Adding tax preparation capacity for a firm that could not hire

A Southeast-based CPA firm with a 10-member team relied on tax services as a core part of its practice. To support this workload, we provided one dedicated preparer who worked year-round rather than only during tax season. Over two tax seasons, the preparer supported 100 returns, including both individual and business filings. The firm signs and files every return. Section 7216 consent was obtained before any information was shared.

They had tried to hire twice and failed both times. January was approaching either way. With the average time to hire for a permanent accounting role in the US runs around 44 days, and a two-week notice period is a common practice, even a successful October hire would not guarantee a fully productive preparer by tax season.

So they were turning away tax work they were qualified to do. Not for lack of demand. For lack of hands.

And nobody had written down how the firm wanted returns prepared. The conventions existed, but they lived mostly in the reviewing partner's experience and in the review notes created afterward. Any new preparer, offshore or not, would have had to reverse-engineer them.

We assigned one dedicated preparer and kept them year-round. Not a seasonal contractor brought in for January. The value of maintaining that role for twelve months is that, by the following tax season, the preparer already understands the firm's processes, expectations, and workflow.

We turned their review notes into a written standard. We read back through what the reviewing partner had corrected in season one and wrote down what he actually wanted: how schedules should be laid out, how much supporting detail to attach, which positions the firm takes as a matter of policy.

We were honest that season one would cost them review time. It did. The reviewing partner spent more time on our returns in the first season than he wanted to. Any provider who tells you a first season runs clean is describing something that did not happen. Season two was different because the same person came back to a written standard rather than starting again.

The firm stopped turning work away. 100 returns were prepared under the reviewing partner across two seasons, by the same preparer both times, with fewer review notes in the second season once the conventions were written down.