Peak-Season Ready: Powering Scalable Tax Operations for a CPA Firm

Client’s Challenges

The firm faced extreme volume pressure during the 2025 tax season, with over 3,700 returns expected in just 11 weeks. Midway through the season, they experienced a critical disruption—three senior staff members exited, putting 800+ returns at risk.

Key challenges included:

• Short turnaround expectations for urgent returns
• Staffing gaps during peak workload weeks
• Need for real-time collaboration and secure data handling
• Maintaining accuracy across a mix of return types and client profiles

Although mature internal systems, the firm needed flexible, compliant, and surge-ready support that felt like an in-house extension.

Our Solution

We deployed a hybrid strategy combining rapid staff onboarding with a high-efficiency, SLA-driven return prep model:

1. Rapid Ramp-Up under Pressure

• Onboarded 4 experienced Senior Staff Accountants (Tax) within 72 hours
• Increased U.S. time-zone overlap to improve sync with preparers and reviewers
• Absorbed 60% of the disrupted workload, ensuring continuity and zero missed deadlines

2. Process-Led Execution

• Used SOP-driven tax prep protocols across 1040, 1120S, 1120, and 1065 returns
• Enabled real-time dashboards to track TAT, bottlenecks, and volumes
• Applied dual-layer review checkpoints for quality assurance and compliance

3. Process-Led Execution

• Used SOP-driven tax prep protocols across 1040, 1120S, 1120, and 1065 returns
• Enabled real-time dashboards to track TAT, bottlenecks, and volumes
• Applied dual-layer review checkpoints for quality assurance and compliance