Meet Parkes: The AI coworker that helps accounting firms run the firm

Built by the makers of Ignition, Parkes is made for accounting firms, works across the tools they already use and focuses on the business side of the practice.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, UNITED STATES, October 26, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Parkes, a new AI coworker for accounting and bookkeeping firms, launched today.

Built to help firms run the firm, not the returns, it takes on the business and operations work 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 and more 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. “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.

What Parkes does

Parkes is built for growing firms, from owner-led practices where partners handle the business side after hours to teams scaling without adding headcount. It:

– Finds underpriced work. Parkes reviews proposals, service items, and active agreements to surface scoping issues, upsell opportunities, and underpriced clients.
– Drafts renewals and proposals. It prepares renewals, repricing, and new service proposals from the firm’s existing terms, ready for 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. It does the drafting and asks before it acts, so owners get time back for their clients.”

Michael Ly, founder of Reconciled, 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.”

Context

Parkes is AI built for accounting, not adapted to it, so owners don’t have to explain their practice each time or copy answers back into their systems. Firms don’t need Ignition to use Parkes, though 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. Firms can set guardrails at the firm level to decide which actions run automatically, which need approval, and which are turned off entirely. Parkes is built with the same SOC 2 security as Ignition, and everything it does is logged: what it read, what it changed, and who approved it. The accountant makes the call.

Community

Parkes users will be able to chat with the Parkes team and each other, directly in the app. Parkes also includes ready-made playbooks for jobs like rolling out a price increase or onboarding a new client. They’re built with accountants, tested in real firms, and adapted to how each firm works.

Firm owners on Parkes

Elizabeth Bystrom, one of the first firm owners to use Parkes, was about to quote a client $5,000 when Parkes valued the engagement at $6,500 to $8,500. She sent the proposal at $8,500, 70% more than planned, 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 proposals, agreements and accounting data to find where revenue was being left on the table.

“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

Availability

A founding cohort of firms is using Parkes now, with wider access to follow later this year. Firms can request early access at parkes.ai.

About Parkes

Parkes is an AI coworker for accounting and bookkeeping firms, built by the makers of Ignition and led by Tom Maxwell. Nothing goes out until the firm approves it.

About Ignition

Founded in 2013, Ignition is the leading AI revenue and billing automation platform for firms and agencies. It automates proposals, engagement letters, invoicing, payments, and workflows for 8,500+ businesses. Ignition customers have managed relationships with over 2.4 million clients and earned more than $15.5 billion in revenue via the platform. Ignition’s global workforce spans Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, US and the UK.

Contact
Email: pr@parkes.ai

Janelle Poisel
Ignition
+1 647-622-4810
email us here

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