Why TaxPlanIQ

How We Help you Solve Top Advisory Challenges

Firms get stuck on tax advisory for specific reasons. TaxPlanIQ is tax advisory software that gets tax plans sold.

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The 5 Biggest Challenges in Getting Started with Tax Planning and Advisory Services

Many firms agree that tax planning is something they should do for clients. The reasons why it doesn't happen are typically one or more of the following:

  • Reason 1: Not enough time in the day [burnout]

    You’re simply too busy to even focus on it. Your plate is full during tax season, and when tax season ends you need to take time off just to recover. Building out a whole new service line feels overwhelming.

  • Reason 2: Not knowing where to start

    For those who’ve only done compliance, there’s also a knowledge gap. You don’t know what you don’t know, right? And sometimes the biggest obstacle to starting anything new is simply knowing even where to start.

  • Reason 3: No time to learn tax strategies

    This goes back to the burnout problem and ties back into what you already know and what you’re already good at. Trying to learn something new feels like too much when you are maxed out and all your energy is spent just trying to maintain your firm as it is.

  • Reason 4: A fear of pricing or sales conversations

    When it comes to giving a client a quote on tax advisory, you feel you’re walking blind and don’t want to mess up. That’s understandable because who wants to have salesy conversations and get rejected?

  • Reason 5: No time to create processes from scratch

    Everything always goes back to time, doesn’t it? Creating new processes feels exhausting when you’ve already got a comfortable routine. Why change things up? What if the new processes don’t work well? The list of fears could go on…

Do these sound familiar?

The good news is that TaxPlanIQ answers every one of these challenges!

The software gives advisory firms a repeatable system that...

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Gives you back your time

(many firms can increase revenue while actually decreasing the number of clients they serve)

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Gives you a complete blueprint

on how to start your tax advisory journey by giving you access to our 45-day Advisor Accelerator Program that includes a training coordinator, a tax planning consultant, and a business coach.

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Provides a tax planning consultant

to help guide you on tax strategies and how the software can find the strategies for each unique client.

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Delivers a pricing method

that takes all the guesswork out of pricing a tax plan, so you don’t even need to worry what an engagement should cost. Plus, helps you formulate a script around how to win the client.

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Offers a way to upload

the 1040s of your entire client base fast, and sort the ones most needing tax advisory so that you never “start from scratch.”

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How Tax Planning Automation Surfaces Opportunities

You can’t plan for a client whose opportunity you never noticed.  The opportunities already sit in your returns you’ve already filed and already seen.

What has to change is a screening process. Looking for tax planning opportunities has to be systematic and it has to be easy enough to run across your entire client list, rather than just a handful of clients.

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How TaxPlanIQ handles it:

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Bulk upload a folder of client returns (up to 100 at once)

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The software reads each return and identifies which of the 130+ strategies in the library that client qualifies for, based on what is actually on the 1040.

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What comes back is a ranked view of where the opportunity is concentrated. A firm can quickly know which clients are worth a conversation.

How TaxPlanIQ Standardizes Tax Planning Workflow

Tax planning should be able to be delegated, reviewed consistently, and repeated at volume. Every plan should not have to be a complete custom build from scratch

How TaxPlanIQ handles it:

The strategy library is the standard. Each strategy carries its use cases, pros, cons, and an implementation checklist, so the analysis does not depend on what one person needs to remember. Plans generate from the same structure every time, in a custom white-labeled report carrying your firm's branding.

The output is a documented, repeatable process. This means a staff member can build a plan you review, rather than you building every plan alone manually.

How Tax Strategy Software Prices Advisory Work Profitably

Hourly billing prices engagements against your time, which has nothing to do with how much an engagement is worth to a client. strategy that takes two hours to identify and saves the client $60,000 does not bill at 2 hours.

So, the fee gets set by instinct, and instinct usually undercharges. Firms that price tax planning work like compliance work discover the service is not profitable and conclude that advisory does not pay. The fee needs a method behind it, decided before the work starts.

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How TaxPlanIQ handles it:

The ROI Method of Value Pricing, applied through the CURB (complexity, urgency, risk, benefits) framework, produces a fixed fee up front.
Four factors: Every proposal TaxPlanIQ creates shows the projected savings and the fixed fee together, so the client is deciding on a result and can see the value of what they are paying for, rather than an hourly rate.

How a Tax Planning Platform Gets Strategies Implemented

A key point to always remember is that a presented plan is not a delivered result. Clients agree to strategies in October and do nothing by December. Many strategies need a specialist the firm doesn’t have. So, the client sees no savings, and the following year they don’t renew.

