How I work with clients, start to finish

It starts with a conversation

Everyone starts the same way. You fill out the short intake form on the get started page. It takes a few minutes and it tells me who you are, what you do for a living, which states are involved, whether there is a business or a rental in the picture, and what is actually worrying you. Sometimes the worry is a notice sitting in a drawer. Sometimes it is a first year of self-employment and a suspicion that something is going to hurt in April.

Once your form is in, I send you the link to book a discovery call, and we talk it through. The call comes after the form, not instead of it, because the form is what lets me show up to the call already knowing your situation instead of spending the first fifteen minutes collecting basics.

That conversation is not a formality. It is how I scope the work, and the scope is what sets the price. If we are a good fit, you get a proposal that spells out what I am doing, what it costs, and what I need from you. If we are not a fit, I will tell you that too and point you toward someone better suited.

The portal is where the work lives

My practice runs on TaxDome, and every client gets a secure portal account. Once you are in, the portal is where you:

• Fill out your organizer and answer the questions that build your file.
• Review and electronically sign your proposal and engagement letter.
• Make your payment and get your receipt.
• Upload documents securely, any time of day, from a phone or a computer.
• Read my questions and send me your answers.
• Review the draft return and sign the e-file authorization.
• Find copies of everything I filed for you, for as long as you are a client.

There are two reasons I hold the line on this. The first is security. Your W-2s, your K-1s, your Social Security number, and your bank details do not belong in an email inbox or a text thread, yours or mine. The portal upload is encrypted and the file lands directly in your account.

The second reason is that it keeps us honest with each other. Every answer you give me is attached to your return, in writing, with a date on it. Nothing gets lost in a thread, nobody has to remember what was said on a call in February, and when a question comes up two years later the record is sitting right there.

Paper is welcome, the process is digital

Plenty of my clients still work on paper, and that is genuinely fine. Bring me the envelope, the folder, or the shoebox. Come to the office, hand it over, and we can sit down and go through it together. I scan what you bring into your portal file and give you your originals back.

You pay before I start

I bill up front. You approve the proposal, you pay in the portal, and then your return goes into my schedule. Payment comes before the work, not after it.

Here is the thinking, since it is a fair thing to ask about:

• The price is set before the work, from the scope we agreed on. You know the number before I touch anything. No surprise invoice at the end, and no fee that floats depending on how your refund turns out. More on how tax prep fees are built in what tax preparation actually costs.
• A paid engagement is what reserves your slot. My tax season calendar is finite. Signing and paying is what moves you from interested to scheduled.
• It keeps my season pointed at returns. Every hour spent chasing an unpaid invoice in April is an hour not spent preparing somebody's return. Collecting up front removes that entirely.

Payment runs through the portal by card or bank transfer, your receipt posts to your account, and if the scope changes materially along the way, meaning we discover a rental, a second state, or a business that was not in the original conversation, I tell you what it changes before I do the extra work. You will never find out about additional fees at the finish line.

Returns are scheduled, not stacked

During tax season I schedule returns the way a surgeon schedules procedures. Your return gets a real block of time on my calendar, and I do not pile an unlimited number of returns into the last two weeks of the season and hope. That is how mistakes get made, and it is why so many people feel like they are shouting into a void every March.

Where your return lands in that calendar depends on two things.

Which package you purchased

Scheduling priority is tied to the package you purchase. Higher tiers get to choose their prep window. Instead of taking whatever opening is left, you pick the stretch of the season when your return gets worked, and I hold that time for you.

So if you have a hard deadline hanging on the return, whether it is a mortgage closing, a financial aid form, or a K-1 that another return is waiting on, tell me at the proposal stage. Being able to choose your window is how you protect that date. I will walk you through the packages when we talk, and the one you choose is spelled out in your proposal.

Whether your file is complete

Your slot assumes your file is ready when it comes up. Documents in, questions answered, nothing outstanding. If your file is complete, I work it and you get a draft. If it is not, I have to set it down and pick up the next one, and yours goes to the next opening.

I ask questions, and I need all of them answered

Once your documents are in, I go through your return and send you questions in the portal. Every one of them exists because a number, a decision, or a form depends on the answer.

The rule in my practice is simple: we cannot move forward until every question is answered. Not most of them. All of them. A return with an open question is a return with a hole in it, and I am not going to guess my way across that hole and put my signature and yours on the result. You sign your return under penalties of perjury, and I sign it as your preparer. Neither of us should be signing an assumption.

What answering in full looks like:

• Answer the question that was actually asked, not the one next to it.
• Give me the number or the document when I ask for one. "Yes, I have a home office" does not answer "what is the square footage of the office and of the whole home."
• Answer every item on the list, even the ones that seem obvious to you. The obvious ones are often the ones that change the outcome.
• If the answer is "I do not know" or "I cannot find it," tell me that. That is a real answer and I can work with it. Silence is not, and it is the one thing that stalls a return completely.

This is where almost every late return comes from. Not complicated tax positions, not the IRS, not software. Half-answered files. If your questions sit open past your scheduled slot, your return moves to the next available block, and if that pushes past the filing deadline we file an extension so you are not exposed to a late filing penalty. Worth knowing what an extension does and does not buy you: an extension gives you more time to file, not more time to pay.

Review, sign, file

When the return is done, the draft goes to your portal. You read it. I will walk you through the result, what drove it, and anything worth planning around for next year. Then you sign the e-file authorization electronically, I transmit the return, and the acceptance confirmation posts to your account along with copies of everything.

Read the return before you sign it. I mean that with every client. It is your return, your name, and your responsibility, and if something on it does not match your understanding of your year, I want to hear about it before it is filed rather than after.

After the return is filed

I am here in July. That matters more than it sounds like it does, because IRS correspondence tends to arrive in the months when seasonal storefronts have gone dark.

If a notice shows up, upload it to the portal and tell me it is there. As an Enrolled Agent I am licensed to represent you before the IRS, which means I can deal with them directly on your behalf instead of coaching you through phone calls. Here is what to do when a letter arrives and who is actually allowed to represent you.

The same goes for the rest of the year: quarterly estimates, a job change, a business you are thinking about starting, a big sale you are considering. Message me in the portal. Mid-year is when tax planning is still possible, and April is when it is mostly arithmetic.

What I need from you, in one list

• Use the portal for documents, signatures, payment, and messages.
• Approve the proposal and pay before the work starts.
• Get your documents in, all at once when you can rather than in a trickle. Here is the full checklist of what to gather.
• Answer every question I send you, completely, and tell me when you do not know.
• Tell me early about anything with a hard deadline attached to it.
• Tell me when something changes: a move, a marriage, a baby, a new state, a side business, an inheritance.
• Read the return before you sign it, and both spouses sign a joint return.
• Download your own copy of the finished return into your own storage.

Do those things and this is a calm, predictable engagement that ends with a return you understand. That is the entire goal.