Learn · For accountants, CPAs, tax & bookkeeping firms
Client intake software for accountants that no vendor can read.
Secure client intake for CPA firms starts with one promise: every SSN, tax detail, and bank number on your tax client intake form is encrypted in the client’s browser before it sends. Brun is left holding a sealed envelope with no key that can open it.
Keep the website and intake form you already have, no portal migration. This is accounting client onboarding software built security-first: a CRM for accountants where new-client inquiries become leads only your firm can open, not another database for someone else to breach.
What is a secure client intake form for a tax practice?
A secure tax client intake form encrypts everything typed into it while it is still in the browser. Social Security numbers, tax details, routing numbers — each becomes ciphertext on the client’s own machine, so nothing readable ever transits the network or rests in a vendor’s database. (Uploaded documents such as prior-year returns and W-2s aren’t covered by this yet — encrypted document upload is rolling out.)
For a tax practice, that matters most during filing season, when a spreadsheet of client SSNs is worth more to an attacker than anything else on your network. See the full mechanics of that guarantee, including how it supports your GLBA safeguarding duties, on the secure intake page.
Why does ordinary accounting-firm intake expose client data?
Accounting firms collect the most identity-theft-rich data of any small business, and most intake still happens over plain email or a form that drops readable data into a vendor’s database. Existing “secure” options like TaxDome and Canopy force the firm to abandon its own website and herd clients into a heavyweight portal — and the firm still has to trust the vendor not to read or leak what it stores.
The most sensitive data any small business holds
Your intake collects Social Security numbers and spouse/dependent SSNs, EINs and entity tax-ID details, prior-year returns and W-2/1099 documents, bank account and routing numbers for refunds and direct debit, income, K-1, and investment statements, and driver’s-license images used for identity verification. Anywhere that lands in plaintext is exactly what a credential thief is looking for.
The Safeguards Rule has no size exemption
Paid tax preparers are classified as “financial institutions” under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, so the FTC Safeguards Rule and IRS Publication 4557 require a Written Information Security Plan (WISP) covering all client NPI — with no size exemption, solo preparers included. An intake form that ships SSNs and tax docs in plaintext email is a direct Safeguards failure; browser-side encryption shrinks the breach surface that rule polices.
How does Brun keep a new-client file unreadable?
Trace one inquiry all the way from the prospect’s screen to your board.
Sealed in their browser.
Nothing changes for them: the same new-client form on your firm's own website — name, entity type, the SSN and tax-detail fields you already collect. No portal login, no app to install, no Brun branding. Before it leaves the device, a small script locks the submission with your firm's public key — the lock, not the key that opens it. The SSN, the bank and routing numbers, and every other field they type all leave the browser as ciphertext; plaintext NPI (nonpublic personal information, the GLBA term for a client's financial data) never touches the network.
Screened. Never opened.
The envelope's structure is checked and accepted, and what gets written to storage from that point on is ciphertext alone. We hold no key that could open it, so an SSN or routing number never exists anywhere in readable form except on the device of the preparer who decrypts it.
We store gibberish.
stored on our serversLocked away from us: every new-client submission, lead, and preparer note. Left readable so we can run your account: your firm’s login email, billing status, and support messages you send.
Unlocked on your board.
A preparer opens the inbox and the envelope comes apart locally, in the preparer's browser, under a key only your firm controls. The single readable copy lives with the person you trust to work the file. The decrypted inquiry — re-encrypted with your firm's key — lands on a small CRM board as a lead you note, assign to a preparer, and move from New to Won, on its way to an engaged client.
Your firm’s new-client form never exposes anything decryptable — the public intake handle embedded in the page can’t open a single envelope on its own. Full mechanics →
Ordinary accounting-firm intake vs. zero-knowledge intake.
For a tax practice, the FTC’s Safeguards Rule turns this into a concrete question: does a third party ever hold readable NPI it has to account for? An ordinary form or portal answers yes. Brun answers no, by never storing anything the vendor could read in the first place.
| Ordinary accounting-firm intake form | Brun zero-knowledge intake | |
|---|---|---|
| Where SSNs and tax details are encrypted | In transit only (TLS), then decrypted on arrival | In the client's browser, before it sends |
| Can the form/portal vendor read what a client types | Yes — SSNs, bank numbers, and other typed details land in their plaintext store | No — they store ciphertext only |
| What a vendor breach exposes | Readable SSNs and bank details from every typed field — identity-theft gold | Ciphertext only, for every field your client typed |
| What a subpoena to the vendor returns | Readable SSNs and contact details typed into the form | Ciphertext only, for every field your client typed |
| Under an FTC Safeguards / WISP review | A third party holds readable NPI you must account for | No readable NPI exists off your devices to account for |
| Setup | Migrate clients into a heavyweight portal | Two changes to the form you already have |
Will I need to rebuild my form or move to a portal?
