A tax season workflow your small CPA firm can actually run

For each return you should be able to answer four things without opening a folder:

• Which stage is it in?
• Who owns the next action?
• What has to be true before it moves?
• What is it waiting on, named as a document or a decision, not as "the client"?

If you cannot answer those, you do not have a workflow. You have a shared inbox. The collection habits behind stages 2 and 3 are in how to get clients to send tax documents on time. This page is who does what once that system is in place.

Use these names or your own. What matters is the owner and the exit rule. This map is for a 1040 heavy shop of about 5 to 12 people. Scale the same stages down to a solo with a seasonal helper by combining admin and preparer, not by skipping review.

Stage 2 is where most firms bleed time. Stage 6 is where they bleed quality if they skip it. Keep both.

Illustrative, not a client story. An eight person firm: owner CPA, second CPA, three preparers, two admin, one seasonal. About 600 individual returns. Monday morning they look at counts, not at feelings.

Two rules keep this week from tipping. First, a return does not enter preparation on a partial file unless a CPA has said the missing item cannot arrive in time and an extension is the plan. Second, review is a queue with a cap, not a courtesy look when someone has a minute.

For a season long view of whether the list fits the hours you actually have, use the tax season capacity calculator. It uses your counts and your hours, not a published average.

The pipeline above is independent of the vendor. The tools differ in how a job moves and who can change the plumbing.

TaxDome

A pipeline is a set of stages. When a job enters a stage, the automations on that stage run and each one creates an action item, such as an organizer waiting on the client. If automove is on, the job moves once those action items are done. If it is off, a person moves it. Clients cannot see stages or tell an automated send from a manual one. The firm owner and admins can manage automations by default. Other staff need the Manage pipelines right. (Automations explained) For a 1040 build that uses organizers, checklists and reminder stop rules, use the TaxDome document chasing workflow.

Karbon

Work templates standardise the steps. Client requests can be scheduled, and Karbon follows up on dates you set if the client has not responded. Attachments are stored against the matching job. Automators are rules that fire when a task is completed or a status changes, for example to start the next step or send a request. Conditional sections can switch on extra steps, such as an extension path. Recurring work can be generated each period with its steps already in place. (Workflow automation) For reminder setup and where a person takes over, use Karbon client request reminders.

Canopy

Client requests collect information and documents, track progress and can schedule reminder emails. Canopy's example is a reminder every Monday for 15 days, or until the client completes the request, whichever comes first. Reminders do not send while the request is still a draft. Clients can snooze reminders from a link in the email. If a client replies to the notification email instead of to the request, that reply goes to the person who sent it, not necessarily the assigned staff member. You can edit an in progress request so the name and description match what is still outstanding. (Send a Client Request) For reminder setup, templates, bulk send, status automations and where a person takes over, use Canopy client request reminders.

None of those products files the return for you. Map your stages first, then hang the vendor automations on stages 1, 2, 3 and 7.

Fifteen minutes. Same questions every week from January through April. One screen, not a tour of every job.

• How many returns are stuck in documents requested with no upload in 14 days?
• How many are in review, and is that more than the CPAs can clear this week?
• Which five high value or complex returns are still incomplete, named?
• Who is over the preparer cap, and what moves off their desk today?
• Which extension conversations are overdue because the document date has passed?

Write the answers in the same note every Monday. If documents requested grows for three weeks, you do not have a prep problem. You have a chasing problem. That is the layer a tax season operator can take, with your staff approving what goes to clients.

Build two exits into the map so they are not invented in April.

Extension

Trigger it on your document date, not on 14 April. Admin tells the client in writing. A preparer estimates what is owed from what you have. A CPA decides the filing position. An extension is more time to file, not more time to pay. Keep the extension work in a clearly marked path so it does not look like a finished return sitting in review. The emails, Form 4868, Form 7004 and Form 8878 steps are on the extension season communication page.

Missing information after prep has started

Park the return. Send one list of what is still needed. Do not let the preparer keep a private side thread. In TaxDome, a custom job status such as Missing information is the documented pattern for this kind of detour. (Automations explained)

• Building each client's first request from last year's return
• Reading "that does not apply" and "I already sent it"
• Phone calls after email stops working
• Assigning complex returns to a named preparer
• Review notes, tax positions, extensions as a tax decision
• Signing and filing

Software can send, remind and move the card. It cannot own the licence. The reviewer pass is the tax return review checklist. If you want copy for the chasing itself, the missing tax documents email templates are written to name only what is still outstanding.