Parkes, a new AI coworker for accounting and bookkeeping firms from the makers of Ignition, is now available. Built to help firms run the firm, not the returns, it takes on the business and operations side of the practice that owners and partners fully intend to get to, but that daily client work and deadlines keep crowding out: reviewing pricing, analyzing renewals, drafting proposals to expand services and following up on invoices for work already delivered.
Parkes is open to any firm and works across the tools firms already use, including Ignition, Slack, Microsoft Teams, QuickBooks, Xero and leading practice management solutions, with more than 30 integrations included today and more being added daily. Because it starts from the firm’s own clients, services, prices, invoices and ledger rather than a blank prompt, firms can see value from the first session without building their own AI setup.
Why the makers of Ignition built Parkes
Ignition has spent more than a decade helping firms sell, bill and get paid for the value they deliver. More than 8,500 businesses use Ignition, and customers have earned more than $15.5 billion in revenue through the platform.
“Most accounting firms aren’t short of work. They’re short of qualified people, and AI hasn’t helped them solve that yet,” said Greg Strickland, CEO of Ignition. “We hear it from firm owners every day. They know AI should be helping, but with client deadlines stacking up and a team already stretched thin, nobody has time to figure out where to start. We didn’t want the answer to be limited to our own customers. So we built Parkes as an AI coworker any firm can bring on, using the tools it already has, to take on the work that actually grows the firm. Parkes is for every accounting firm, and everyone inside it, whether they use Ignition or not.”
Parkes was developed by a small team within Ignition and now operates as its own brand, led by Tom Maxwell. Tom has worked alongside Ignition customers for more than 12 years, most recently as Vice President of Customer Experience. Before joining Ignition, he managed millions of dollars of delivery work for a professional services firm, so he knows firsthand what it takes to deliver client work and run it profitably.
“Tom has lived the pressure of client delivery himself, and he’s spent more than a decade working side by side with accounting firms, understanding what slows them down and helping them fix it,” said Strickland. “Few people know better what firm owners need from an AI coworker, or what it takes to earn their trust. That’s why he’s the right person to lead Parkes.”
What Parkes does
Parkes is built for firms that want to grow, from owner-led practices where partners carry the business side after hours to teams looking to scale without adding headcount. It analyzes and drafts the operating work that drives growth but rarely makes it to the top of the list:
- Finds underpriced work. Parkes reviews current proposals, service items, and active agreements to surface scoping issues, upsell opportunities, and clients who are underpriced.
- Drafts renewals and proposals. It prepares renewals, repricing, and new service proposals from the firm’s existing terms, ready for the owner or partner to review.
- Follows up on payment. It identifies invoices nobody has followed up on and drafts the outreach.
- Rebuilds the groundwork. Firms have used Parkes to rebuild service catalogs and clean up client lists they had put off for months.
“Parkes already knows how accounting firms run, so you don’t have to teach it the basics,” said Tom Maxwell, General Manager, Parkes. “As you connect your tools and hand it more work, it builds up the knowledge, context and rules for your firm. The more you put in, the more you get out. It does the drafting and asks before it acts, so owners get time back for their clients.”
That ready-made approach addresses a gap industry voices have been pointing to. Michael Ly, founder of Reconciled, who works with accounting firms across the profession, sees the setup burden as the main barrier to AI adoption for the average firm.
“Most firm owners and accountants aren’t going to go to Claude or ChatGPT and set up their own agent. This does the heavy lifting for them.”
— Michael Ly, Founder, Reconciled
Context
Parkes is AI built for accounting, not adapted to it. It works from the firm’s own clients, prices, invoices, and payments as soon as its tools are connected. Owners don’t have to explain their practice every time they ask for help, or copy the answer back into their systems afterwards.
Firms don’t need to use Ignition to use Parkes. It connects to the platforms firms already rely on, and Ignition customers get the deepest integration from day one.
Control
Firms always know what Parkes can see, and it never acts without checking with them first. Parkes comes with thoughtfully designed guardrails already in place, and firms can set them at the firm level to decide which actions Parkes can take automatically, which need approval, and which are turned off entirely. It’s built with the same SOC 2 security as Ignition.
Everything Parkes does is logged, so firms can look back at what it read, what it changed, and who approved it. It does the drafting and the legwork. The accountant makes the call.
Community
Accountants have always been collaborative and generous with what they’ve learned. Parkes gives that a home. Parkes users will be able to chat with the Parkes team, and each other, directly in the app. Parkes comes with ready-made playbooks for the jobs every firm runs, like rolling out a price increase or onboarding a new client. They’re built with accountants and tested in real firms, and Parkes adapts each one to how a firm works. Firms don’t have to work out where to start or what to ask.
Firm owners on Parkes
Firms using Parkes are already recovering revenue and reclaiming time. Elizabeth Bystrom, one of the first firm owners to put Parkes to work, was about to quote a client $5,000 when Parkes pushed back: based on the work involved, it valued the engagement at $6,500 to $8,500. She sent the proposal at $8,500, which was 70% more than she had planned to charge, and the client accepted. Parkes, she said, “paid for itself in one instance.”
“If I was moving to a new firm and could only take one staff member with me, I’d bring Parkes.”
— Elizabeth Bystrom, Principal Owner, Elizabeth Bystrom CPA, Ltd.
At The Numbers Agency, Parkes worked across the firm’s proposals, agreements, and accounting data to find where revenue was being left on the table.
“I had it run through all of our current proposals and all of our service items and said… show me some opportunities where we could upsell… where people are underpriced. And it pulled out tons of opportunities. I said, go look at QuickBooks, go look at my proposals, go look at my active agreements, and it figured all that out. Pretty brilliant.”
— Erica Edd, Founder & President, The Numbers Agency
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