Introducing The Client Readiness Gap: Accounting’s #1 Problem, Explained by CEO Evan Fitzpatrick

As an accountant, there’s a moment of friction that repeats itself during far too many engagements. You’ve scoped the engagement. You’ve assigned the team. You’ve sent the initial request list. And then, silence. 

Or worse—an incomplete response, missing documents, outdated files. You start sending follow-up questions and requests. The client tries to answer, and you review what they provide. It turns out it still isn’t everything you need. 

More follow-ups. More waiting. More frustration and delays.

This misalignment between firm and client isn’t just frustrating. It’s costly, recurring—and largely avoidable.

At Suralink, we call it what it is: The Client Readiness Gap.

What is the Client Readiness Gap?

The Client Readiness Gap is the single biggest obstacle accounting firms face today.

It’s the struggle firms experience getting the right information from their clients, on time and in the format needed to complete engagements efficiently.

This isn’t just an operational hiccup. It’s the #1 challenge facing accounting firms and their clients. Our research shows that The Client Readiness Gap is the single largest driver of engagements failing to be completed on-time and on-budget, regardless of firm size or practice area. It impacts everyone:

• Partners and managers billable hours and team efficiency
• Staff get stuck chasing down documents instead of being productive
• Clients get frustrated by repeated follow-ups, requests, and unclear expectations
• Firms suffer from lower margins, missed deadlines, and rising employee burnout

And to be clear, this isn’t primarily the fault of clients. Clients don’t want to not respond. Clients don’t want to provide the wrong information. Clients don’t want to have to go back and forth ten times to answer a basic request.

Misalignment often stems from the firm’s own process and technology gaps: unclear requests, lack of proper context, disconnected workflows, and out-of-date approaches to collaboration are usually the root cause. 

That’s why closing the Client Readiness Gap means improving the experience for both sides of the engagement.

If you’re in public accounting, you’ve felt this gap—whether you’ve named it or not.

This is the #1 Problem to Solve in the CPA Industry

When we discuss the concept of the Client Readiness Gap with firms and their clients, the response is strong and universally agreed upon. Firms and clients recognize this is the #1 reason engagements face challenges, realization rates get pressured, and clients become dissatisfied.

It’s clear that this is a challenge the industry feels every day. That’s why we’re committed to addressing it head-on, not with vague promises or surface-level fixes, but with purpose-built technology designed to meet the needs of both clients and firms.

When your clients are ready, your teams move faster. And when collaboration is at the heart of everything you do, the entire engagement improves—from kickoff to close.

How Suralink Is Addressing the Client Readiness Gap

Suralink’s Request List Management solution was purpose-built to enhance collaboration throughout the engagement process. 

Over the past ten years, we have brought enormous value to the accounting industry, for both firm users and their clients, and that is why we have grown so well and have such high customer and client user satisfaction.

We’re proud to serve over 60% of the Top 200 firms, with 800,000+ users relying on Suralink worldwide.

Across firms, users consistently self-report 40%+ time savings—for both firm users and their clients. That’s more on-time, on-budget engagements. And that’s more satisfied clients.

But we also recognize there is far more that we can do to bring seamless collaboration to the end-to-end engagement process and fully address The Client Readiness Gap. That is why we have invested in our latest platform evolution, Workpaper Suite.

With Workpaper Suite, we’ve combined our industry-leading client collaboration portal with automated workpaper preparation and AI-powered analysis to create the accounting industry’s first fully integrated “Request-to-Test” platform.

Here’s what that means in practice:

• Real-time engagement visibility for your team & clients
• Faster validation of client documents and data
• Fewer back-and-forth emails with clients
• Automated workflows that eliminate manual errors
• Secure collaboration across every stage of the engagement

And this recent release is just the start. We have an ambitious vision for where our platform is heading, and over the next 18 months, our customers and their clients will benefit from a number of major releases that will dramatically improve end-to-end engagement efficiency.  

The Future of Accounting is Collaborative

At Suralink, we’re not just building software. We’re building a new standard for how firms and clients work together. Seamlessly, securely, and in sync.

If you’ve felt the impact of the Client Readiness Gap, you’re not alone. We’re here to help you close it and improve what client collaboration looks like at your firm moving forward.