The firm handled more peak-season work without adding permanent staff.
An accounting and advisory firm needed to get client work started sooner and recover senior staff time from document preparation. We built a system inside its existing workflow that handled routine preparation, flagged missing information, and sent uncertain results to people for review.
peak-season engagements with the same permanent headcount
Preparation time fell from 5.5 hours to about 45 minutes per engagement.
Why it matters
Senior accountants regained time for client work, and the firm handled more engagements with the same permanent team. Temporary-staff savings alone covered the build cost in the first busy season.
The starting point
Preparation work was consuming the capacity the firm needed for clients.
Manual document preparation took five and a half hours per engagement. Senior accountants spent close to one-third of their time on preparation, and nine days passed between client submission and work beginning. The firm relied on seven temporary hires during peak season.
The solution needed to fit the firm’s existing practice-management system and engagement checklists. Preparation hours, submission-to-start lag, and peak-season throughput per person defined the measures of success before development began.
What the business needed
Reduce preparation time and submission-to-start delays so the same permanent team could handle more peak-season client work.
What we changed
We connected the preparation tasks inside the existing workflow, with explicit points for staff judgment.
Classify and reconcile incoming documents
The system classified documents, extracted fields, and reconciled the information against engagement checklists.
Make incomplete or uncertain work visible
Automated completeness checks generated client follow-ups the same day. Confidence thresholds sent uncertain results to a staff review queue, with audit logging throughout.
Integrate with the operating system
The preparation workflow connected to the firm’s existing practice-management system, so teams could use it without replacing their core workflow.
What the client could use next
- An integrated preparation system
- Document classification, field extraction, and reconciliation against engagement checklists, connected to the existing practice-management system.
- Completeness checks and client follow-ups
- Automated checks for missing information and same-day generation of follow-up requests, without replacing the firm’s core workflow.
- A review queue with an audit trail
- Confidence thresholds that directed uncertain documents to staff, with full audit logging across the preparation workflow.
What the evidence showed
Client work could begin sooner.
Time from client submission to work beginning
- Before the changes
- 9 days
- With the preparation system
- Under 2 days
This measures the wait before work began, not the time to complete the client engagement. Same-day follow-up generation did not guarantee a same-day client response.
Preparation fell to about 45 minutes
Document preparation declined from five and a half hours to about 45 minutes per engagement, releasing senior staff time for client work.
More work required fewer seasonal hires
The firm handled 23% more peak-season engagements with the same permanent headcount. Seasonal hiring fell from seven people to two, and temporary-staff savings alone recovered the build cost within the first busy season.
Accuracy checks and human review stayed in the workflow
Extraction accuracy remained above 98% on audited samples. Roughly one in eight documents went to human review, keeping uncertain results in front of staff.
The gain came from the complete workflow, including human review.
Accuracy applies to audited samples, not a guarantee for every document. Build-cost recovery describes temporary-staff savings, not all operating costs. The firm kept the same permanent headcount and still used two seasonal hires; the capacity result does not mean a fully autonomous operation.
We could take on more client work without adding permanent staff. The system fit how our firm already operated, reduced preparation time, and kept uncertain results in front of our people.