Senta is a practice management software solution for accountants and bookkeepers in the UK.
Summary
Senta is a practice management system for managing clients and jobs, but its acquisition by IRIS poses a few considerable limitations for its future.
Karbon is the best alternative to Senta for workflow management and collaboration.
BrightManager (formerly AccountancyManager) is the most comparable replacement to Senta for UK firms.
Pixie is an option with a modern, intuitive user interface.
Glide is an alternative tool for workflow only.
Client Engager is ideal for firms with a smaller client base.
Senta’s top features include:
A comprehensive CRM that gives you custom forms, custom fields, bulk email send, and texting capabilities, in addition to the typical functionality you’d expect from a CRM, like client contact management
Workflow and job management, including setting up repeating jobs, automatic client reminders, and job templates
A secure client portal for practice owners to share documents, forms, and questions with their clients, as well as request eSignatures
A cloud document management system to store your client and practice documents
Task list in Senta
How much does Senta cost?
Given the number of features it offers, Senta is reasonably priced: £32+VAT/month, per user when billed monthly (or £25.60+VAT/month, per user when billed annually).
But there are a few factors about Senta as a product and a company that you might want to consider before adopting it as the practice management system for your accountancy firm.
Why you should consider Senta alternatives
1. Senta’s future is unclear after its 2021 IRIS acquisition
After its acquisition by IRIS in 2021, Senta was rebranded as ‘Senta by IRIS’. For UK-based customers, this means that Senta isn’t a stand-alone product anymore—it’s now IRIS Elements’ practice management module.
Senta by IRIS in IRIS Elements
While this change may be welcome by some due to IRIS’ bigger platform and more modern user interface, it’s unclear what IRIS’ long-term plan is for Senta. This means it’s difficult to know whether this product will be prioritised for ongoing enhancements, innovation, and customer support.
Because onboarding and adopting a practice management system at your accountancy firm is a long-term investment, you want to choose a software vendor with a more predictable future, so you and your firm will experience as little service disruption as possible.
2. Senta lacks essential functionality that supports team collaboration
Having collaboration built into your workflow is key to a truly effective practice management software. After all, team members often work together on client jobs, and being able to communicate with each other easily using the same platform gives the whole team better visibility and confidence over client work.
In this area, Senta is lacking in many ways.
To start, it doesn’t sync with your inbox, which makes it difficult to manage client-related tasks, information and updates that often stem from emails. When you can’t integrate emails into your practice management system, you’ll end up context-switching and doing a lot of manual work to keep data up-to-date.
Although Senta lets you send emails from your existing email address, that’s the extent of Senta’s email integration. It doesn’t sync your inbox, or offer you any other way to get control over your emails.
Senta doesn’t include any other crucial collaboration features, like the ability to @mention colleagues, comments, or notes on clients, jobs, or tasks. If a job requires multiple staff members, real-time collaboration will have to happen in other apps like Slack or Teams.
3. Senta (not IRIS Elements) has significantly scaled back its customer support
Since Senta’s acquisition by IRIS, its customer support appears to have been reduced. For users who are purchasing the original Senta, your primary customer support option is their support knowledge base that features many outdated articles written as far back as 2018.
For actual customer support, you will need to switch over to IRIS Elements. But again, because IRIS is such a massive organisation and Senta by IRIS (or IRIS Elements Practice Management) is only a small segment of its overall product offering, the support might not be as speedy or adequate as alternatives that solely focus on serving your firm the best practice management system.
The 5 best Senta alternatives for accountancy practice management software
Like Senta, Karbon has key practice management features to help accounting professionals manage their clients and work.
But Karbon differs in that it facilitates effective communication and collaboration between team members through features like integrated emails, @mentions, comments, and shared client timelines. It’s also one of the first practice management tools to integrate GPT-powered AI for email management.
Karbon has solved the 'silo' problem in my business. Complete visibility of communications between team members and customers is now a reality. The Karbon development team and support team are amazing and really care about me and my business.
