Tieout

For accounting & tax firms

Tieout finds where AI fits your firm — and you still sign every return.

You run a firm that's too small for a full-time AI hire and too buried in season to vet one. Tieout is the senior expert who maps how your firm actually works, finds the busywork AI can take off prep, close, and the client chase, and builds it with your team — scoped around §7216 and your WISP before anything touches client data. Done with you, from $499/mo.

7 min read

See pricing

The macro shift

The profession is short-staffed and the tools are everywhere. NASBA counted 653,408 licensed accountants in August 2025, down from a peak near 1.93M in 2019, and CPA-required roles now take 73 days to fill — 41% longer than non-CPA roles. Meanwhile 98% of US accountants used AI to support clients in the past year, and GenAI use at tax firms nearly tripled, from 8% to 21%. The question isn't whether to use AI — it's using it without breaking the rules you audit for everyone else.

Your firm's reality

You're a sole practitioner or a sub-10-person shop, often $300K–$500K in revenue, and labor is the whole game. Busy season is brutal — 60%+ of accountants work 50-hour weeks and 22% top 70 — so you staff toward the peak and carry that cost when the work thins. The client chase eats the rest: collecting documents from late, unprepared clients ranks as the profession's #1 challenge, running 9.3 hours a week year-round and 15–20 in season. And 98% of you already touch AI, but 72% of tax firms train no one on it. That gap is the opening.

73 days

to fill a CPA-required role

98%

of US accountants already used AI this past year

72%

of tax firms train no one on it

15–20 hrs/wk

lost to the document chase in season

Built around the systems your firm already runs

UltraTax CSLacerteSurePrepQuickBooksKarbonTaxDome

Sound familiar?

"Did you get my documents?" — for the fourth time, across twelve threads, and none of it bills.
My best preparer turns into a data-entry clerk from January to April.
The review queue is the one bottleneck I can't parallelize.
I staffed for the peak, and I'm paying for the trough.
Everyone here already uses AI — nobody's governing it.
I'm too buried in season to vet, buy, and learn another tool.

Where AI fits

Stop keying W-2s. Start reviewing exceptions.

Preparers hand-type W-2s, 1099s, 1098s, and K-1s into the prep software — the canonical low-value, high-volume task where the season goes.

AI classifies and extracts each source document, maps figures to the right fields, and produces an organized, bookmarked workpaper set; the preparer reviews only what's flagged as low-confidence.

Less manual keying
Cleaner workpapers for review
Capacity back in the busiest weeks

Watch for: The preparer verifies every flagged figure · The licensed professional signs the 8879 · The firm signs the return, never the AI

Best for: Tax-prep and full-service firms with high 1040 volume in season.

Let the bookkeeper code the hard 5%, not the boring 95%.

Month-end means pulling bank and card feeds and hand-coding transactions by account, payee, and project — one firm logged 412 reconciliation hours a month, roughly 2.5 people doing nothing but matching.

AI auto-codes high-confidence transactions against the chart of accounts and surfaces only the ambiguous ones for a human to code.

Faster close
Fewer uncategorized items at cutoff
Bookkeepers freed for advisory

Watch for: A human reviews every low-confidence transaction · The chart-of-accounts mapping is approved before close · Nothing posts without sign-off

Best for: Bookkeeping, write-up, and CAAS practices on monthly engagements.

The polite, persistent follow-up you never have time to send.

Collecting documents from late, unprepared clients is the profession's #1 challenge, and in season the follow-ups run 15–20 hours a week — chase-work that generates zero revenue and never ends.

An AI assistant tracks exactly which items are outstanding per client and drafts personalized, escalating reminders in your firm's voice — naming the specific missing form, not a generic nag.

Documents arrive sooner
Fewer late-client extensions
The backlog stops compounding

Watch for: You set the cadence and tone · A human approves any message that conveys tax advice · Nothing commits to a deadline without review

Best for: Every firm — the bullseye for the season crunch.

Answer "where's my refund?" without it landing on your desk.

During season you personally field "where's my refund / what do I owe / can you extend me" while trying to protect review quality. Most of it is routine; some of it isn't.

AI drafts policy-grounded replies from your own FAQ and engagement letters, and escalates anything substantive with full context attached for a preparer.

Routine questions handled fast
Context preserved on escalation
Your attention back on returns

Watch for: Anything touching a client's tax position routes to a preparer first · Substantive questions escalate with full context · A human reviews before anything sends

Best for: Owner-operators drowning in inbound during the April crunch.

Trusted answers with the citation attached — not a confident guess.

A senior burns an hour digging through code sections, regs, and prior-year memos to answer one client's question about how a §1031 exchange applies to their situation.

AI answers from your firm's vetted research library and prior-year memos with citations, so the practitioner sees the authority, not just the conclusion.

