Karbon

Karbon is the number-one ranked accounting practice management software on G2, purpose-built for accounting firms, bookkeeping practices, and tax professionals. The platform combines workflow management, client communication, team collaboration, and billing into a single system designed around how accounting firms actually operate — with recurring client work, seasonal deadlines, and complex multi-step processes. Karbon replaces the disconnected mix of email, spreadsheets, project management tools, and practice management software that most firms use, saving an average of $34,688 per employee per year according to their 2024 customer research.

What sets Karbon apart from generic project management tools is its deep understanding of accounting workflows. The platform features Email Triage — a shared inbox system that lets teams assign, comment on, and track client emails without forwarding or CCing. Work items are organized around recurring client engagements like monthly bookkeeping, quarterly reviews, and annual tax returns, with templates that automatically schedule and assign tasks based on due dates and team capacity. This accounting-specific approach means firms spend less time managing their work and more time doing it.

Key Features: Email Triage system that lets teams share and assign and comment on client emails without forwarding or creating duplicate threads, workflow templates for recurring accounting work including monthly bookkeeping and quarterly reviews and annual tax returns and payroll processing, automated client request emails that go out on schedule to collect documents and information needed for each engagement, task automation that triggers next steps in a workflow when previous tasks are completed reducing manual follow-up, client portal for secure document sharing and task collaboration between the firm and its clients, time tracking integrated directly into work items for accurate billing and capacity planning, billing and payments with flexible invoicing and built-in payment processing accepting credit cards and ACH, team collaboration with contextual comments and mentions tied to specific work items and client accounts rather than scattered across chat apps, client management with shared contact profiles and activity timelines showing every interaction across the firm, document management that automatically organizes files against clients and work items, reporting dashboards with work status and team utilization and revenue metrics and deadline tracking, calendar integration for scheduling and deadline management across all client engagements, role-based permissions and privacy controls for managing access to sensitive client information, and integrations with Xero and QuickBooks Online and FreshBooks and HubSpot and Zapier and other accounting ecosystem tools.

Pricing: Karbon offers three plans billed per user. The Team plan is $59 per month per user billed annually (or $79/month monthly) and includes integrated email, team collaboration, workflows and to-do lists, time tracking, budget reporting, and billing and payments — designed for small accounting firms. The Business plan is $89 per month per user billed annually (or $99/month monthly) and adds automatic client reminders, task automation, industry integrations, and advanced reporting — the most popular plan for growing practices. The Enterprise plan is custom-priced and includes everything in Business plus enterprise platform features, dedicated Karbon contact, customization options, and unlimited usage limits. All plans include the web app, iOS app, Android app, client portal, document management, and enterprise-grade security with 99.9% uptime. eSignature credits are available separately starting at $100 for 100 credits.

Use Cases: Small bookkeeping practices managing monthly client engagements who need to replace spreadsheets and email with structured workflow management, growing accounting firms with 5 to 50 team members who need visibility into work status and team capacity across all client engagements, tax preparation firms managing seasonal workload spikes who need automated scheduling and client document collection, full-service CPA firms handling bookkeeping and tax and advisory work who need a single platform for all engagement types, virtual and remote accounting firms that rely on digital collaboration tools to coordinate work across distributed teams, and firms transitioning from legacy practice management software like Practice CS or CCH Axcess who want a modern cloud-based alternative.