Looking for Thomson Reuters Client Bookkeeping Solution?
If you searched for client bookkeeping solutions and you meant Client Bookkeeping Solution, the desktop product published by Thomson Reuters, you are in the right place. This page sets out what Client Bookkeeping Solution did, where Client Bookkeeping Solution stands today, what Thomson Reuters offers in place of Client Bookkeeping Solution, and the two arrangements that remain open to an accounting firm or a small business that is still running Client Bookkeeping Solution. If you meant the phrase in a general sense rather than as a product name, the later part of this page covers what to look for in any system that is used to keep the books of a client.
What Client Bookkeeping Solution Was
Client Bookkeeping Solution, a product that accounting firms and their clients frequently shortened to CBS, was a desktop application that Thomson Reuters published as one component of the CS Professional Suite. Client Bookkeeping Solution was installed on a computer belonging to the client of the accounting firm, and Client Bookkeeping Solution was not installed on the systems that the accounting firm operated for the work of the accounting firm itself. The client of the accounting firm used Client Bookkeeping Solution to record the day to day transactions of the client business, and the data that the client produced inside Client Bookkeeping Solution was then exported out of Client Bookkeeping Solution and transferred back to the accounting firm so that the accounting firm was able to perform the write-up work on that data.
The arrangement that Client Bookkeeping Solution created allowed an accounting firm to collect bookkeeping data from a client of that accounting firm without granting the client any access to the accounting system that the accounting firm operated for its own purposes. The cost that the accounting firm and the client of the accounting firm both paid for that arrangement was the transfer step, because every exchange of data between the client and the accounting firm required a file to be produced on one computer and then loaded onto a different computer belonging to somebody else.
Where Client Bookkeeping Solution Stands Today
Thomson Reuters does not list Client Bookkeeping Solution among the products that Thomson Reuters shows on the current CS Professional Suite page. The products that Thomson Reuters names on the current CS Professional Suite page are Accounting CS, Onvio, ONESOURCE, Checkpoint, CoCounsel Tax, CoCounsel Audit and Accounting, Guided Assurance, Ready to Advise, Ready to Review, and SafeSend, and Client Bookkeeping Solution does not appear anywhere within that list of products.
The Thomson Reuters support page that previously carried the system requirements for Client Bookkeeping Solution now redirects a visitor to a general CS Professional Suite support page rather than to any information about Client Bookkeeping Solution itself. The Client Bookkeeping Solution user bulletins that remain publicly available document a version line for Client Bookkeeping Solution that ends in the 2007 releases of Client Bookkeeping Solution, and no later version of Client Bookkeeping Solution is documented in the material that remains publicly reachable.
No published end of support notice for Client Bookkeeping Solution was located during the review that produced this page, and this page therefore does not state that Client Bookkeeping Solution has been formally discontinued by Thomson Reuters, because no source confirming a formal discontinuation of Client Bookkeeping Solution was found during that review. An accounting firm that requires a definitive answer about the current support status of Client Bookkeeping Solution should put that question to Thomson Reuters CS support directly rather than rely on the account that is given by a third party such as this page.
What Thomson Reuters Offers In Its Place
The capability that Client Bookkeeping Solution provided to an accounting firm is covered in the current Thomson Reuters product lineup by Accounting CS Client Access. Accounting CS Client Access gives the client of an accounting firm a NetClient CS portal into the Accounting CS database that the accounting firm itself operates. Thomson Reuters documentation for Accounting CS Client Access states that authorized staff working in the office of the client record their day to day accounting transactions and their day to day payroll transactions directly inside that shared Accounting CS database, while the accounting firm retains control over the options and over the information that the client is not permitted to reach.
The difference between Accounting CS Client Access and Client Bookkeeping Solution is the location at which the accounting data is held. Client Bookkeeping Solution held the accounting data on the computer belonging to the client and required an export out of Client Bookkeeping Solution followed by an import at the accounting firm in order to move that accounting data from the client to the accounting firm. Accounting CS Client Access places the client and the accounting firm inside the same Accounting CS database, which removes the export step and which removes the import step from the process entirely.
