How A One Person Trust & Estate Practice Significantly Reduced Their Filing Risk Across All Complex Matters.

The Challenge

Trust and estate work is inherently complex, and deeply technical.

As a practice specialising in trust accounts, estate accounts, inheritance tax returns and tax reporting – every document, every figure, and every distinction between income and capital matters.

But their tools weren’t supporting that complexity.

They began their practice using a mix of email, paper files, and basic digital folders. It worked at first - until the workload expanded, solicitors began sending more estate and trust matters, and every job demanded perfect organisation.

“I just wanted something that’s like a paper file, but Windows folders weren’t sophisticated enough.”

Several structural problems emerged:

• 🔴 Folders couldn’t reflect the reality of trust and estate work:
  Tax years, trust periods, and filing categories overlapped in ways folder hierarchies couldn’t represent.

• 🔴 Documents arrived from too many places:
  Emails, post, attachments, and updates were scattered, with no single place to confirm completeness.

• 🔴 Retrieval depended on memory rather than systems:
  Finding the right document or version took longer as matters progressed.
• 🔴 The risk of missed updates increased with workload:
  As more matters were handled in parallel, confidence relied on vigilance rather than control.

What had once been a workable approach became increasingly fragile across complex matters.

The Solution

The practice implemented Workiro to replace paper files, inbox-based filing, and basic folders with a single, structured system designed for complex trust and estate work.

Rather than changing how the technical work was performed, Workiro brought structure to everything around it — creating a reliable, version-safe filing system that could handle overlapping tax years, multiple reporting obligations, and constant document updates.

Key features that made the difference:

• ⚡ Matter-based filing that mirrors a paper file — without its limitations
  Each trust or estate matter functions as a complete digital file, providing a clear structure without forcing documents into rigid folder hierarchies.

“Everything else can be chaos, but my files are always bang on.”

• ⚡ Multi-tag document structure for complex trust, estate, and tax workflows
  Documents can be tagged by tax year, tax type (IHT, CGT, IT, TRS), and future obligations, allowing the same document to sit in multiple logical contexts without duplication.

“It works really well for my daily workflows! I use it all the time.”

• ⚡ Version-safe updates across every tag and view
  When a document is amended, it updates everywhere it appears — removing the risk of conflicting versions across folders or matters.

“If you stored things in two places, updating one didn’t update the other. With Workiro, if I amend a document, it’s amended across the board.”

• ⚡ Automatic email capture for a complete audit trail
  Important emails and attachments are captured directly into the relevant matter, ensuring source documents and correspondence stay connected and traceable.
• ⚡ Built-in electronic signatures for engagement letters
  Engagement letters are sent, signed, and stored centrally — eliminating printing, scanning, and manual filing while ensuring documents are correctly linked to each matter.
• ⚡ Fast, precise search across years, matters, and tags
  Any document can be located in seconds, even across overlapping tax years or complex trust structures, reducing time spent searching and cognitive load.