Handle 2× the returns without hiring into a talent shortage.
69% of firms are delayed getting client documents — the bottleneck that caps your season. Meanwhile 83% of leaders report a talent shortage, so you can't just hire your way out. Echelon builds the AI layer that chases the docs, extracts the data, and clears the capacity — so your existing team handles more without burning out.
The season-capping bottleneck
69%
of firms are delayed getting client documents — the single biggest cause of tax-season capacity disruption. It's the first thing we fix.
The math, by the firm
Why capacity feels impossible right now.
Three numbers that explain the squeeze: late documents cap your throughput, the talent pool is shrinking, and most of the work that's eating your team is automatable.
69%
of firms are delayed getting client documents — the #1 tax-season bottleneck
2025 Accounting Industry Report (via myfirm360) ↗83%
of senior leaders report an accounting talent shortage — up from 70% in 2022
Wolters Kluwer: Accounting firm challenges, 2026 ↗80%
of data-entry time recoverable with document + extraction automation
Industry automation ROI benchmark, 2026 ↗What we'd build for your firm
Six systems we ship into accounting firms.
Every firm gets a custom build — a tax-only shop looks nothing like a full-service CAS practice. These are the common shapes that clear capacity. Yours includes as many as the work calls for.
Outcome
Closes the 35% capacity gap from late docs
Client document collection
The single biggest tax-season bottleneck. Your AI chases every client for their docs — personalized reminders, secure-portal links, a running checklist of what's still missing — until the file is complete. 70% of clients prefer the portal anyway.
Action chain
Outcome
Recovers ~80% of data-entry time
Data extraction + entry
W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, bank statements, brokerage PDFs — read, parsed, and posted into your tax software or GL without a preparer keying them by hand. Exceptions surface for human review; clean docs flow straight through.
Action chain
Outcome
Reclaims the 8–12% January capacity sink
1099 / K-1 processing
1099 season eats 8–12% of preparer capacity in the critical first weeks. Your AI handles vendor data collection, TIN matching, generation, and e-filing — turning a January scramble into a background process.
Action chain
Outcome
Cuts onboarding from days to hours
Client intake + engagement
New client says yes — engagement letter out, prior-year returns requested, organizer sent, portal provisioned, and the matter set up in your PM tool. A multi-step manual onboarding becomes one trigger.
Action chain
Outcome
~4 hrs/wk per preparer during season
Return status updates
Clients call to ask 'is my return done?' because nobody's updating them. Your AI sends proactive status — in prep, in review, awaiting signature, filed — pulled from your workflow tool, in your firm's voice. The phones go quiet.
Action chain
Outcome
Surfaces advisory revenue from compliance work
Advisory + reporting prep
Compliance automation frees you to sell advisory — 62% of firms add advisory services once the busywork is automated. Your AI assembles the data for quarterly reviews, cash-flow snapshots, and tax-planning conversations before the meeting.
Action chain
From kickoff to live
90 days, in five phases.
Start before October and the capacity work is live and tuned before January. Phase 1 (document collection) goes live by week 4.
Week 1
Discovery + workflow audit
We map your current document-collection, intake, prep, and review workflows. Identify where capacity leaks during season and which clients always run late. Confirm integrations (QuickBooks, Karbon, Canopy, TaxDome, etc.).
Week 2–4
Phase 1: document collection + intake
Live: automated document chase with secure-portal links + completeness tracking; client intake/engagement automation. The late-doc bottleneck starts clearing immediately.
Week 5–7
Phase 2: data extraction + status updates
Live: W-2/1099/K-1/bank-statement extraction posting into your tax software; proactive return-status updates to clients.
Week 8–11
Phase 3: 1099 processing + advisory prep
Live: 1099/K-1 generation + e-filing; advisory review-pack assembly that surfaces upsell conversations.
Week 12+
Operate + improve
Weekly metrics — doc-readiness rate, extraction accuracy, returns-per-preparer, advisory conversions. Monthly review with the partner team. New agents shipped as the firm grows.
Integrations
We work inside your tax + practice management stack.
No rip-and-replace. Karbon, Canopy, TaxDome, QuickBooks, Xero — all integrate. For tax software (UltraTax, Lacerte, ProConnect, Drake, CCH), we connect where APIs exist and use structured import/export where they don't.
Practice management
Tax software
Accounting / GL
Document + portal
Comms
Built for accounting compliance
Circular 230, WISP, taxpayer confidentiality — by design.
You hold taxpayer data under federal confidentiality rules. Here's how the system is built to honor them.
Compliance pillar
Client data confidentiality (Circular 230)
Taxpayer data is segregated per client with row-level access controls. Agents touch only the client and task they're scoped to. We build to the confidentiality standards of IRS Circular 230 and AICPA professional ethics.
Compliance pillar
IRS safeguards + WISP
We align to the IRS-required Written Information Security Plan (WISP) for firms handling taxpayer data — encryption at rest and in transit, access logging, and minimum-necessary data handling.
Compliance pillar
Encrypted, access-controlled infrastructure
Data lives on encrypted, access-controlled infrastructure. We don't train shared models on your clients' financial data. Full audit logs of every agent action, retained per your policy.
Compliance pillar
E-file + PTIN boundaries
The agents prepare and assemble — a credentialed preparer reviews and signs. We don't auto-file returns; we make sure the file is complete and accurate before it reaches the human who signs it.
The signing boundary: The agents prepare, collect, and assemble. A credentialed preparer reviews and a PTIN-holder signs. We automate the data movement, never the professional judgment.
FAQ
Questions firms actually ask.
Direct answers — not marketing.
Is client tax data safe with AI?+
Does it integrate with QuickBooks / Karbon / Canopy / TaxDome?+
Will the AI actually prepare returns?+
How does document collection actually reduce my bottleneck?+
Can this help us add advisory services?+
What about during the off-season?+
How long until it's live before tax season?+
Ready to clear capacity before next season?
Book a 30-minute strategy call. We'll walk through your document-collection bottleneck, your prep workflow, and your advisory opportunity — and show you exactly what would ship first.