The Thomson Reuters documentation for Accounting CS Client Access does not describe a conversion path that leads from Client Bookkeeping Solution into Accounting CS Client Access. An accounting firm that is planning a move from Client Bookkeeping Solution to Accounting CS Client Access should confirm what conversion assistance Thomson Reuters makes available for that move before the accounting firm commits itself to any timeline for completing the move.
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The guide below addresses the wider question that sits behind all of this, which is the question of how an accounting firm and the clients of that accounting firm divide the bookkeeping work between them, and which systems support each way of dividing that work. Enter your details below to download a free copy of the guide.
The Two Arrangements Available
Two arrangements remain available to an accounting firm or to a client of an accounting firm that is still operating a desktop write-up application, and the choice that is made between those two arrangements determines which party ends up holding the accounting file.
One arrangement keeps the bookkeeping work inside the Thomson Reuters suite. Under that arrangement the accounting firm operates Accounting CS and opens Accounting CS Client Access portals for the clients of the accounting firm who enter their own transactions. That arrangement preserves the existing relationship between the accounting firm and the client, in which the accounting firm owns the accounting file and the client of the accounting firm contributes data into the accounting file that the accounting firm owns. That arrangement requires the accounting firm to license Accounting CS and to operate Accounting CS on a continuing basis.
The other arrangement moves the client of the accounting firm onto a general purpose accounting system that the client owns outright, with access to that accounting system granted to the accountant. Under that arrangement the client of the accounting firm holds the books of the client business and the accountant is given a login to the books that the client holds. That arrangement suits a client who wants visibility into the numbers of the client business between engagements with the accounting firm, and that arrangement also suits an accounting firm that prefers not to administer software that has been installed on computers the accounting firm does not control.
What to Check Before Leaving a Desktop Write-Up System
Several practical matters should be settled between the accounting firm and the client before any accounting data is moved off a desktop write-up application such as Client Bookkeeping Solution.
The location of the existing accounting data should be established at the outset of the move, because a desktop application stores the files of that application on the computer where the application was installed, and those files are not always stored in the location where the client of the accounting firm assumes those files to be stored. The export formats that the desktop application supports should also be confirmed at the outset, since a desktop application of that generation may export the accounting data only to a delimited text file rather than to a format that a current accounting system is able to import directly.
The chart of accounts requires a mapping exercise before the accounting data is moved. An account structure that was built for one accounting system does not transfer into a different accounting system without decisions being made about which accounts are merged together, which accounts are retired, and which accounts are created for the first time in the new accounting system. The mapping exercise is considerably easier to perform before the accounting data has been transferred than the same mapping exercise is to perform after the accounting data has already been transferred.
Payroll history deserves separate attention during the move. Payroll records carry filing obligations that outlast the software holding those payroll records, and a transfer that captures the general ledger while losing the payroll detail creates a problem that surfaces at the next filing deadline rather than surfacing at the time the transfer is performed, which is the point at which the problem would still be inexpensive to correct.
Bank connections should be considered as part of the same planning. A desktop application of the generation that Client Bookkeeping Solution belonged to was built around manual entry and around periodic reconciliation against a paper statement, while a current accounting system connects directly to the bank and imports the transactions automatically. The reconciliation habits that suited the older desktop application do not carry across to the current accounting system unchanged, and the staff who perform the reconciliation work will need time to adjust to that difference.
The question of which party holds the accounting file should be answered explicitly between the accounting firm and the client rather than left to assumption on either side. The answer that is given to that question determines what the client of the accounting firm is able to see, what the client of the accounting firm is able to change, and what becomes of the accounting records in the event that the relationship between the client and the accounting firm comes to an end.
Where GlassJar Fits, and Where It Does Not
GlassJar is accounting software that was built for the small business itself rather than a practice suite that was built for an accounting firm. GlassJar suits the arrangement described above in which the small business owns the books of that business and the accountant working with that business is granted access to those books.
