How an Accounting Firm Brought Client and Tax-Work Tracking into Three Custom Power Apps

Client: an accounting firm. Technology partner: Whole Technology. Technology: Microsoft Power Apps, SharePoint Lists, and Power Automate. Whole Technology built three connected Power Apps that help the firm track client work — and turn the underlying activity into reportable data.

The challenge

The firm handles a large volume of client work across different service lines. Staff need to know which client or return they are working on, who is responsible, where the work stands, and what needs attention next. Partners and managers also need a way to review that work across clients and produce useful reports. Before these apps, the firm tracked this work in spreadsheets — slow to search, hard to keep current, and difficult to report across the practice.

The solution

Whole Technology built three Microsoft Power Apps tailored to the firm’s workflows:

• Business Processing Log — tracks business clients and their processing work, including client name and identifier, Partner, Preparer, and Assignee. Staff can search by name, UTID, or full client number.
• 1040 Processing Log — tracks individual tax clients and return processing, with records stored in SharePoint. A My Work view narrows a preparer’s list to their own clients.
• Financial Statements Log — tracks financial statement engagements and their progress, including statement date, status, method, Partner, and Preparer. One client can have multiple statement records — as many as twelve — each with its own date and status.

SharePoint Lists hold the structured records behind the apps, so progress lives in reportable data instead of scattered messages and notes. Role-aware views help staff focus on the clients and work relevant to them.

Connected workflows

The apps work together. The Financial Statements Log is largely populated through a Power Automate flow when a Financial Statement Frequency is entered in Business Processing — staff can also add financial statement work manually. This reduces repeated entry between the business and financial statement workflows while allowing for exceptions. A shared client identifier ties related records together across the apps.

Reporting and data

Because the records live in structured SharePoint Lists, the firm can filter, search, export, and report on its work. The Financial Statements Log includes a CSV export workflow configured to handle more than the first 100 records. In one test, the 1040 app loaded a dataset of approximately 5,000 records in about five seconds — a point-in-time observation from testing, not a guaranteed performance figure.

The result

The firm now has a structured way to track business processing, 1040 returns, and financial statement work — with connected workflows, role-aware views, and data it can actually report on. The apps can evolve as the firm refines its processes. The new apps eliminated the spreadsheets, giving staff responsive tools for finding and updating client work.

Could your business use tools like these?

If your team tracks client work in spreadsheets, inboxes, or systems that don’t talk to each other, Whole Technology can build custom Power Apps around how you actually work. See our transparent pricing page or contact us at [email protected] to talk through your workflows. Not sure where your IT stands? Start with our free 27-point IT & security assessment — we’ll show you exactly what we’d fix first.