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Anchor vs. AbakusAnchor on its own, or built around your firm.

Anchor is proposal and billing automation software for accounting firms, combining engagement letters, automatic invoicing, and payment collection.

Book a free audit Anchor on its own vs. with Abakus
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Anchor
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Engagement letters, proposals & billing

The short answer

Anchor handles proposals and signatures well. For a tax firm, though, the letter is only one step: scope depends on which forms a client needs, fees depend on that scope, and signing should start the work. We built exactly this for Wicklow Expat Tax inside their own platform, and the same engine works for any firm and any return type.

Built for Wicklow Expat TaxWicklow's engagement letters, e-signatures, and multi-currency invoices run inside their own client portal, generated per client and tied to each return's pipeline. No separate proposal tool, and changes ship in hours. We can build the same for your firm, for any return type. Read the case study

What Anchor does well

  • Proposals that turn into recurring billing automatically
  • Automatic payment collection
  • Built with accounting and bookkeeping firms in mind

Where firms hit its limits

  • Scope and fees are assembled by hand for each client, even when they follow directly from the client's situation (foreign accounts, foreign income, rental property, K-1s).
  • What happens after signing (opening the job, requesting documents, invoicing) depends on integrations or manual steps.
  • One more subscription and one more place client data lives, built to serve many firms or industries at once.

Anchor on its own vs. with Abakus

Anchor on its own

Off the shelf, built for every firm

Anchor + Abakus

Rules designed around your firm

Letter scope

Letter scope

Generic templates you edit for each client.

Letter scope

Built from the client's intake: a client with foreign accounts gets FBAR and Form 8938 in scope automatically; a US-only client gets a standard 1040 letter.

Fees & invoices

Fees & invoices

Fees typed into each document.

Fees & invoices

Fees calculated from the forms in scope and invoiced in the client's currency.

After signing

After signing

Integrations or manual steps to start the job.

After signing

Job opened, documents requested, and first invoice issued automatically.

Changes

Changes

Whatever the tool's settings allow.

Changes

New services, clauses, or prices live within hours.

What we build around Anchor

Typical automations for firms that use Anchor. Each one follows your firm's rules, keeps a human review step where professional judgment matters, and changes in hours when you need something different.

01

Engagement letters whose scope comes from each client's tax situation, not a fixed package

02

One-off return fees and recurring bookkeeping retainers handled in the same flow

03

Multi-currency invoices for clients paid abroad

04

Billing tied to return status, so invoices go out when the work actually reaches the right stage

Anchor: common questions

Can Abakus replace Anchor?
Yes, and that's usually the goal. For Wicklow Expat Tax we built engagement letters, e-signature, and multi-currency invoicing directly into their client portal, so they don't need a separate proposal tool. If Anchor works well for you, we can connect it to the rest of your stack instead.
Does this only work for expat returns?
No. Wicklow's letters are built for expat engagements, where scope can include FBAR, Form 8938, Form 2555, or the Section 962 election. The engine simply maps a client's situation to scope and fees, so the same setup works for 1040s with Schedule C or E, partnership and S corp returns, bookkeeping retainers, or advisory work.
Can we keep our existing letter templates?
Yes. We start from your current letters, terms, and price list, and turn them into templates that fill themselves in from each client's details. Changes to wording or pricing are live within hours.

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Anchor is a trademark of Anchor. Abakus Automations is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Anchor. Product details are summarized from public information and may change.

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