The most successful tax seasons are built before the first major deadline arrives. For firms already using CCH tax software, preparation begins with adding seasonal staff and sending organizers. But it is also an opportunity to strengthen the entire tax workflow, from collecting client data through preparing, reviewing, delivering, and planning.
Use this action plan to prepare your people, processes, and technology for a more efficient tax season and a more valuable year of client service.
Start with year-end client conversations
Tax season readiness should begin with clients, not software settings. Schedule year-end conversations to:
- Identify significant business, income, investment, or family changes
- Confirm upcoming filing and information needs
- Discuss estimated tax obligations
- Explore tax planning opportunities
- Set expectations for document collection, communication, and turnaround times
These conversations can also help your firm move from reactive compliance work to more proactive, year-round guidance.
For current CCH Axcess Tax customers, tax planning represents a natural next step. Instead of treating planning as an occasional service dependent on spreadsheets and a few experienced professionals, firms can build a more consistent process that begins with completed tax data and turns it into forward-looking client guidance. Connected tax planning tools can help firms model scenarios, generate recommended strategies, and move efficiently from compliance results to planning conversations.
Confirm staffing and software capacity
Review projected return volume, staffing levels, client complexity, and expected peak periods. Then make sure your technology and licensing can support the people doing the work.
Before year-end:
- Purchase licenses for new or seasonal staff
- Review permissions and user access
- Complete training for new team members
- Confirm staff are familiar with the latest tax updates and research resources
- Identify work that could be redirected, automated, or outsourced
- Review your scanning, storage, e-signature, portal, and workflow capacity
Talent planning should include technology enablement, not just headcount. The goal is to give professionals the tools and knowledge they need to apply judgment where it matters most, while reducing the administrative and repetitive work that contributes to deadline pressure.
Reduce the document bottleneck
Many tax-season delays begin before preparation starts. Missing documents, inconsistent file names, manual classification, and repeated client follow-ups create work that compounds across hundreds or thousands of returns.
Review how your firm will:
- Send engagement letters and organizers
- Create client request lists
- Collect and classify uploaded documents
- Follow up on missing information
- Extract data from W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, and other source documents
- Move validated data into the tax return
- Track the status of each engagement
An AI-powered client collaboration system can automate document requests, classify uploads, and streamline engagements, while smart scanning capabilities can ingest and extract information from K-1s and other complex documents for use in tax preparation.
These connected capabilities are part of a broader shift from isolated automation to intelligent workflow execution. Agentic AI is being developed to help execute and coordinate multi-step work, while professionals retain review and approval responsibilities. In the tax workflow, that direction includes classifying and extracting documents, validating information, moving data into CCH Axcess Tax, conducting prior-year checks, and preparing work for human review.