Industries · CPA firms
The inquiry came in the week of the deadline. Nobody called back after the 15th.
An operations audit for a partner-led accounting firm finds where money leaves after first contact: busy-season inquiries that went quiet after the deadline, advisory and CAS proposals nobody chased, new clients stalled between a signed engagement letter and their first month of work — and the planning call the return was begging for. We put a monthly dollar figure on each one in two weeks.
Or call +1 (202) 600-6027 — a person answers.
The pattern
You have probably seen all three of these this quarter.
01
The caller who found another firm
A restaurant owner called on April 9 about monthly bookkeeping and a cleanup. Whoever picked up said the honest thing — “call us after the deadline” — and wrote it on a sticky note. It is July, the note is gone, and she is two months into a relationship with the firm across town.
02
The proposal parked in “Sent”
You scoped the CAS engagement yourself: books, payroll, a quarterly sit-down. The proposal went out through Ignition in May and the owner replied “reviewing with my partner.” Nobody has touched the thread since, and that five-figure engagement still sits in the pipeline column, looking like revenue.
03
The new client stuck in onboarding
The engagement letter came back signed the same day — a good sign. Then the records request went out through the portal, four of eleven documents came back, and the job has sat in “waiting on client” ever since. Nobody owns the nudge, so the start date and the first invoice keep sliding.
What we price
The leaks that get a monthly dollar figure.
- Busy-season inquiries that never got a callback once the deadline passed
- Advisory and CAS proposals sitting in “Sent” with no follow-up task behind them
- Signed engagements stalled at the records request, with no one owning the nudge
- Returns that flagged a planning conversation nobody ever scheduled
- Finished work aging in WIP until the write-down feels easier than the invoice
The records we read
We take read-only access to what the firm already runs: the practice-management platform (Karbon, Canopy, or TaxDome), the proposal tool (Ignition or the engagement-letter folder), the firm inbox and phone logs, and the firm’s own QuickBooks. If the client list lives in Lacerte, Drake, or UltraTax, we read that too — read-only, and never your clients’ returns.
Three questions
If any of these takes more than a minute, that is the finding.
01
How many people asked about becoming a client between February and April 15 — and how many heard from you again after the deadline?
02
How many advisory or CAS proposals are sitting in “Sent” right now with no follow-up date on anyone’s calendar?
03
How much WIP did the firm write down last year because the work aged past the point anyone wanted to bill it?
Not knowing them is not a failing — it is the exact gap The Revenue Review is built to close. More straight answers: fourteen of them, in writing.
If the numbers earn it
What gets built afterwards — in your terms.
- Revenue recovery →
- Every February-through-April inquiry, every proposal in “Sent,” and every return flagged for a planning conversation gets a named owner and a next date. The list of people who already raised their hand, worked until it is answered.
- New-client systems →
- One path from first call to signed letter to complete records, with the nudges scheduled the day the letter comes back. A client signed in June should not still be uploading documents at extension time.
- Client communication →
- What happens when the phone rings the week of the deadline and everyone is heads-down in returns: who answers, what gets captured, and when the caller hears back. Also the other nine months — clients who only hear from the firm when the organizer goes out.
Only what the arithmetic justifies — we do not prescribe what we have not diagnosed. The order comes from the Review, not from a brochure.
Who this is not for
We would rather say it here than on the call.
Solo preparers running a seasonal 1040 shop — if the firm is you, a laptop, and a February-to-April sprint, there is no handoff to leak from.
Firms mid-migration between practice-management platforms — we read Karbon, Canopy, or TaxDome as they sit; we do not sell, install, or configure software.
Partners looking for lead generation — we price the inquiries and engagements you already had and lost, not a marketing funnel.
Asked on almost every call
The two questions owners here ask first.
- We already run Karbon — it shows every job in the firm. What would you find?
- That is the usual setup, and the leak is rarely the software. Karbon, Canopy, and TaxDome are very good at tracking work someone entered; they say nothing about the inquiry that never became a contact, the proposal with no task behind it, or the planning note that stayed inside the return file. We read your practice-management data as it sits and price what fell between it and the phone. If everything is tight, the Review says that too — and that answer is worth having before you hire your next admin.
- Busy season is coming. Should we wait until after April?
- The Review takes two weeks and runs on read-only access, so we do the reading either way. The quiet months are the natural window: the season’s inquiries and unsigned proposals are still fresh enough to trace, and you walk into January with a sequenced fix list instead of a memory of last year. If you call us in March, we will say the same thing — book the 20-minute call now, run the Review when the extension rush clears. The leak list does not expire.
The next step
Tell us what isn’t getting followed up. We’ll tell you if we can help.
A 20-minute call about your numbers — no deck, and a straight answer either way, including “not yet” if that is the truth.
We call web forms back the same business day. Or skip the form — +1 (202) 600-6027.