How TaxPlanIQ handles it:

Each strategy carries an implementation checklist. Strategies that need outside expertise, such as cost segregation studies, specialist insurance structures, or alternative investments, are identified as such and TaxPlanIQ provides vetted implementation partners.

Firms on certain TaxPlanIQ subscription plans also get to review plans 1:1 with a tax professional before presenting to a client. For all customers, TaxPlanIQ also provides weekly Tax Labs and Strategy Hours, which are live events each week to increase your tax planning knowledge.

How Scalable Tax Planning Moves Advisory Work Off of Firm Owners

You’re busy, you run a firm. The last thing you need is another large weekly task. Work that depends on one person is a service that caps at that person's capacity, then disappears when that person retires or gets busy.

This is why tax planning should have the goal of moving to staff, with you reviewing and presenting, rather than building. Ideally, you eventually have a manager that can also review and present on your behalf!

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How TaxPlanIQ handles it:

TaxPlanIQ makes tax advisory delegation possible. Systematic screening in the software means an associate can find top planning candidates from your 1040s. With the software recommending strategies, an associate can also build the plan. A pricing method is used so an associate doesn’t even need to figure out what to charge for the plan.

You or a manager are left to simply review and run the client conversation, which TaxPlanIQ also supports on certain plans with a business coach, so you know exactly how to pitch and present the plan to a client.

In short, TaxPlanIQ gives everything that tax advisory practice management requires!

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FAQs

Tax Advisory Software: Common Questions

How do firms scale tax advisory services?

The first step is having tax planning software that really speeds up the whole advisory process so it’s not so time intensive. A software should have three things in place:

  1. A systematic way to find and sort planning candidates
  2. A quick way to generate a tax planning proposal with relevant strategies
  3. A pricing method that does not depend on your judgment both so you don’t have to think about it too much, and that is a price you can feel confident delivering

With these in place, you can focus mainly on presenting rather than on building every plan from scratch. With software that quickly builds plans, you can scale remarkably well, fast…especially once you add staff that can take some of the tax compliance side of the firm off your plate.

Why is tax planning difficult to standardize?

At most firms, planning lives in a spreadsheet and one person's memory. The model is rebuilt each time, the research is not recorded, and the deliverable varies. A documented strategy library with consistent plan output is what can turn a custom build into a repeatable tax planning workflow that the firm can actually follow month after month.

How can firms identify more planning opportunities?

The most important thing is to screen systematically from your 1040s instead of waiting for opportunities to surface through chats. Bulk upload the returns you’ve already filed and let software match each one against the strategy library. It will rank your potential client savings highest to lowest, so you know where to start. Firms that do this can find planning candidates fast.

How can advisors explain tax strategies to clients?

We recommend getting an agreement and payment for a tax plan up front before showing specific strategies to a client. This is because you don’t want to give away all the value before securing the deal. Once payment is made, then you can go into more detail on which specific strategies they can use. TaxPlanIQ can help with detailed strategy explanations on the tax planning report, which you can give to the client after payment.

How do firms ensure tax planning recommendations are implemented?

Get organized and attach an owner and a date to every strategy at the presentation, whether the client is in charge of doing something or you are. All strategies in TaxPlanIQ have an implementation checklist that include both what you have to do as the accountant, and what the client needs to do. Strategies requiring outside specialists are also flagged.

How can tax advisory services become more profitable?

Stop pricing on hours. A planning engagement's value comes from the savings it produces, not the time it takes. The ROI Method of Value Pricing along with using CURB factors (complexity, urgency, risk, and benefits and burden) are the best way to price.

What is the difference between tax advisory software and tax preparation software?

Preparation software prepares and files. Tax advisory services software, TaxPlanIQ specifically, starts where the return ends, which includes tax savings opportunity identification, plan creation, pricing, presentation to the client, and implementation steps.

Does TaxPlanIQ replace our tax preparation software?

No. The two run alongside each other. Tax planning software and tax prep software are fundamentally different, and TaxPlanIQ has no tax filing function. It works with whichever tax prep software you currently run.

How long before a firm sees results with tax advisory services?

Most firms opt to go through our Advisor Accelerator Program for their first 45 days with TaxPlanIQ. The goal is to present and sell a tax plan within that time frame. Building tax planning into a real service line takes a season as you go through your client list. Many firms can completely transform within a single year. Oftentimes, our customers see the biggest transformation when they have ongoing 1:1 sessions with our tax planning consultants to review plans and have someone in their corner all year.