One place to run the whole firm: clients, work, documents, deadlines, time and billing. Docket's core practice management is free — not a trial — it shapes itself to how your firm actually works, and it tracks T1, T2 and GST/HST deadlines the way the CRA dates them.
Accounting practice management software is the system a firm uses to run itself — the layer that sits above your tax and bookkeeping tools and keeps track of clients, work, documents and deadlines in one place. It answers the questions that spreadsheets and email inboxes cannot answer quickly: which returns are due this month, whose file is waiting on a signature, what still has to happen before a T2 goes out, and how much unbilled time is sitting on each engagement.
For a small Canadian accounting firm, practice management software for accountants replaces a scattered stack — a client list in one spreadsheet, a deadline tracker in another, documents in email threads, and the real status of the work in someone's head. It is not tax-preparation software and it is not your general ledger. It is the operating system for the practice around them: the CRM, the work tracker, the document collection, the compliance calendar, the automations, and the time and billing, working from a single source of truth.
Good practice management software should do six things well. Here is what each one means in plain terms, and how Docket handles it.
Contacts, entities, relationships, fiscal year-ends, business numbers and history in one place — so you stop hunting through email to remember who owns what and how they are structured.
Track each engagement on a Kanban work board — assignees, stages, and what happens next — so nothing stalls silently and the partner can see the whole firm at a glance.
Send a client request, collect documents through a secure portal, and see what is still outstanding. This is the old intake questionnaire, reborn as a feature of the platform.
T1, T2 and GST/HST deadlines are tracked for you, recurring work is fiscal-year-end aware, and dates follow the way the CRA dates them — not a generic US tax calendar bolted on.
Describe the routine once — when a return is filed, move the file, notify the client, open next year's job — and Docket runs it. WHEN / IF / THEN, written the way you would say it.
Log time against engagements, keep unbilled work visible, and turn it into invoices — so the hours you actually worked make it onto the bill instead of getting lost.
Most firms give up on practice management software for one of two reasons: the free-ish tools are too rigid to match how the firm actually works, and the powerful tools take a consultant and fifteen hours to configure. Docket removes that trade-off. You describe the change you want in a sentence — "add a review step before every T2 goes out", "create a monthly GST/HST workflow for my bookkeeping clients" — and Docket builds it.
Every change is shown to you before it happens. Docket previews exactly what will change; you approve or reject it; and once applied, it is versioned and one click from rollback. The AI edits configuration, never your underlying data, and never writes code you have to maintain. That is the whole trust architecture, said plainly: describe it, approve it, and undo it if you change your mind. AI customization is the optional paid tier — the core platform stays free whether you ever turn it on or not.
Docket is built for 1–20 person Canadian accounting and tax firms — the firm currently running on spreadsheets and email, or the firm that is overpaying for a rigid US tool that took consultants to set up and still does not quite fit. If you are a solo CPA, a small tax shop, or a growing bookkeeping practice, this is the tier of firm the product is designed around.
If you are a large, operations-heavy firm with dedicated implementation staff, deep existing integrations and complex multi-office collaboration, an enterprise incumbent may still be the better call — and we would rather tell you that plainly than sell you a poor fit. Docket is deliberately the simple one that still bends to exactly how your firm works.
Most established practice management tools are sold per user, per month. Here is a compact, approximate comparison. For the detailed, single-competitor breakdowns, see the Docket vs Karbon and Docket vs TaxDome pages.
1 The "typical paid incumbent" column describes the broad category of established practice management tools, not any one product. The US$58–89 per user, per month range is approximate, drawn from vendors' public pricing pages, quoted in US dollars, and may change — verify the current figure on each vendor's own site before relying on it. Docket is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any other practice management vendor. All product and company names referenced are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here only for honest comparative reference.
If you run a large firm with dedicated operations staff, a web of existing integrations you cannot move off, or complex multi-office collaboration, a mature paid platform's depth is worth the per-seat cost — and you likely have the people to configure and maintain it. Docket is built for the firm that wants to be running this afternoon, not the firm that wants to run an implementation project. If that is not you today, the honest answer is to stay where you are. If it is you, the core is free — so trying costs nothing.
Yes. Docket's core practice-management platform — client CRM, work tracking, document collection, the CRA deadline calendar, automations, the client portal, boards, and time and billing — is free forever, not a trial. There is no per-user fee on the core. The only paid tier is optional AI customization, which you turn on if and when you want it.
For a 1–20 person Canadian firm, the best fit is usually the tool that is CRA-native, quick to set up, and does not charge per seat. Docket is built exactly for that firm: T1, T2 and GST/HST deadlines are tracked automatically, you can adjust the software yourself in minutes, and the core is free. Larger, operations-heavy firms may still prefer a mature paid incumbent — we say so plainly on our comparison pages.
It runs the firm around your tax and bookkeeping tools: a client CRM, engagement and work tracking, document collection through a client portal, a deadline and compliance calendar, automations, and time and billing — all from one source of truth. It is not tax-prep software or your general ledger; it is the layer that keeps track of who owes what, what is due, and where every job stands.
No. With Docket you can adjust the software yourself, or describe the change you want in plain English and Docket builds it — usually in minutes. Every change is previewed, approved by you, and reversible. There is no implementation project and no consultant fee, which is the opposite of how many rigid incumbent tools are deployed.
Established, paid practice management tools are commonly sold per user, per month, frequently in the region of US$58–89 per user according to vendors' public pricing pages — figures that are approximate, quoted in US dollars, and worth verifying on each vendor's own site. Docket's core is $0 with no per-seat fee; you only pay for optional AI customization if you choose to use it.
Yes. Docket is CRA-native: T1, T2 and GST/HST deadlines are tracked automatically, recurring work is fiscal-year-end aware, and dates follow the way the CRA dates them. Many global or US-first platforms treat the Canadian tax calendar as an add-on; Docket is built around it.
Full accounting practice management, free forever. Set it up this afternoon; add AI customization only if and when you want it.
Start free — no card →Practice management that shapes itself to your firm. Free for accounting and tax firms.
howard@docket-systems.com