Cradle SMS
The client who never picks up the phone, and never replies to email, will read a text. Cradle SMS gives your firm a shared business inbox, sent from a Cradle-provisioned mobile number, with every message logged against the matching record in FYI and HubSpot. Drop a line, get the bit of information you need, and unblock the job the same day instead of next week.
Try Cradle in your browser
Click through the call log, messages and settings. Every contact-bearing row shows the FYI badge so you can see how messages reflect into a client record.
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+64 9 555 0101+64 4 555 0202+64 3 555 0303+61 2 5550 0404+64 7 555 0505+64 9 555 0606+61 3 5550 0707+64 6 555 0808+64 9 555 0909+61 7 5550 1010Trusted by firms across New Zealand
“The biggest game changer for us is that every call is automatically saved into FYI. That means no more missed notes or chasing people for messages. The accountants can just go back and see the conversation for themselves”
How SMS helps your firm
Three things change when your firm picks up SMS as a channel: jobs move faster, lockup comes down, and every client conversation stays inside the tools the firm already runs on.
Keep jobs moving
Text the busy client who never picks up. A two-line text gets a same-day reply when a phone call and an email haven't. Get the missing receipt, the signed engagement, the answer to the one question blocking the file, and close the loop today rather than next Tuesday.
Reduce lockup and WIP days
For accounting firms, jobs sit in WIP waiting on the client. A signature, a receipt, an answer to a one-line question. Each day of waiting is a day of WIP. SMS closes the loop faster than email and is less intrusive than another phone call, so the file finishes and bills sooner.
Comms stay inside your firm's tools
Every message lands against the matching client record. No personal mobiles, no client texting a senior's phone the firm can't see, no institutional knowledge walking out the door when someone leaves. SMS threads write into FYI and HubSpot automatically, so the conversation history is part of the client engagement record.
How Cradle SMS works
Six views: what the feature does, how the shared inbox hands threads between teammates, where messages land inside your CRM, how it compares to texting from a personal phone, how to switch it on, and the questions firms ask in demos.
What Cradle SMS does
Send and receive business texts from a Cradle mobile number, with the whole team in the loop and every message logged against the matching client record.
SMS today runs on the Cradle desktop app for macOS and Windows. SMS on the iOS and Android apps is on the roadmap for mid-2026. See all Cradle features, or browse the full list of practice management integrations.
Shared inbox, claim on reply
The exact sequence — how a client's text lands, who sees it, and how teammates hand the thread between each other without stepping on each other's replies.
Client texts the firm
The SMS lands in Cradle Desktop. The whole organisation can see it in the Messaging tab.
First reply claims the thread
Whoever types the first response owns the thread. It immediately leaves everyone else's Messaging tab.
Logged to the matching client
The message reflects into FYI or HubSpot by phone number, so the conversation is part of the client engagement record.
Shared at first. Inbound SMS is visible to every user in the organisation until someone picks it up. Nobody has to guess whose job it is to reply, and a client message never sits unanswered because the person it was sent to is on annual leave.
Claimed by replying.The moment a teammate sends a reply, the thread moves into that teammate's Messaging tab and out of everyone else's. Two people won't simultaneously respond to the same client.
Joinable later. A second teammate can join the thread by sending their own outbound message to the same contact — from the compose box, the contact search, or a call record. Each outbound bubble is attributed by sender name so the team can see who said what.
Attributed inside the firm's tools.The reflected CRM activity carries the same attribution: each message logs against the matching client, with the sender's name on outbound entries. The institutional knowledge stays inside the firm.
Where SMS lands in your CRM
Cradle matches every inbound and outbound message to the contact by phone number. The result depends on which CRM you've connected.
FYI
Cradle creates a single thread document on the matching FYI client, then appends each new message to that document as the conversation continues. The whole exchange reads as one running transcript in the client's engagement history — practitioners see the message body, the timestamp, and which teammate sent each outbound reply, all in one place.
