How AI agents can chase client documents at tax time

What does a document-chasing agent actually do?

A document-chasing agent works through your list of outstanding jobs and asks each client for exactly what is missing, then keeps asking on a set schedule until the documents arrive or a person steps in. It replaces the spreadsheet of “still waiting on” clients and the hours staff spend writing the same email in slightly different words.

In practice it does four things. It builds a checklist for each client from last year’s return and the job in your practice-management system. It sends the request and the reminders. It checks each upload against the checklist and ticks off what has arrived. And it escalates clients who have gone quiet to the right person. The Document Chaser, by Pylon Digital works this way, and it sits within our wider set of AI agents for professional firms, all built on the same guardrails.

Which dates should the chase be built around in 2026–27?

Build the chase around the Australian Taxation Office’s registered agent lodgment program, not around a generic calendar. The program gives agents concessional due dates, but only for clients who are properly on the client list, so the first job of the chase is to get new clients and overdue prior-year returns sorted by 31 October.

Two practical consequences follow. First, requests to new clients need to go out early enough that you can add them to the list before 31 October. Second, because trust distribution figures arrive later, individual beneficiaries of family trusts need their own reminder track, timed after the trust’s distribution is known. Due dates can change with a client’s circumstances, so the ATO asks agents to check them in Online services for agents rather than rely on a fixed calendar.

How does the chase work, step by step?

The chase is a short, repeatable loop that the firm designs once and the agent runs for every client. Partners approve the templates and the schedule before anything is sent.

1. Build the checklist. For each job, the agent lists what is usually needed: for example rental property statements, a managed-fund tax statement or a trust distribution statement, based on last year’s return and the job notes.
2. Send the first request. One email with the personalised checklist and a secure upload link to your client portal. No attachments, no requests for tax file numbers or bank details.
3. Remind on schedule. Each reminder lists only what is still missing, so clients can see progress.
4. Check what arrives. The agent matches uploads to the checklist and flags anything unreadable or apparently wrong for a staff member to look at.
5. Escalate. Clients who have not responded after the last reminder become a task for their client manager, with a summary of every message sent.
6. Close the loop. When the checklist is complete, the agent marks the job ready for preparation and stops messaging that client.

A schedule a firm might approve looks like this:

The numbers are the firm’s choice. What matters is that the cadence is written down, approved and applied the same way to every client.

What stays with a person?

Anything that involves judgement, advice or a new kind of message stays with a person. The agent sends only approved templates. If a client replies with a question, a complaint or new information, the reply goes to a staff member rather than being answered on the fly. That is the human-in-the-loop principle behind every agent we build: human approval before anything non-standard leaves the firm.

The agent also keeps a full audit log: every message, every upload, every status change and who approved what. When a partner asks why a return is late, the answer is a timeline, not a guess. Messages, uploads and logs are stored in fully GDPR-compliant data centres.

What rules apply to automated reminders by email and SMS?

Three sets of rules matter most: the Spam Act, the Tax Practitioners Board’s Code of Professional Conduct, and the rules for tax file numbers.

The Spam Act 2003. The Spam Act regulates commercial electronic messages, meaning messages whose purpose, or one of whose purposes, is to offer, advertise or promote goods or services. For those, section 16 requires consent, section 17 requires the message to identify who sent it and how to contact them, and section 18 requires a working unsubscribe facility. A reminder that only lists the documents a client still owes is factual. Keep it that way: add a promotion for another service, such as a tax planning review, and the message can fall under the Act. Whatever the classification, identifying the firm clearly in every message is good practice.

The Code of Professional Conduct. Under the Tax Agent Services Act 2009, a registered agent must not disclose information about a client’s affairs to a third party without the client’s permission, unless there is a legal duty to. On 22 July 2026 the TPB issued TPB(GS) 55/2026, which explains how that and the other Code obligations, including competence, reasonable care and quality management, apply when AI tools are used. It notes that entering client information into an AI tool can be a disclosure to a third party, depending on how the tool is configured. Practitioners remain accountable for their work when they use AI, so check that your engagement letter covers the providers behind any agent.

Tax file numbers. The Privacy (Tax File Number) Rule 2015 adds further obligations wherever TFNs are collected, stored or passed on. A document chaser has no reason to ask for a TFN, so it should never request one by email or SMS.

Example: a 25-person firm in the October rush

Illustrative scenario: a 25-person suburban practice has 800 individual and trust returns on its books. By late September, 240 jobs are still waiting on documents, and three administrators spend part of every day chasing them from a shared spreadsheet.

With a document-chasing agent, those 240 clients each receive a checklist on the same day. Reminders go out on the approved schedule without anyone drafting them. The administrators work only the escalation list: clients who have not responded after the SMS, and uploads the agent flagged as unclear. Partners see one number each Monday: jobs still waiting, by client manager.

How do you get started before next tax time?

Start small and early. Pick one job type, usually individual returns, and one checklist. Clean up client email addresses and mobile numbers in your practice-management system, because the agent is only as good as the contact data. Write the templates with a partner, agree the schedule, and pilot with a few dozen clients before switching on the whole list.

Firms that get this working often apply the same pattern to new clients, where the chase is for identification, engagement letters and prior-year details. Our guide to automating client onboarding in an accounting firm covers that step, and an AI receptionist for accountants can handle the phone calls that reminders tend to prompt. For how this fits the rest of a practice, see our page for accounting firms.

This is general information, not tax or legal advice.