Document management (native storage and integration with Dropbox and OneDrive)
Email comments and @mentions
Time tracking and budgets
Analytics and reporting
Billing and payments (in beta)
GPT-powered AI (in beta)
Integrations with industry-specific software, including Companies House, Xama, Ignition, and GoProposal
Open API and Zapier integration so you can build your own custom solutions
Karbon’s pros and cons
Pros
Karbon is the only accounting practice management solution that allows you to @mention colleagues and comment on emails, turn emails into tasks, and assign emails to colleagues, client and project timelines
If you’re already an IRIS subscriber, Senta might make sense because it’s now sold as IRIS Elements’ practice management module. As a result, it will have a better integration with the rest of the IRIS suite.
But if your firm isn’t using IRIS, or you are using IRIS but don’t want to be locked into one suite of products, Karbon is a top choice. Karbon not only offers more robust functionality, it also provides more comprehensive customer support and ongoing product enhancements.
BrightManager (formerly AccountancyManager) is an accounting practice management system that specifically deals with firms in the UK and Ireland. In 2022, it was acquired by Bright, a UK-based accounting software group.
Task list in BrightManager
BrightManager’s top features
Workflow automation
Client management
Time and billing
Email management
SMS capabilities
Email templates
eSignatures
Proposal and engagement letters
GDPR compliant
BrightManager’s pros and cons
Pros
Strong CRM capabilities with custom forms and fields
Bulk email, email templates, and email placeholders
Built-in SMS functionality
Automatic client reminders in email and SMS
Cons
Suited to smaller firms, which means you’ll likely outgrow it
No Kanban board view, making it difficult to get a high-level overview of your firm
Limited workflow automation functionality
No ability to @mention colleagues
Who is BrightManager best suited for?
BrightManager is ideal for accountancy firms already using Bright software and smaller firms that need a straightforward CRM and workflow management tool.
Reviews
Here’s how BrightManager and Senta stack up against each other on popular software review sites:
BrightManager starts at £33.60+VAT/month, per user (billed annually), with Enterprise pricing available for firms with 12+ users.
BrightManager or Senta?
In terms of CRM and workflow management, BrightManager and Senta are both good choices. But neither have the necessary collaboration functionality to support larger teams.
On user experience, BrightManager has a more modern interface, whereas Senta looks and feels more outdated.
Ultimately, if you’re an existing IRIS user, you might prefer Senta over BrightManager. But if you’re an existing Bright customer, you might enjoy BrightManager’s integration with your current tools more.
Pixie
Pixie is also a UK-based practice management system built specifically for accounting firms. Founded in 2019, Pixie is one of the newer players in the market, but has gained strides due to its clean design and good usability.
Work view in Pixie
Pixie’s top features
Integrated emails
CRM with custom fields
Workflow management
Recurring tasks
Workflow template library
eSignatures
Client reminders
GDPR compliant
Pixie’s pros and cons
Pros
A clean, modern design that’s easy to navigate
Flexible recurring work functionality that can be based on a client’s specific year-end date
Best-practice template library
Affordable pricing, especially for practices with fewer than 50 clients
Cons
Limited feature offering due to being a newer product
Limited collaboration functionality (unable to @mention colleagues in comments or notes, making teamwork difficult)
Limited automation
No time and budget tracking means that productivity and profitability insights are limited
No Kanban board view, which makes it difficult to get a high-level view of your firm
No ability to assign subtasks within a piece of work to different team members
Who is Pixie best suited for?
Pixie is best suited for UK-based accounting firms with a smaller client base (under 250 clients).
Reviews
Here’s how Pixie and Senta stack up against each other on popular software review sites:
Pixie’s pricing is based on the number of clients you have and includes unlimited users. Within each client size cohort, there are two pricing plans:
Less than 250 clients
Advanced plan: £99+VAT/month
Growth plan: £149+VAT/month
251-500 clients
Advanced plan: £149+VAT/month
Growth plan: £249+VAT/month
501-1,000 clients
Advanced plan: £249+VAT/month
Growth plan: £599+VAT/month
More than 1,000 clients
Custom pricing
Pixie or Senta?
Pixie and Senta both serve smaller accounting firms in the UK.
Senta edges out Pixie slightly with its workflow management features, but Pixie is much more modern and easier to navigate.