HubSpot
Every message — inbound and outbound — logs as its own activity entry on the matching HubSpot contact. A 30-message thread is 30 activity entries on the contact timeline, threaded with calls and other touchpoints. Sales and account-management teams can read the conversation alongside the rest of the contact's history.
XPM and Vanguard
Contact matching works the same way for Xero Practice Manager and Vanguard. Cradle's thread view shows a CRM badge against the contact in each connected system, with a click-through to the matching record.
Messages sent to a number that doesn't match any contact in your connected systems stay inside the Cradle thread without a CRM attachment. When the contact is added later, future messages will match.
Cradle SMS vs personal mobiles, generic SMS tools, and email
Most firms are texting clients already — from a senior's personal mobile, or from a generic messaging tool the firm bought to plug the gap. Both work, neither stays inside the firm's tools.
| Capability | Cradle SMS | Personal mobile | Standalone SMS tool | Email only |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visible to the team | Varies | |||
| Logs into your CRM / PM tool | Varies | |||
| Business sender number, not a personal one | n/a | |||
| Shared inbox with claim-on-reply | Varies | Varies | ||
| Comms stay inside the firm's tools | Varies | |||
| Same app the team already uses for calls | ||||
| Client answers faster than email |
The hidden cost of personal-mobile texting is the day a senior leaves and takes a year of client conversations with them. The cost of a generic SMS tool is another login, another bill, and another silo that's only loosely tied to the client record. Cradle SMS sits inside the desktop app the team already uses for calls, on a number the firm owns, and writes into the systems the firm already runs the engagement from.
See also: the phone system for accountants page for the broader workflow story, and the FYI integration page for how Cradle activity (calls and messages) lands inside FYI.
How to switch on Cradle SMS
SMS isn't a self-serve toggle in the admin portal today. An admin from the firm raises a ticket with Cradle support and we activate it on the chosen number. After that the rollout is org-wide and automatic.
- Set up your Cradle account. The fastest path is to book a 30-minute call so we can talk through user count, mobile number provisioning, and the SMS rollout in one conversation. Self-serve sign-up is at cradle.io/get-started.
- Confirm the sender market. Australia or the United Kingdom. AU numbers text AU recipients only; UK numbers text UK recipients only. A firm needing both markets gets a number in each.
- Cradle provisions the SMS mobile number.SMS goes out from a business mobile that Cradle provisions for the firm. Expect it to be a new number rather than your existing main line — landlines aren't SMS-capable. The same mobile is also calling-capable, so it doubles as a Cradle voice line.
- Admin raises the SMS activation ticket.An admin from the firm emails Cradle support to switch SMS on for the new mobile number. There's no admin- portal toggle for this in the current release.
- SMS appears in everyone's Messaging tab. Once activated, every user in the organisation sees the Messaging tab on the Cradle desktop app — no per-user configuration. Threads start landing as soon as the first client texts in.
SMS today is desktop-only. SMS on the iOS and Android apps is on the roadmap for mid-2026.
Frequently asked questions
Where do Cradle SMS messages come from?
Which countries can I text into?
Will SMS log against the right client in FYI or HubSpot?
Can I keep my landline and just add SMS?
Is SMS available on the Cradle mobile app?
How does the team avoid two people replying to the same message?
How do I switch SMS on for my organisation?
Can I send images, PDFs or other attachments?
Can I search the body of past messages?
Which Cradle plan includes SMS?
What happens to message history if I cancel?
Keep reading
More on how Cradle works for AU and UK firms.
Customer stories
Features that pair with SMS
Integrations that pair with SMS
What other firms say
“I can't stress how much this app changed our practice for the better. I wished we would have moved to Cradle earlier as it has not only improved clients phone experiences but also helped with compliance and saved a heap of admin time and $$$.”
Book a 30-minute demo of Cradle SMS
Bring your team size, the CRM you run on, and the kinds of clients who never reply to email, and we'll walk through the rollout for your firm.