No. You keep the tax client intake form you already have. Connecting it to secure intake is exactly two changes — no rebuild, no portal migration, no backend work, and nothing your clients have to learn.
- <form action="/your-old-endpoint">
+ <form action="…/public/intake/your-handle">
+ <script src="…/intake.js">Client intake software for accountants, answered.
What is the most secure client intake software for an accounting or CPA firm?
The most secure setup is one where the software vendor literally cannot read your clients' data. Brun encrypts every intake submission in the client's browser before it ever leaves their device, so Brun's servers store only ciphertext — SSNs, bank numbers, and the tax details you collect are never readable by us. Only your firm holds the keys to decrypt the inquiry, which then lands on a simple lead board. Unlike a typical portal, there's no plaintext copy sitting in a vendor database to be breached or subpoenaed.
Do I have to replace my existing website with a client portal?
No. That's the main difference between Brun and tools like TaxDome or Canopy. You keep your existing website and the contact or intake form you already have. Brun drops into that form and encrypts each submission in the visitor's browser before it sends. Clients fill out the page they already trust, you don't rebuild your site, and the sensitive data is protected end-to-end on the way to you.
Does Brun help with FTC Safeguards Rule and IRS WISP requirements?
It directly supports them. As a paid preparer you're a 'financial institution' under Gramm-Leach-Bliley, so the FTC Safeguards Rule and IRS Pub 4557 require you to protect client NPI in a documented WISP. Because Brun encrypts intake in the browser and stores only data it cannot read, the sensitive submission never exists in plaintext on a third-party server — collapsing one of the biggest breach surfaces a WISP has to account for. Brun isn't a WISP by itself, but it's a concrete safeguard you can cite for how new-client data is collected and transmitted.
How do clients send SSNs and tax details securely through the intake form?
They just fill out your normal form. Encryption happens automatically in their browser the instant they submit — the SSN, the bank details, and every other typed field are turned into ciphertext before the network request leaves their computer. There's no separate portal login for the prospect, and nobody between the client and your team (including Brun) can read the field contents in transit or at rest. Encrypted document upload for W-2s and other attachments is rolling out; until it lands, keep collecting those documents the way you do today.
How is Brun different from TaxDome, Canopy, or Liscio for client intake?
Those are full practice-management suites that replace your front door with their portal and store your client data in readable form on their infrastructure. Brun is deliberately narrower and security-first: keep your own website and form, encrypt every inquiry in the browser, and work the resulting leads on a lightweight CRM board. If you want an all-in-one billing/e-sign/document platform, those tools fit; if your priority is that no vendor can ever read your clients' SSNs and you don't want to migrate your site, Brun is the focused choice.
How much does secure client intake software for accountants cost?
Brun is priced to fit firms of any size — you'll see the options at signup when you pick a plan. What stays constant across every one of them is the browser-side encryption: you're paying for a vendor that can't read your data, not for another portal your clients have to learn, and that protection doesn't get thinner on a smaller plan.
Go deeper on secure intake.
- What zero-knowledge secure intake isIn plain words: submissions encrypted in the browser, stored as ciphertext, decrypted only by your team.
- Why your client intake must be encryptedWhat a readable SSN or return risks — breach, subpoena, AI training — and the encryption that closes each path.
- Secure intake and regulated dataHow sealed intake treats sensitive client data under rules like the FTC Safeguards Rule and HIPAA.
- Brun overviewThe whole product at a glance: encrypted intake in front, a simple board behind, for small firms.
- See your industryThe full list of fields Brun serves, law firms through financial advisors — find yours.
Not legal advice
This page describes Brun’s architecture and how it relates to client-data safeguarding; it is general information, not legal advice. Your obligations under the FTC Safeguards Rule and IRS rules depend on your specific practice — confirm your compliance posture with qualified counsel.
Client data only your firm can read
Start securing your client intake.
Brun is secure client intake and lead management for accounting firms: new-client inquiries encrypted before they leave the client’s browser, unreadable to us at rest, opened as leads only by your preparers. Two edits to your website and you can take sealed submissions today.