Pixie is also privately owned, which means it has more control over its own product roadmap and customer service.
Glide
Glide is a UK-based workflow management tool used by accountants and other professional service providers. It has some practice management functionality like CRM, email integration, and SMS, but it’s still primarily a workflow tool.
Dashboard view in Glide
Glide’s top features
Workflow automation (drag-and-drop flowcharts)
Automated client requests and reminders via emails and SMS
Staff scheduler
Time and fees (paid add-on)
GDPR compliant
Glide’s pro and cons
Pros
Useful integrations, including Xero, Companies House and HMRC
Email and SMS alerts (although they’re convoluted and complex to set up)
Staff scheduler helps to visualise staff allocations
Cons
Inbound email is non-existent in Glide—you can only send emails as alerts, not receive them
No workflow templates
Limited collaboration functionality (no ability to use @mentions for internal collaboration)
Who is Glide best suited for?
Glide is best suited for solo accountants or small accountancy firms (two to three employees) that don’t require robust collaboration, CRM, or billing and payment features.
Reviews
Here’s how Glide and Senta stack up against each other on popular software review sites:
Basic: £41.23+VAT/month for the first user, increasing incrementally with each additional user
Advanced: £63.22+VAT/month for the first user, increasing incrementally with each additional user
Professional: £82.46+VAT/month for the first user, increasing incrementally with each additional user
Glide’s Time & Fees module is a paid add-on for each of these tiers, starting at £6.51+VAT/month for the first user.
An accounting firm with 20 users on the Advanced plan with the Time & Fees module would pay £585.25+VAT per month.
For firms with over 100 staff, Glide offers custom pricing.
Glide or Senta?
Glide is primarily designed for accounting workflow management. Senta is built to help you run your entire accounting practice, from workflow to client collaboration.
If you’re looking for a workflow tool only, Glide is an option. That said, Glide is more expensive than Senta and it offers fewer features.
Client Engager
Client Engager is one of the newest practice management tools on the market. Founded by Andy Wainwrights, Managing Director at Wainwrights Accountants, its tagline is ’designed by accountants for accountants and bookkeepers’.
As the name suggests, Client Engager’s features are heavily focused on client management.
Client Engager dashboard during a demo with Director Johann Goree
Client Engager’s top features
Letters of engagement and disengagement
A comprehensive CRM with custom fields
Client portal
Document storage and folders
eSignature
Email integration with Microsoft 365
Workflow management with task lists and Kanban boards
Pricing calculator for services
Custom forms
Integrations with Companies House, HMRC, Xama, QuickBooks Online and Xero
Client Engager’s pros and cons
Pros
A very robust client management system
Unlimited users (because it charges by number of clients)
A unique pricing tool that can be customised to suit your firm’s menu of services
Cons
It’s new to the market, so some essential features might not be available or they’re in-progress, as some reviewers have mentioned
It’s heavily focused on client management, so its workflow management, automation, and collaboration features are basic compared to other solutions like Karbon
Who is Client Engager best suited for?
Client Engager is best suited for accountancy and bookkeeping practices with a smaller portfolio of clients.
Reviews
Here’s how Client Engager and Senta stack up against each other on popular software review sites:
Client Engager charges by the number of clients you store in the platform:
0-10 clients: £9+VAT/month
11-50 clients: £19+VAT/month
51-100 clients: £29+VAT/month
101-250 clients: £49+VAT/month
251-500 clients: £99+VAT/month
501-750 clients: £149+VAT/month
751-1000 clients: £199+VAT/month
1001+ clients: custom pricing
Client Engager or Senta?
Client Engager and Senta are comparable when it comes to their CRM and client management features. Senta has stronger workflow management capabilities, but Client Engager is better at email management and communication.
Ultimately, the choice comes down to your client size and whether you prefer a system with more workflow features or a more modern user experience.
Try Karbon for free
Now that you have an overview of the top alternatives to Senta, you should have a better idea about which options best suit your practice.
To see how professional services firms save an average of 18.5 hours per employee each week, you can explore the Karbon Effect. Or you can use the Karbon ROI calculator to see what your return on investment could be.
