The best software for accounting firms to offer advisory and CAS services in 2026
Five tools firms use to add advisory to a CAS practice, compared on what you can sell, how long until a client is live, and what it costs. Clockwork is first. We built it, so read the reasons and decide for yourself.
Clean books are the start. Advisory is what clients pay more for.
Most CAS practices already deliver the monthly close and a report. The step up is advisory: a forecast, a cash plan, and answers to the decisions a client is facing. The software you pick decides whether that's a product you can sell to every client or a custom project you do for a few. Here is how five options line up.
Best for turning CAS clients into advisory clients
Connect a client's QuickBooks or Xero and Clockwork builds a 52-week cash flow forecast, a 5-year 3-statement model, and a dashboard in about five minutes, with the chart of accounts mapped automatically. It also builds the monthly, quarterly, and annual report packs, so the CAS deliverable and the advisory deliverable come from one model. Mira, the built-in AI FP&A analyst, answers plain-English questions from the live books, and the Champions Console gives clients their own login. It's the real AI-native FP&A software, built by a CFO who ran an outsourced CFO firm, and it's Thomson Reuters' FP&A software partner. Firm plans start at $1,499 a month with unlimited users, and one new advisory client covers any of them.
Best for larger CAS practices with a dedicated planner
Jirav is a driver-based planning platform with a CAS focus and firm pricing from $50 a month for Controller Essentials. It's capable, and it asks more of your team: forecasts are set up per client, and business plans include weeks of implementation. It works best when a senior person owns the tool.
Best for monthly management reporting
Fathom is the go-to for polished monthly reports, KPIs, and benchmarking, priced per company from about $59 a month. It's a reporting deliverable. Forecasting is monthly and edited line by line, so the advisory work still tends to happen in a spreadsheet.
Best for firms that want reporting, forecasting, and dashboards as separate tools
Spotlight is built for accountants and sells reporting, forecasting, and dashboards as separate products, with advisory bundles on the higher tiers. Its 3-way forecasting with budgets and scenarios is solid, and your team builds and maintains each client's forecast.
Best for one-off models and firms with one or two advisory clients
Spreadsheets are free, flexible, and every accountant knows them. They are also the reason advisory does not scale: every client's model lives in a different file, it breaks the week after it is built, and it takes a senior person 10 to 20 hours a month per client to keep current. Fine for your first advisory client. Not fine for your tenth.
What each option does for a firm.
Four questions to ask before you pick.
Who builds the model?
If the answer is "we do," price in a senior person's time for every client, every month. The whole point of software here is that it does the building.
Is the forecast weekly or monthly?
Clients run out of cash on a specific Friday, and month-end totals hide it. A monthly forecast can show a healthy month that hides the week payroll and a tax payment land together.
Can you sell it to every client?
If each client takes a build project, advisory stays a premium service for a few clients. Software that builds the forecast from the books lets you offer it across the whole CAS book.
What does one advisory client pay for?
Run the math. A $1,500 monthly advisory retainer covers the $1,499 Start plan in about a month, and every client after that is margin. Our ROI page shows it by tier, and the Advisory Revenue Calculator shows what your current client list is worth.
What software can accounting firms use to offer advisory or CAS services to clients?
For the advisory side, Clockwork builds every client's 52-week cash flow forecast, 5-year model, dashboard, and report packs automatically from QuickBooks or Xero, with no implementation. Jirav suits larger practices with a dedicated planner, and Fathom and Spotlight are strong for monthly reporting.
What do CAS clients pay more for?
Forward-looking answers: can we make payroll, can we afford this hire, what happens if we raise prices. A forecast and a cash plan turn a monthly close into an advisory relationship.
How is firm pricing structured?
Firm plans are priced on functionality and the complexity of the firm rather than client count. Start is $1,499 a month, Scale is $2,999, and Growth is $5,999, all billed annually, with Enterprise from $100,000 a year. Every plan includes unlimited users.
Do we need an implementation partner?
No. Connect a client's books and the forecast, model, and dashboard are built in about five minutes.
See the reports and the forecast side by side.
A 15-minute demo walks you through the report pack, the 52-week cash forecast, and the 5-year model, all built from the same numbers.
