For CPA firms
The calls that eat March aren't from new clients. They're from the ones asking where their return is.
This doesn't replace you or your staff on the phone. It takes the repeat questions off the line, gets a yes or no out of the clients who've gone quiet, and puts every client text on a number the firm owns. The point is hours back in season, not a longer lead list.
The problem
Where the hours go
The same question, from the same client, three times
Was it accepted? Where's my refund? Did you even file it? The client could check a portal. This one calls, and the person who picks up is the one preparing the next return.
The client who goes quiet before the deadline
It's the second week of April. You've sent the reminders and nothing came back. You want the client's go-ahead before you file the extension, and a record that you got it, and calling around for it takes the hours you don't have that week.
Clients text your cell because there's nowhere else to text
One client texts you to ask if you got their documents. Another texts a staffer who's out that day. A third texts at 9pm about a letter from the IRS. None of it lands in the client's file, and the follow-up depends on who remembers.
You can't hire your way out of it
Accounting graduates have fallen three years running. The extra pair of hands for March isn't out there. The hours have to come from somewhere else.
What we do
What the system does about it
- 01
A status line that answers "where's my return?"
Clients text a firm number instead of calling you. When they ask about their return, they get the stage your team has marked: received, in progress, filed, accepted. It never sends figures from the return, only where it stands. Anything past that books a call. Nobody preparing a return picks up.
- 02
A yes or no from the clients who went quiet
Before the extension deadline, the system texts every client you haven't heard from, asks for their go-ahead, and logs the reply against their name. You get a list of who said yes, who said no, and who still hasn't answered, before you file anything.
- 03
Every client text on a firm number, not your cell
One number the firm owns. Every inbound text and missed call lands on the client's timeline where anyone on staff can see it. The 9pm message about an IRS letter is there Monday morning with a name on it, and the hand-off between you and your staff doesn't depend on a forwarded screenshot.
- 04
The missed call still gets a text back
A new-client caller who hits voicemail gets a text within a minute, answers a few intake questions, and books a slot. This is the part we started with. It's here because it runs on the same number and the same system, not because a longer lead list is what you need in March.
Third-party numbers
Not our numbers. We don't have a client roster to point at yet.
When to start
Build windows are May through August and mid-October through December. The status line and the confirmation flow are tested with you, on test contacts, before a real client sees either. If you're reading this in March, book the call for after the deadline. We'd rather start when you can pay attention than sell you something you can't set up.
A note from the founder
“My mom is a CPA. I grew up watching her office lose March to the phone: calls it missed, and calls it shouldn't have had to take live. That's the problem this was built for.”
Andrew Deng, founder
Questions
What CPA firms ask us
Does this touch my clients' tax information?
No. The system doesn't connect to your tax software and never reads a return. It sends only what your team gives it: the stage a return is at, a reminder, a question, a booking link. No figures from a return go into any message. Anything about a client's actual situation goes to a CPA, meaning you.
My clients want to talk to me, not a text.
The ones who need you still get you. The system answers the question that doesn't need a CPA, like whether a return has been filed, and hands the rest over with a name and a note. A client who wants a call gets one, on your calendar instead of in the middle of the return you're working on.
Is texting my clients like this allowed?
The status line and the confirmation flow go to clients you already work with, about work they've hired you for, and every message honors a stop reply. That's a firm communicating with its own clients, not the cold outreach that TCPA restricts. The missed-call text goes only to someone who called your firm first. We walk through the consent basis of your list with you before anything goes out.
We're too busy in season to set anything up.
Agreed, which is why we won't launch during one. We build and test in the slow months so it's running before the next crunch, instead of you learning something new while the phones are ringing.
Is the missed-call text-back still part of it?
Yes. Same number, same system. A new-client caller who hits voicemail gets a text within a minute and books a slot. We just don't lead with it for CPA firms anymore, because the hours you lose in season are as likely to go to current clients as to new ones.
Want to see what it would text a client who asks where their return is?
A short call, scheduled for whenever your season allows. We look at how clients reach you now, what lands on your cell, and whether this is worth doing. If it isn't, we'll say so.