Below: a fictional Montreal plumbing company, the answers they gave the form, and the full report our team produced for them. Same process you'll go through. Same kind of report you'll get back.
Boutique CPA firm in Montréal. About 80 corporate accounts and 200 personal returns. 55% tax prep (T1/T2), 30% monthly bookkeeping, 15% advisory work. Founded by Marie Tremblay in 2015 after a decade at a Big Four firm.
2 CPA partners, 2 staff accountants, 1 bookkeeper, 1 admin. 6 total.
Mostly remote since 2020. Partners come in 2 days/week, admin is full-time at the office, accountants and bookkeeper are home-based.
New client signs engagement letter via DocuSign → we set them up in QBO if they need it → monthly bookkeeping for retainer clients → quarterly review with the partner → year-end: collect tax docs, build trial balance, prep T1/T2 in ProFile → partner review → e-file → bill in 3 installments. Tax season Feb-April is brutal — staff regularly work 25-30 OT hours/week.
QBO Accountant for client books, ProFile for T1/T2 tax prep, Karbon for workflow + client portal, Dext for receipt OCR (works great), DocuSign for engagement letters, Excel for advisory work, Microsoft 365 for everything else.
70% referrals — other professionals (lawyers, financial advisors) and existing clients. 20% Google search for 'comptable Montréal' and 'CPA Québec'. 10% other (LinkedIn, networking events).
Chasing tax documents from clients in March is a part-time job — admin spends 6h/day for 6 weeks on follow-ups. Bank reconciliation on messy QBO files for the 10 worst clients eats 4-6h each per month. Manual data entry for clients who still email PDF receipts. Year-end advisory letter prep eats ~3 days per advisory client.
Dext for OCR — works, we keep it. Tried ChatGPT for client emails, feels generic. Karbon has some AI features (template suggestions) but we haven't really turned them on. Worried about confidentiality on cloud AI for actual client financials.
Staff accountants: 7. Marie (partner): 7. Other partner: 5. Bookkeeper: 5. Admin: 7. Firm avg: about 6.
Grow advisory revenue from 15% to 30% of total. Cut tax-season overtime by half (currently 25-30 OT hours/staff in March/April). Hire 1 more staff accountant without crushing margins.
Tremblay CPA has solid tooling (QBO, ProFile, Karbon, Dext) but bleeds 6 hours/day every March–April on document chase — that's 240 hours per tax season recoverable with the right workflow tool.
Reconciliation is the second leak. AI-assisted reconciliation handles 70% of routine entries, freeing staff for the messy 30% that needs judgment.
Advisory note prep is the third — auto-drafting from QBO data + firm template cuts prep from 3 days to 4 hours per client. Unlocks the advisory growth target.
TaxDome handles the entire tax-season document workflow: automated request emails, reminders, client portal upload, status tracking. Replaces admin's manual follow-up calls and emails. Cuts the March doc-chase from 6h/day to 30min/day for the admin.
Plug AI-assisted reconciliation into your messiest 10 QBO files. AI matches transactions to invoices, flags unmatched entries, drafts journal entries for staff review. Cuts month-end close on those files from 4-6h to 1h each.
Pull QBO data via API, feed it to Claude with your firm template, get a draft advisory letter in 30 seconds. Partner adds the strategic insight on top. Cuts prep from 3 days to 4 hours per client — unlocks advisory growth.
AI builds preliminary T1/T2 drafts from client documents and prior-year returns. Staff review and refine. Doubles tax-season throughput without doubling staff. Highest-ROI play of the year if executed correctly.
Run analytics on client ledgers: variance vs prior year, ratio benchmarks vs industry, unusual entries. Highlights risk areas before fieldwork starts. Sharper, faster audit testing.
Agent writes 4 service-area pages/month: 'comptable Saint-Henri', 'TPS-TVQ Laval', 'fiscalité PME Plateau'. Long-tail organic growth to add ~20% to inbound leads over 6 months.
(Weekly hours × 4.33 × hourly rate) − monthly tool cost. We use a blended $100/hr unless you tell us otherwise.
Each day is one specific action — no more, no less. By Friday you've shipped your first quick win.
Sign up for TaxDome 14-day trial. Migrate 1 retainer client's workflow from Karbon to test the fit and feel.
Connect Botkeeper to your 2 messiest QBO files (the ones eating 4-6h/month each). Run a reconciliation pass and measure.
Pick your top advisory client. Pull their QBO data, feed to Claude with your firm template, generate a draft monthly letter. Marie reviews.
Set up the TaxDome doc-chase flow for 5 corporate clients. Send the welcome flow + first document request.
The stack above is what fits Acme today. As the AI landscape moves fast, here's where to keep an eye on what's launching: