An example engagement for accounting firms in Houston.
Example engagement01
This is an example engagement, not a client story. It shows how we would run an audit and build for a typical firm of this kind. The research figures come from the public sources cited, and nothing here reports a specific client's results.
A Houston CPA and bookkeeping firm with a handful of preparers, several hundred individual and small business returns, and a front desk that also answers client questions.
From January to April, preparers wait on W-2s, 1099s, and receipts. Reminders are sent by hand, when someone remembers, from whoever's inbox the client wrote to last. Returns stall, and work piles into the last weeks before the deadline.
The same questions about deadlines and what to send arrive every day. Client files are spread across a portal, email attachments, and shared folders, so finding last year's return or a prior answer takes a search through several places.
What the research says01
In a 2024 survey of 367 accounting and bookkeeping firms, 65.2% named getting information and documents from clients as their biggest workflow challenge, and 52.4% said documents arrived only after several days.
Trace last season's returns from engagement to filing and measure how long each one waited on client documents.
Count how reminders were sent, by whom, and how many each client needed.
Sort a sample of inbound emails and calls by topic to find the questions asked most often.
List every place client files live and how staff search them today.
Rank each fix by hours saved per season against the cost to build it.
What we build
A checklist for each client that sends automatic reminders by email and text until every document arrives, then stops on its own.AI Intake and Lead Follow-Up
New client intake and scheduling that sorts clients by service before the first meeting.AI Intake and Lead Follow-Up
Search across firm files so staff can find a prior return or answer in seconds.Internal AI Tooling
A weekly status report showing which returns are waiting on clients and for how long.Internal AI Tooling
What we measure
Days from engagement to complete documents, compared with last season
Reminders sent by hand per client
Returns still waiting on documents in the final two weeks before the deadline
Front desk time spent on routine questions
Every measure starts from the firm's own baseline, taken during the audit, so results are compared with how the firm ran before anything changed.