Running a tax season end to end
From October preparation to April delivery — what to do when, and in what order.
A full season in order. Nothing here is new — it's the existing pieces in the sequence that makes them work together.
The single biggest determinant of how a season goes is how much of it you set up in October.
October — before anything is urgent
Set up the capture agent. Install it on the machine your tax software runs on, pair it, and map your client folders. This is an afternoon in October and an impossibility in February.
Map subfolder rules and turn on Read tax year wherever the folder structure carries one. Put one document through and confirm client, folder, and year are all right.
Review last season's templates. What did people work around? What task did everyone skip? Fix it now, while you remember.
Check due date rules. Filing tasks should be period-relative, internal handoffs should run on predecessor offsets. Apply the template once with a period two months in the past — if the dates land sensibly, your rules are right.
Set your compliance templates. Everything you file, defined once, generating deadlines automatically.
Build or adjust your organizer. Lean on checklist sections and set carry forward deliberately on every field. Attach a job template under When submitted, start work from so a submitted organizer creates the return without anyone noticing it arrived.
November — prepare the run
Import prior returns, so organizers arrive pre-filled and the changed-from-last-year comparison has something to compare against. Skip this and every answer reads as changed.
Tag your book. Clients who want paper, clients on extension every year, clients who need the business organizer. Tags are how you filter a bulk send later.
Check addresses and emails. A bad address found in November is a correction. Found in January it's a lost week.
Confirm your text consent list if you plan to text reminders. Consent takes a season to build.
December — send
Print organizers. Open a listen window, print from your tax software with the settings for your package, and let the agent split and match them.
Check the matched count before anything sends. Well below expectation means the print didn't finish, filenames lack a client identifier, or folders aren't mapped.
Send digitally to your book, filtered by tag, type, or office.
Mail paper to the clients who want it — honour client preference so nobody gets an envelope they asked not to receive.
Send engagement letters, as part of a proposal where you're repricing, or as a letter batch where you're not.
January — chase, don't wait
This is the month that decides your February. Work the organizer board by status, weekly:
- Sent but not Delivered → the address is wrong. Fix it today.
- Delivered, nothing since → they haven't opened it. Try another channel.
- In progress → they started and stopped. One phone call each — they're stuck on one question.
- Submitted → move to review.
In progress is the most valuable filter in the system. It separates the clients who need a nudge from the ones your email isn't reaching, and those need completely different treatment.
Bulk apply your return templates for clients who've submitted, with the period set to the tax year, not the current year. Read the preview: Needs attention rows silently got no work created.
February and March — the work
Review organizers by exception. Changed from last year first, then Show unchecked. Two minutes on a straightforward returning client.
Documents file themselves as they arrive through capture and through client uploads. Work the review queue daily — a request where four of five items are accepted looks nearly done to you and completely opaque to the client.
Use the task list by status role, not by status name. Everything waiting on a client across every pipeline is one filter on the Waiting · client role.
Watch unassigned and undated work. Filter assignee-is-empty and due-date-is-empty weekly. That's where things rot quietly.
Send 8879s as KBA, which they default to if the request is titled properly. Title them Form 8879 — 2024, not Tax form, because the default keys off the title.
Work the signature monitor's Needs attention daily — declined, verification failed, expired. None of them resolve themselves.
April — deliver and bill
Deliver returns through the portal, with payment gating where your firm uses it. A locked document unlocks on its own once the invoice is paid.
Bill as you go, not at the end. Unbilled WIP is work you did and haven't asked to be paid for. Check it weekly through season rather than discovering it in May.
Check the Draft invoice filter. A draft invoice is invisible in every aging report because it was never issued.
File extensions and record them on the compliance board. Extend… keeps the original due date visible.
May — while it's fresh
Write down what broke. The missing status, the template task nobody used, the organizer question that confused everyone. You will not remember in October.
Check realisation by service line. Which work was profitable and which wasn't. Cost rates make this answerable.
Review client health. Economic and operational scores together, and the friction your team logged. The high-fee client everyone dreads doesn't appear as a problem in a revenue report.
Adjust the templates now, not next October.
The five things that matter most
If you do nothing else from this article:
- Set up capture in October. It's the difference between documents filing themselves and a person doing it.
- Import prior returns before sending organizers. It's what makes review-by-exception possible.
- Use period-relative due dates. Apply-date rules silently produce wrong deadlines when you start late.
- Work the In progress filter in January. It's the highest-yield hour of your season.
- Bill weekly. WIP you don't look at is revenue you don't collect.