Stop 6 of 9 · Weekly
Client messages at scale
Twenty portal messages drafted in one pass, each in that client's own voice, plus the triage that decides what happens to the replies.
What it is
Two things go out to every client after a close: the questions nobody has answered, and the summary of the month. Farida has twenty of each, and doing them one at a time is how the tenth becomes the eighteenth.
This stop turns both into one drafting pass. The messages come back as drafts, in each client's voice, and Farida reads all twenty before any of them is sent. Nothing about the books changes on the way: no posting, no reclassing, no bank rule changes, and no tax, legal or investment advice in a portal message.
The voice card
One short file per client folder, six lines, written once and edited when it is wrong:
- How long a message they read before they stop.
- Formal or plain, and whether they want the number first or the sentence first.
- What they already understand, and what needs a sentence of context every time.
- Who actually reads the portal, the owner or the office manager.
- What they have asked about repeatedly, so it is answered before they ask.
- What they do not want in writing, per the engagement letter.
That last line is not decoration. Some clients want everything on the phone, and a message that puts it in the portal instead is a message that damages the relationship in the interest of saving ten minutes.
For every client I have marked closed this month, draft one portal message that carries two things: their open questions list, and a four-sentence summary of the month from their closed P&L and cash position. Use only that client own files and their voice card in their folder. Match the length, formality and ordering the card records. Every figure carries the date and amount behind it. Give no tax, legal or investment opinion. Return them as drafts in one document, client code as the heading, and send nothing.
Read the last six months of my messages to [client code] and their replies. Write the six-line voice card: message length they engage with, formal or plain and number first or sentence first, what they clearly already understand, who replies, what they have asked more than once, and anything the engagement letter says stays off the portal. Quote one line of theirs as evidence for each of the first four.
Here are this week replies from the portal: [paste the replies]. Sort each into answered, partly answered, answered something I did not ask, or needs someone other than a bookkeeper. For the partly answered, draft the one-line follow-up that asks only for the missing piece. For anything needing tax, legal or investment judgment, do not draft an answer: name what it needs and who it goes to. Give me the four groups with counts.
The number that matters
Not messages sent. Answers received within three business days, as a share of questions asked. Twenty messages that produce four answers is a worse month than eight messages that produce seven, and the fix is almost always in the questions rather than the sending: a question with the date, the amount and the payee gets answered, and a question that says please clarify the June entries does not.