Faster research
Answers tied to real authority
Less reliance on one senior's memory

Watch for: The practitioner verifies the cited authority before relying on it · Every answer links back to the source · Nothing is relied on unchecked

Best for: Firms doing complex planning, entity, or advisory work.

One workflow from inbox to the reviewer's queue.

Today a return is a manual relay — admin collects, preparer keys, reviewer hunts — and each handoff is a place for it to stall.

A multi-step workflow ingests documents, organizes the workpapers, drafts the return, and routes it to the reviewer queue with exceptions surfaced up top.

Fewer dropped handoffs
Returns reach review organized
Exceptions visible, not buried

Watch for: Reviewer sign-off is mandatory · The licensed preparer signs · The AI never files

Best for: Firms ready to connect prep, practice management, and review.

Safe to start vs. proceed with guardrails

Safe to start now

Drafting document-chase reminders, with a human approving anything that commits to a deadline.
Auto-coding high-confidence bookkeeping transactions and sending ambiguous ones to a human.
Organizing and bookmarking workpapers from source documents.
Grounded search across your own returns, memos, and emails — with links back to the source.
Triaging routine client questions from your published FAQ.

Proceed with guardrails

Putting taxpayer return information into a third-party tool can be a regulated use or disclosure under IRC §7216/§6713 — get written, informed client consent first.
Vet any vendor for SOC 2 and fit it to your WISP before it touches client data, the way you'd audit a client's controls.
Route any reply that conveys a client's specific tax position to a preparer first (Circular 230 confidentiality applies).
Verify every AI-extracted figure on a return — the practitioner signs, not the model.
Never replace the reviewer or the signature; liability and the PTIN stay human.

Why do it with us

Hire a consultant	High hourly and a long discovery	A deck you still implement and govern yourself
Hire an AI engineer	A fixed salary into a 73-day-to-fill market	They still need firm context and your §7216/WISP posture
DIY on nights and weekends	Ungoverned tools and shadow-AI exposure	A missed quarter you can't get back
systemlevel.ai	One senior maps and ranks AI for your firm	Done with you from $499/mo — you approve everything

Vendor-reported: a CPA firm using automated source-document entry completed returns in nearly half the time — an average return that might take 90 minutes now takes about 35–40 (single-firm case study; treat as direction, not a promise).
Vendor-reported 1040 intake: moderate returns drop from 60–90 minutes to 15–25, with 30–50% less data-entry time.
In an Intuit survey, 81% of accountants say AI improves productivity and 86% say it reduces mental load.
Practitioners themselves predict AI will save about 4 hours a week next year, rising toward 12 within five (Thomson Reuters).

Questions you’re probably asking

Client data is sacred — couldn't putting return info in an AI tool be a §7216 disclosure?: It can, which is why Tieout scopes security and compliance before go-live, not bolted on after. We help document the §7216 consent and your WISP posture and demand SOC 2 from any vendor — the same controls you already audit for your own clients. Nothing touches client data without your approval.
AI hallucinates, and I'm the one who signs the return.: Then the model never gets the last word. Every workflow keeps a human checkpoint above anything that reaches a client or the IRS — AI organizes and drafts, the licensed professional reviews and signs. A wrong number lands on your PTIN, not ours, so we never overpromise autonomy.
I'm too buried in season to learn another tool.: That's the point of done-with-you. We map your workflow and build with your team instead of handing you software to figure out. Training, prompt libraries, and a direct line to unblock fill exactly the gap the profession admits to — 72% of tax firms train no one.
Will this replace my staff or my judgment?: No. Liability, the signature, IRS representation, and the trusted-advisor relationship don't transfer to an algorithm. AI reclaims the hours lost to chase-work and data entry so your people move into the advisory work clients pay premium fees for — the shift 79% of firms already expect.
Where do I even start? There are too many tools.: Tieout ranks candidates by value and risk for your firm, then starts with one — usually the document chase or 1040 intake. Read the options like a menu, not a sequence. You're not buying a platform; you're getting a senior who picks the right fit.
What does it cost, and am I locked in?: From $499/mo, with a 14-day trial and no long-term contract — pause or cancel anytime. Against a seat that's maxed out in April and idle by summer, reclaimed capacity tends to pay for itself.

Pricing

Operator — $499/mo

Monthly strategy, your first workflows mapped and scoped, vendor and model picks vetted for §7216 and SOC 2, an assessment of the stack you already run, and email support.

Best for: Firms that know AI belongs somewhere and want a safe place to start.

Flagship — $999/mo

Everything in Operator, plus bi-weekly working sessions, implementation guidance through deployment, architecture and integration review so prep, GL, and practice management stop re-keying to each other, team training and prompt libraries, and a direct line to unblock.

Best for: Firms ready to ship through a full season and close the training gap.