From Annual Filing to Year-Round Foresight for a US Accounting Firm
50% to 70% less preparation time,
the 2026 benchmark for AI-assisted preparation of standard returns, and the workflow this build targets
Half the time spent digging through documents,
reported by advisory teams who stopped hunting across folders once everything about a client sat in one place
Five places, now one,
past returns, working files, documents, live accounts and the advice already given, brought together by Webpuppies so every answer shows where it came from
About the Project
Services
Project Details
The client is a US accounting and tax firm with offices in several states and a delivery team overseas, looking after business owners across the country. Its people handle more than a thousand tax returns a year, alongside bookkeeping, tax planning, profit advice, part-time finance director work, dealing with the tax authorities, and the books of non-profits.
It is a firm that had already made up its mind. It plans with clients through the year rather than scrambling in filing season, it pairs software with a human check, and it would rather ring a client before a decision than explain one afterwards. National recognition followed. What it wanted next was a way to work like that for every client, not only the ones an advisor knows well.
The Challenge
Good tax advice depends on knowing the client. What they did three years ago, which company owns what, which choices were made and why, and what the owner actually wants out of the business. The firm knew all of it. The problem was where it lived.
Some sat in old returns. Some in working files from a job two years back. Some in a document folder, some in the live accounts, some in an email thread, and a fair amount in the head of whoever had looked after that client longest. Every firm this size works that way. It only becomes a problem when you decide to advise people all year round.
What the Next Level Required
Knowledge that outlives the filing cabinet
Somewhere clients can ask at any hour
The same story, whoever you speak to
A person who still signs off
The firm needed a partner who could bring all of that together, connect it to the systems the practice already runs on, and make the handover to a human part of the design rather than an escape hatch.
Our Solution
One Place Where a Client's History, Their Tax Work and a Real Advisor Finally Meet
Building AI Into an Accounting Practice
Webpuppies built a single place that holds everything the firm knows about a client, and made it useful to two very different people at once. Clients come in through an AI assistant. Advisors work from the same record. Because both are reading the same thing, a conversation carries on instead of starting over.
Years of History, Findable in Seconds
Old returns, working files, documents, the live accounts and past advice all sit in one place, and every answer shows which document it came from and how recent it is. What the firm knows no longer walks out of the door when someone is on leave.
An Assistant Built for Clients, Not for Staff
Clients ask questions in their own words and get answers drawn from their own file. It gathers what the firm needs for tax work, explains what it has found, and only ever sees that client’s records. The moment a question needs real judgement, it hands over to a named advisor.
Tax Work in the Same Place as the History
Preparing and filing happens where the client’s history already lives, so chasing documents and reviewing work all sit against the same record. Things worth acting on surface during the year, while there is still time to do something about them.
Built So the Firm Can Always Check the Working
Every answer traces back to the document behind it, and advisors can see what the assistant told a client and on what basis. That is what makes a firm comfortable putting anything in front of its clients at all.
Ongoing Partnership
A system like this gets better as more of the firm’s history goes into it and as the practice decides what else it wants from it. Webpuppies keeps building alongside the team rather than handing over a finished thing and walking away.
More of the Practice
Bringing further parts of the firm’s work into the same place, once each one has proved itself.
Better Answers
Tuning how the system searches as years of new documents pile up behind it.
Sensible Running Costs
Matching the work to the right tools so the bill stays proportionate as use grows.
Sharper Tools for Advisors
Improving what the team sees, so more of their day goes on advice and less on preparation.
Results & Impact
A practice that can be proactive on any day of the year
What used to be pieced together for every question is now there already, for clients and advisors at the same time. The figures above are published 2026 industry benchmarks for this kind of work rather than measured results from this engagement, and they show the scale of change firms report when this reaches live tax work.
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