A business that has been entering transactions into a desktop application supplied to that business by its accounting firm is already performing the data entry work on the transactions of that business. Moving that data entry work into an accounting system the business owns changes which party is able to see the result of the work. The business gains a current view of the numbers belonging to that business, and the accountant working with the business continues to receive the same data without administering software that has been installed on a computer belonging to somebody else.
GlassJar does not replace Accounting CS and GlassJar is not intended to replace Accounting CS. An accounting firm that wants the accounting file to remain inside the practice suite that the accounting firm operates should evaluate Accounting CS Client Access rather than evaluate GlassJar.
What to Look For in Any Client Bookkeeping System
Automation and the Reduction of Manual Entry
Manual data entry is the largest single source of error in client bookkeeping work, and the reduction of manual data entry is the clearest improvement that becomes available at the point where an accounting firm changes the system it uses. An accounting system that supports automatic categorization, that supports rules based transaction filtering, and that supports direct bank feeds removes a substantial portion of the keystrokes that a desktop write-up application of the older generation required from the person performing the work.
The bookkeeping tasks that are most readily automated are the generation of recurring invoices, the scheduling of bill payments, the reconciliation of bank accounts, the matching of deposits against sales receipts, and the categorization of expenses. The time that is recovered from those bookkeeping tasks becomes available for advisory work, for financial analysis, and for tax planning that is performed in advance of the filing deadline rather than being performed at the filing deadline itself.
Communication Kept Alongside the Transaction
Clients explain unclear transactions to the accounting firm through email messages, through screenshots, and through spreadsheet attachments, and every one of those channels separates the explanation from the transaction that the explanation was written to explain. An accounting system that carries comment threads, that carries transaction tagging, and that carries messaging inside the accounting file itself keeps the explanation attached to the entry that the explanation describes, which shortens the time that is required to resolve a question about that entry.
Document collection benefits from the same principle that applies to explanations. Rather than pursuing a client of the accounting firm for a missing receipt or for a missing bank statement through a sequence of email messages, an accounting system that issues a document request allows the client to upload the document and then stores that document alongside the transaction the document supports. The result of that approach is an audit trail that has been assembled as a by-product of ordinary bookkeeping work rather than an audit trail reconstructed after the fact.
Approvals and Permissions
Client accounts frequently require an approval to be recorded before an invoice is sent to a customer, before a bill is paid to a vendor, or before a journal entry is posted to the ledger. An accounting system that supports approval rules, including thresholds that are set by amount and sign-off that is assigned by department, enforces those controls without requiring a person inside the accounting firm to police the controls manually.
Permission settings matter to the same degree that approval rules matter. A client of the accounting firm may need to see a dashboard without holding the ability to edit the transactions behind that dashboard, junior staff inside the accounting firm may need to perform data entry without holding the ability to reconcile accounts, and a partner in the accounting firm may need to review reports without reaching the billing settings of the accounting system. An accounting system that expresses those distinctions directly avoids the workarounds that arise in an accounting system that cannot express them.
Reporting Built Once and Delivered on a Schedule
A profit and loss statement and a balance sheet do not answer every question that a client of an accounting firm asks about the business of that client. Job costing, grant compliance reporting, and profitability measured by contract each require a report that has been built for that specific purpose, and an accounting system that allows a report to be built one time and then saved removes the monthly rebuilding of that same report.
The delivery of a report deserves the same treatment that the construction of a report deserves. An accounting system that generates reports and then sends those reports on a schedule produces a consistent rhythm of review between the accounting firm and the client, which positions the accountant as a continuing source of information about the business rather than as a presence that appears once at the end of the year.
If you are moving off a desktop write-up system and you want the books to live with the business rather than with the firm, GlassJar is worth a look. If the file needs to stay inside your practice suite, Accounting CS Client Access is the Thomson Reuters answer, and we would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
Sources for the Thomson Reuters statements on this page: the current CS Professional Suite product page and the Accounting CS Client Access features documentation, both published by Thomson Reuters, and the archived Client Bookkeeping Solution user bulletins. Reviewed September 2026. Product availability and support status change, so confirm anything decision-critical with Thomson Reuters directly.
