Established practice management for larger firms, centred on inboxes, work and collaboration.
Before the feature detail, the choice is architectural: keep Karbon at the centre and add the missing pieces around it, or run the firm and its clients on one rebuilt record.
A cloud ledger at the centre, a separate practice manager, AI tools reading a copy of the data, and paid connectors holding the parts together. Every join is another sync to watch, another subscription, and another place the same number can disagree.
COUNT rebuilt the ledger and the practice engine together. Practice Manager and COUNT Workspace are two experiences on one system, with the intelligence reading live data — a single source of financial truth for the firm and its clients.
Karbon is the strongest option in this list for a mid-size or larger firm that wants collaboration, triage and work management done properly, and has the budget for per-user licensing across the whole team. COUNT competes on a different axis: the practice tier is free, and the work management sits on the same record as the client's accounting, so nothing has to be reconciled between two systems.
Firms that want the same workflow discipline on one modern platform: practice and client accounting share a single record, there is no per-user practice licence, and nothing is reconciled between two systems.
Mid-size and larger firms that need deep collaboration, triage and work management across many staff.
How the two products differ on the things firms and businesses tell us matter most.
| Capability | COUNT | Karbon |
|---|---|---|
| Practice licence cost | No per-user fees; clients on COUNT free | From about US$59 per user per month |
| Shared team inbox | Microsoft 365 firm inbox with AI triage | Core strength |
| Client Workspace ledger | Included | Not included |
| AI across the portfolio | COUNT Intelligence and scheduled agents over the ledger | Kai, scoped to email and work |
| One system for practice and client data | Yes | No |
Expand any area for a line-by-line view of how COUNT and Karbon differ.
| Capability | COUNT | Karbon |
|---|---|---|
| Shared team inbox and triage | Microsoft 365 firm inbox with AI triage | Best in class |
| Work items and assignments | Tasks, recurring tasks and projects | Included |
| Internal comments and handover | Included | Included |
| Client requests and chasing | Questionnaires and AI-drafted queries | Client portal and requests |
| Meetings | Google Meet and Zoom integration | Third-party |
| Capability | COUNT | Karbon |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring compliance work | Included | Included |
| Capacity and budget versus actual | Included | Included |
| Time and billing | Timers, timesheets and firm billing templates | Included |
| Period close and workpapers | Thirteen close modules with a review pipeline | Not a workpapers product |
| Practice-wide analytics | COUNT Intelligence with evidence-backed client health | Insights reporting |
| Capability | COUNT | Karbon |
|---|---|---|
| AI assistant | Client Workspace chat over the ledger, with approval on every write | Kai, focused on email, work and drafting |
| Agents across many clients | Run one skill across up to fifty workspaces on a schedule | Not offered |
| API | Partner API | Public REST API |
| MCP server | OAuth 2.1 MCP server for ledger and firm tools | Not published |
| Single sign-on | Google and Microsoft Entra ID, free | Entra ID supported |
| Capability | COUNT | Karbon |
|---|---|---|
| General ledger | Included via Client Workspace | External |
| Practice licence | No per-user fees; clients on COUNT free | About US$59 to US$79 per user per month |
| Cost for a ten-person firm | Free, or NZ$99/month on Pro | Roughly US$7,000 per year before the ledger |
| Subscriptions to run a practice | One | Two or more |
| Typical implementation | Days | Weeks with onboarding support |
Karbon details sourced from public information as at August 2026: Karbon pricing, Karbon AI, Karbon client portal. Pricing and features change; check the vendor for current details.
Import clients, contacts, work items and templates.
Map Karbon work statuses to COUNT job stages.
Migrate team by team rather than all at once.
We'll import a copy so you can compare like for like.
