Category: Operate A More Efficient Tax Firm

The First Three Things to Hand to AI This Week

You do not need a custom-built AI system, a subscription to six different tools, or a weekend course to get your first real hours back. You need three specific tasks off your desk by Friday, and every one of them is something AI already does well today, for free or close to it.

Most tax pros I talk to are stuck at the exact same starting point. They have opened a chat tool once or twice, asked it something vague, gotten a mediocre answer, and quietly decided AI is not for their kind of work. That verdict says more about asking it something vague than it does about AI itself. Give it a real, specific task and it earns its keep in a single afternoon.

Here are the three to start with this week, in order, plus the one hard rule that comes with all of it: what never goes anywhere near client data.

Start Here, Not With the Complicated Stuff

Ignore anything you have heard about building an AI agent, automating your intake, or running unattended workflows. That is real, and it is coming, but it is not week one. Week one is simply using AI on purpose, a few times a day, for real tasks, until reaching for it becomes as automatic as reaching for your tax software. Everything else builds on that habit.

The First Thing: Draft Client Emails in Plain Language

Every tax pro writes the same handful of explanations over and over: what a notice means, why a refund is delayed, what happens next in a case, why an extension does not extend the payment deadline. Instead of writing each one from scratch, describe the situation to AI in a sentence or two and ask it to draft the explanation in plain, calm, client-facing language. You edit the two or three sentences that carry your actual judgment, and you send it. What used to take fifteen minutes takes three.

The Second Thing: Summarize Guidance Before You Read It Cold

A new Revenue Procedure, a Notice, an update to the Internal Revenue Manual. You still have to read the source and confirm it yourself, no exceptions there. But asking AI to summarize what changed and why it might matter to your practice before you dive into the full document turns an hour of cold reading into fifteen minutes of focused reading. You are not outsourcing the judgment. You are outsourcing the … Continue reading

Unlocking Your Productivity Potential: A Tax Professional’s Guide to Time Mastery, Part Deux

As a licensed tax professional, obviously you’re no stranger to the pressures of deadlines and the constant juggling of client demands. But what if I told you that there are ways to not just survive but thrive in this high-stakes environment? Today, we’re diving into a treasure trove of (our second blog post) productivity boosters that will revolutionize the way you work and live. Let’s unlock your true potential and transform your practice!

Harness the Power of Time-Tracking

Imagine having a crystal ball that shows you exactly where your time goes. That’s what time-tracking software offers. By meticulously logging your activities, you gain invaluable insights into your work patterns. Are you spending too much time on low-value tasks? Is there a particular type of return that’s eating up more hours than it should? Are you doing tasks that you should simply not be doing at all? With this data at your fingertips, you can make informed decisions about how to allocate your time more effectively. It’s like having a personal productivity coach, guiding you towards peak performance.

Standardize Your Way to Success

In the world of tax preparation, consistency is king. By building standardized processes for repeating activities, you’re essentially creating a productivity superhighway. Think about it – how much mental energy do you expend each time you start a new tax return, trying to remember all the steps? Or using the copier to copy double sided and remove blank pages. By developing and documenting (on paper or video) standard procedures, you free up that mental bandwidth for more complex problem-solving. Plus, standardization makes it easier to train new team members and ensures quality across the board. It’s the secret sauce that allows you to scale your practice without sacrificing excellence. You cannot scale your practice effectively without this step

The Art of Saying No
In a service-oriented profession, it’s tempting to say yes to every request that comes your way. But here’s the truth bomb – every yes to a non-essential commitment is a no to something that truly matters. Learning to say no is not just about time management; it’s about energy management. By carefully curating your commitments, you ensure that your finite resources are directed towards high-impact activities. Remember, you’re not just saying no to a task; you’re saying yes to your priorities and your sanity. This could be saying NO to work you don’t want to do, say foreign income or … Continue reading

What is the singular focus of your tax firm?

Last year, we were one of the first companies to provide comprehensive CPE on the PPP and EIDL processes so that you could assist your clients with such matters.

Because of that, I’ve been getting a ton of emails from people over the last three weeks asking when we’re going to teach PPP/EIDL update classes.

Here’s your moment of disappointment: This year, we are choosing NOT to present such classes, despite recent legislation.

Why not? For a number of reasons:

1). The PPP program hasn’t changed that much from last year. You should be able to fill in the gaps easily from journal articles and official guidance from SBA and Treasury.
2). The EIDL program has changed even less, so ditto to above.
3). It’s not our core competency, doesn’t fall into our central mission, and is therefore something we shouldn’t even focus on.

It’s this last thing that I really want to address.

Our website is https://TaxResolutionAcademy.com.

Tax. Resolution.

Hmmm… If something needs “resolution”, that must mean there is some sort of issue. A problem. A dispute.

About taxes.

See, the name itself provides a clue about where our boundaries are.

In my normal email signature, I include a quote from author and entrepreneur Oliver Emberton: “Monomaniacal focus on a single goal is perhaps the ultimate success stratagem.”

What’s he talking about? Focus on what you do best.

If you’ve been reading my emails for a while, you may be thinking that I’m about to go off on a rant about niching your business. Focusing on specific services and serving specific industries or professions.

Yes, yes, I am. But not here. If you want to read my past rants, start here or here.

My monomaniacal focus right now is on finishing development of the CTR™ program. There are still about 20 classes, of two hours each, still to prepare. There’s a case study practicum to create. An exam to write. In terms of new content creation, this is my focus right now, as it should be — not PPP and EIDL matters that are not directly related to our core focus.

You should be applying a filter, also. If 100% of your client base consists of W-2 wage earners, it’s an absolute waste of your time, money, and brain cycles to learn about PPP and EIDL stuff. Absolute waste. Shouldn’t even be a consideration. On the other hand, if your … Continue reading