For 30-150 professional CPA firms

Where do your 7,000 chargeable season hours actually go?

An 8-minute teardown of a typical 30-partner firm's tax season, recorded by the principal, plus the self-audit template we run on every paid engagement. No generic whitepaper. No "leverage AI for your practice."

Two parts: watch the 8-min Loom (rendered full-screen, no lead forms interrupting), then download the PDF audit template to run on your own firm. Built for partners, not IT directors.

  • A redacted firm teardown, how 7,000 chargeable hours break down across intake, workpapers, review, PBC chasing
  • Three automation candidates, ranked by dollar-per-week impact at mid-market firm scale
  • Self-audit template, 2-page workbook you can fill in with your partner group in 45 minutes
  • The May, August window math, why timing your AI commission matters more than the tech
41%
Of firms now using AI · up from 9% in 2024
~30%
Of season hours typically automatable
May, Aug
The only real commission window
8 min
Teardown length · partner-to-partner
What the teardown covers

One firm. One full season. Every hour.

I.

Client intake / organizer chasing

The "organizer hell" window. What it costs and which three steps an AI pipeline handles in minutes, not weeks.

II.

Workpaper preparation

Bank recs, trial balance prep, preliminary adjustments. Senior accountants doing junior work because the junior staff is buried.

III.

1040 + review cycle

The ratio of prep hours to review hours. Where AI-drafted first passes shift partner time to signal-detection instead of data entry.

IV.

PBC (provided-by-client) document handling

Email trails, version chaos, redundant requests. Where a structured intake layer recovers two full weeks per season.

V.

Commission timing math

Why you should never start a CPA-firm AI commission between Feb 1 and April 20. When to start instead.

Output
Three candidates.
Ranked by $-impact.
Applied to your firm.
Who recorded this teardown

Brandon · Principal, ColabContent

Boston-based. 40+ commissions shipped. Three CPA firm builds in the past 18 months, all tax + advisory practices in the 40-120 professional range. Integrates with CCH Axcess and UltraTax natively.

This teardown is the walkthrough we use to open every partner-group conversation. Short, specific, partner-to-partner language, no slides, no sales pitch.

The house position
"If you start the conversation with your partner group in June, you can be live before the October extension crunch. If you wait until September, you miss the season and lose a year."

Watch the teardown.

8 minutes · Partner-to-partner · PDF audit template delivered.

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