyone uses the Client Manager vs Client Owner vs Other Colleagues on a client. 

 

We put tasks on organizations for bookkeeping and I’ve been assigning the Client Manager as the Bookkeeping Manager on my team. Other colleagues are then the bookkeeping team working on that client.

 

How do you use these fields in your Karbon account?

We are still working through what works best for us, but currently we do the following:

  • Client Owner = CPA that is in charge for the client
  • Client Manager = Team member responsible for the accounting/tax work
  • Other = Our admin team and bookkeeping or payroll 

We are small with only 9 at our firm though, so I can see how this is could present a challenge for larger firms.  

Maybe send a feature request to add more customizable team selections?  I know the Karbon team looks at the suggestions at least monthly!


My firm is bookkeeping only (no CPA work), so it’s slightly different:

  • Client Owner = Team lead that is responsible for managing a whole portfolio of clients
  • Client Manager = Client lead that is responsible for making sure everything is getting done for that one client
  • Other = Other bookkeepers who work on that client

This ends up working really well in the Kanban view, because if I filter by client owner (me) I can see all the Work items for my team.  I actually have multiple saved views where I further filter by Work type.  For example, halfway through the month I can filter by client owner (me) and Work type Monthly Close, and it will show me the clients are still needing work on closing the month.  If I want to see how my client leads are doing, I can further filter by client manager.


We are a small UK firm (14 team members) and we set this up as follows:

 

Client owner (either partner)

Client manager - one of the managers responsible for all the client work

other - anyone else who may be involved on the day to day work.

 

We found that having a client owner set as the person responsible set as the owner, didn’t help when that employee left. By setting this up this way has provided us with the best visibility within the firm for us, and like @BrooksW I use different reporting to navigate jobs etc.


We are a REALLY small bookkeeping firm with a team of 3 including me, lol (as opposed to small being 9 -14).  I came here because i am trying to figure out how to use the Client Manager and Client Owner roles on contacts. 

Seems like right now, they are both me!  Which is kind of stinky.   

Until we have a greater need or someone can move into a “Bookkeeping Operations Manager” role, I think it will have to stay this way.


We use these contact  fields mainly for managing who is responsible for what client and to have the ability via a contact download to view each team members book of business, Additionally in the Skype field we put the monthly retainer for each client. Makes it easier to see what monthly dollar amount each CPA/Client Owner is responsible for.

  • Client Owner = CPA that is responsible for managing the client
  • Client Manager = Bookkeeper assigned to do the bookkeeping

I made a feature request related to this awhile back, as Client Owner and Client Manager aren’t role names we use in our firm which makes it confusing, and it sounds like this is also unclear for others who don’t have a traditional structure. We also want to be able to assign more than two roles at the client level to make it really clear who is doing what for each client. Give it a vote if you think it would help!

 


Client Owner = accountable for the relationship

Client Manager = accountable for the work

An individual could be both.


Client Owner = accountable for the relationship

Client Manager = accountable for the work

An individual could be both.

This is a good definition 🙂 ours is similar, as an accounting firm (business services/advisory and tax), from the annual compliance perspective:

Client Owner = Principal/Partner responsible for sign off of annual compliance

Client Manager = Senior Account/Supervisor/Manager (most senior person below Principal/Partner) responsible for review of annual compliance (and other work)


Client Owner = accountable for client relationship and final sign off of work

Client Manager = accountable for the work

Agree that an individual could be both.

This is a test.  New to hood.  How to earn badges?


@Brook Knowles welcome to the community!

Badges are primarily earned for creating new topic threads, or commenting on existing threads. For example, creating new Feature Requests counts towards the Idea Generator badge. There’s also a badge for completing the Karbon Certification, and sometimes there are bonus badges the Karbon team will award at their discretion!


FYI the Client Tasks can be sent by Client Owner, but not by Client Manager. Something to consider.


@Alex Graniere 

FYI the Client Tasks can be sent by Client Owner, but not by Client Manager. Something to consider.

Is this comment in reference to a policy your firm has? Client tasks can be sent from any user account, you just need to change the option in the FROM dropdown when setting up sending:

Client Manager isn’t in the dropdown (which might be what you meant - it wasn’t clear!), but as long as you know who the Client Manager is, a task can be sent from them.


It’s easier for bulk updates to change a Client Owner once than each individual Client Task if you’re using Other colleague for the same person over and over again. Client Manager isn’t an option to do that. Not sure why it isn’t an option but it doesn’t impact our firm knowing this limitation.


FYI the Client Tasks can be sent by Client Owner, but not by Client Manager. Something to consider.

This is a relevant point 🙂 we always use Other colleague though to ensure it is always coming from who it’s supposed to be from. We don’t really have many automated Client Requests, so picking the colleague is part of the process when sending


These titles seem redundant to me- A Client Manager/ Owner/ Lead is understandable for overseeing all of the work and is the main point of contact for the client & staff. If someone is accountable for work within that Client- they are assigned the Work Item… 

Would be great to see them consolidated. 


These titles seem redundant to me- A Client Manager/ Owner/ Lead is understandable for overseeing all of the work and is the main point of contact for the client & staff. If someone is accountable for work within that Client- they are assigned the Work Item… 

Would be great to see them consolidated. 

Totally disagree. Very common in accounting firms of all sizes to have:

  • Principal/Partner (Client Owner) - responsible for sign off on work and high level advice
  • Manager (Client Manager) - responsible for overseeing work and the main point of contact

Karbon has also recently had a beta with more Client Team Custom Fields and will soon be rolling that out.

Agree if someone is accountable for specific Work, they are Assigned that Work. But it’s going to be super useful to have more fields available on a Client to specify roles related to that Client.


Totally disagree. Very common in accounting firms of all sizes to have

Also disagree (so agree with your comment @SamG!) - the names themselves we see as unclear because that’s not what we call them, but we have WAY more than two people involved in a client file! Even the two extra roles we’ve got in the Beta isn’t enough. We need/want:

  • Bookkeeping Preparer
  • Bookkeeping Reviewer
  • Bookkeeping Quality Lead/Senior Accountant
  • Payroll Preparer
  • Payroll Reviewer
  • Possibly Payroll Quality Lead
  • Controller
  • Client Support Rep

We don’t necessarily need/use all of them for every client (depends on their engagement), but we need to be able to clearly differentiate between them! 

 

 


Would be great if Karbon would sync the Client owner & client manager to Xero XPM Partner & Manager. This would save alot of time & effort manually needing to do this in Karbon


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