Tax Genie vs Ignition for Client Onboarding 2026

Tax Genie vs Ignition comes down to what holds up your new clients. Choose Tax Genie for checked entity details and automatic chasing. Choose Ignition for priced proposals and payment collection. Both generate engagement letters and support online signing.

Ignition or Tax Genie: The Short Answer

Tax Genie fits practices waiting on missing answers, wrong entity details or documents before they can start a return. Guided questions collect the client’s details. Rules and AI review the answers, send corrections back to the client and save your staff time on chasing.

Choose Ignition when your practice sells fixed-fee packages or advisory services and wants clients to choose a priced option. Ignition connects acceptance to payment authority and supports upfront collection or recurring billing. Tax Genie handles the client information and signed engagement letter after you agree the work.

Many practices can use both for consecutive jobs, as the side-by-side sequence explains.

What Ignition is Today

Ignition is the proposal and payment software formerly called Practice Ignition. Its own brand announcement identifies the change in 2022. It combines proposals with engagement letters, electronic signatures, payment collection and billing automation.

Ignition’s published integrations include Xero and QuickBooks for invoicing and reconciliation, plus Karbon for practice tasks. Its help centre and Product Learning Center provide software training. Practices sign in through a browser, and clients open a proposal link to accept it. You can use Ignition’s web software without treating the word app as a separate phone download.

Ignition also publishes online forms and AML/KYC checks. Those include identity and business verification, sanctions screening and records of review decisions. A comparison that treats Ignition as only a proposal PDF misses these parts of its published product.

Where the Two Products Overlap and Where They Part

Both products produce a signed engagement letter, but the work surrounding that letter changes the choice. Ignition connects it to selling and collecting fees. Tax Genie connects it to checked client answers and the handover to your tax software.

Consider this fictional example: a new company client needs bookkeeping and an annual company return. In Ignition, you prepare the service proposal and its engagement letter. The client selects an option, signs and supplies a payment method. An upfront collection follows the billing arrangement you set. Accepting a proposal and settling its payment are separate events.

In Tax Genie, you send a request for the company and the people involved. The guided form collects entity details and checks ABN, ACN and TFN format. It also checks director IDs as the client types. The ABN is checked against the Australian Business Register.

Rules then check missing documents and consistency across answers. AI reviews common client mistakes after every TFN has been removed. Fixable issues return to the client as a plain list, with only the affected sections reopened. Tax Genie drafts the engagement letter from those answers, and the client signs online. Approved details go into your tax software.

Onboarding job	Tax Genie	Ignition
Proposals	Client requests after the work is agreed	Service proposals with billing arrangements
Priced options for the client	Work and fees agreed through your proposal method	Proposal options for client selection
Payments	Payment collection stays with your billing tool	Card and direct debit collection in Australia
Engagement letter	Generated from client answers and editable by staff	Included with the proposal’s services and terms
E-signature	Client signs the engagement letter online	Client signs the proposal online
Entity-aware questions	Guided questions for the people and entities in the request	Custom forms, business verification and client groups
Number checks	ABN, ACN, TFN and director-ID checks	Business verification within its compliance offering
Follow-up	Automatic email and SMS reminders for outstanding items and corrections	Verification tracking and automated billing
Tax software handover	Approved client details go into your tax software	Published connections for invoicing and practice work
Published price	Practice quote on request	Subscription and payment-processing charges

Ignition’s multi-entity proposals can cover a client group in one signing session, with separate invoices for each entity. Its Forms product collects custom answers. Fields can collect information your practice asks for, such as trustee details or a director ID. Collecting an answer does not itself establish that the number has passed an Australian format check.

Tax Genie supplies the guided collection, number checks and client correction steps described above. Its identity and anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) checks can sit in the same request. Staff record the identity and risk determinations. Proposals and payment collection stay with your chosen proposal and billing tools.

The Tax Genie comparisons cover other software choices for your practice. For letter-specific choices, read the engagement letter software comparison. The onboarding software shortlist compares the wider category.

Ignition Pricing Next to a Tax Genie Quote

Ignition has published subscriptions, while Tax Genie quotes your practice on request. Ignition’s terms specify subscriptions in dollars for Australian accounts. Its Forms product is an add-on unless included in your plan, and payment processing has separate charges.

Budget for the subscription and any required add-ons, then include processing costs for the payment methods your clients use. Keep GST treatment and billing period beside each part of a written quote. The cheapest subscription alone does not tell you the cost of collecting your practice’s fees.

Old Practice Ignition pricing lists predate the current brand and feature set. Use Ignition’s Australian offer for a new purchase decision, including its applicable plan inclusions and payment terms.

Tax Genie includes generous usage, including identity and AML/CTF checks, in its price. The checked answers, automatic reminders and handover to your tax software save time on onboarding administration. Talk to us for a quote for your practice.

Running Ignition and Tax Genie Side by Side

A practice can use Ignition to agree and collect the fee, then Tax Genie to collect and check the client’s details. The simplest sequence has a clear owner at each step.

1. Send the Ignition proposal with the agreed services and billing arrangements.
2. After acceptance, confirm the upfront payment has settled if your practice requires payment before onboarding.
3. Send the Tax Genie request for the relevant people and entities. A request link can be included in the proposal.
4. Let Tax Genie collect answers, return fixable issues and chase outstanding items. Send approved details to your tax software when the request is ready.

Decide which product issues the engagement letter before setting up this sequence. Two letters for the same work can leave clients signing different terms. If Ignition issues the letter with the proposal, use Tax Genie for the collection and checks. If Tax Genie issues it, make the proposal’s acceptance terms consistent with that arrangement.

A link from a proposal to a request sends the client to the next step. It does not describe an automatic transfer of every accepted-proposal field. Assign a staff member to carry the agreed service scope across and reconcile any changes before the letter goes out.

Questions to Settle Before You Switch

Choose the product for the step your practice needs to improve. A signed proposal with payment authority solves a different problem from a form that comes back incomplete.

• Decide whether clients need to choose between priced service packages. That gives Ignition’s proposal options a practical purpose.
• Record whether you require upfront payment or recurring collection. Keep Ignition or another billing tool responsible for those events.
• Count the people and entities in a typical client group. Match the collection request, letter recipients and billing entities to their actual roles.
• Identify where approved details must land before staff start the return. Give that handover an owner and keep it distinct from invoice reconciliation.

Read independent Ignition reviews from Australian practices with a similar service mix. Compare their descriptions of proposal acceptance and payment administration with Ignition’s published features. A review about collecting fees tells you little about checking company details unless it covers that job too.

If you want to replace the proposal or payment job, use the Ignition alternatives guide. For your service fees, the accounting firm pricing guide covers the separate decision of what the proposal carries. Keep Ignition when proposals and payments justify it. Choose Tax Genie when your next improvement is complete, checked client details ready for your tax software.