For owners of small CPA firms
March 20. Thirty returns stuck on one missing form each, and three voicemails about a refund.
Organizers to chase, the same client questions answered for the fortieth time, a letter explaining every return before the client signs, then extensions, estimate reminders and year-end planning emails nobody pays for. Most of the year’s revenue lands in a few months, and every evening spent re-sending a document list is an evening not spent reviewing returns.
The Small Firm AI Kit for CPA Firms: one Claude Skill with 17 ready-made playbooks.
- Return explanation letters
- Year-end planning emails
- Engagement letters per service
- One-time payment
- 30-day money-back guarantee
- Works on free Claude
Your year-end plan, Client A and Client B (excerpt)
Where you stand: we project your 2026 federal tax at $41,860. Withholding and estimated payments so far cover $28,400, which leaves about $13,460 to go (Projection, p. 1).
Before December 31: buying the laptop and software for the business this year rather than in January, about $4,200, lowers the projected tax by about $1,010 (Projection, scenario 2). Whether all of it can be deducted this year is ours to confirm. [CPA]
Checked before you see it
- Checked: Every figure from the projection, with its page or scenario
- Checked: Balance computed with code: $41,860 − $28,400 = $13,460
- Flagged: No 2026 planning engagement letter on file, flagged before sending
Not a CPA firm owner? There’s a kit for your practice:
Compare allIf this sounds like your season, keep reading
- The client who promised the brokerage 1099 “this weekend” three weekends ago still hasn’t sent it, and you type the third reminder by hand.
- The return is done and ready to sign, and the client calls to ask why the refund is $1,900 smaller than last year.
- Five clients forward the same video about no tax on tips and ask why it isn’t on their return.
- You’re raising fees for next season, and the email to your longest-standing client has sat in drafts since October.
Where the hours go
Roughly 12 hours a week go to the same five jobs
The same week with Claude and these playbooks: about 6 hours back
- Today
- With The Small Firm AI Kit for CPA Firms
Chasing documents and answering the same client questions
Today: 4 h/wkWith The Small Firm AI Kit for CPA Firms: 2 h/wkExplaining finished returns to clients
Today: 2 h/wkWith The Small Firm AI Kit for CPA Firms: 1 h/wkYear-end planning emails and advisory proposals
Today: 2 h/wkWith The Small Firm AI Kit for CPA Firms: 1 h/wkEngagement letters, fee and scope emails (Pro)
Today: 2 h/wkWith The Small Firm AI Kit for CPA Firms: 1 h/wkIRS and state notice responses (Pro)
Today: 2 h/wkWith The Small Firm AI Kit for CPA Firms: 1 h/wk
Today: ≈12 h a week, ≈576 h a year on this work.
Back in your week with Pro, our estimate
≈6 h
With Basic: ≈4 h
Example starting value: $200. Move it to your own number.
- Pro pays for itself after
- ≈30 min
- Time back, each month
- ≈$4,800
How we estimated these numbers
Averaged over the year, a big share of a small firm owner’s week goes to writing that repeats for every client: the chase in busy season, the letter after each return, the planning email in November, the engagement letters before the work starts, and the notices that arrive all year. This is a conservative picture for a firm with a few hundred individual and small business returns. In February and March the chase alone takes far more.
- Chasing documents and answering the same client questions, 4 h/week: Our estimate: about 8 hours a week from January to April on reminders, missing-item lists and repeat questions, less the rest of the year, averaged to 4. No published figure found.
- Explaining finished returns to clients, 2 h/week: Our estimate: about 15 minutes per transmittal letter or explanation call, spread over the year. No published figure found.
- Year-end planning emails and advisory proposals, 2 h/week: Our estimate: about 30 minutes per tailored planning email, concentrated in October to December, averaged over the year. No published figure found.
- Engagement letters, fee and scope emails, 2 h/week: Our estimate: separate letters for each service each season, plus fee-change and scope-change emails, averaged over the year. No published figure found.
- IRS and state notice responses, 2 h/week: Our estimate: about 2 hours per notice to read, match against the return and payment records and answer, one a week. No published figure found.
These are our estimates, not measured results. No published study times these tasks for small CPA firms, so we started from the conservative hours above and assumed every task still needs you: checking each figure against the return or projection, making every call marked [CPA], clearing every [VERIFY] and signing off. So we cut each task by half at most. For comparison, firms in Karbon’s State of AI in Accounting 2026 report saving an average of 60 minutes a day per employee.
Week: Our basis: a 50-hour week averaged over the year, much longer from February to April. NATP’s 2023 fee study found tax practices earn 65% of gross revenue during filing season and 12% in extension periods.. Yearly figures use 48 working weeks, monthly ones 4.
One Skill · 17 playbooks inside
Describe the client. Get the actual letter.
One Skill in Claude: you say what you need in plain words, its router opens the right playbook, and back comes a draft with every figure sourced. These are excerpts of what comes back, built on fictional, anonymized facts. The return itself stays in your tax software.
The list each client actually owes you, the reminders that follow, and the answers you give every day.
You ask
“Client C still owes us documents and our extension cutoff is March 27. Write the chase: first email today, then the reminders, each listing exactly what’s missing.”
You get
Three emails that name each missing form, with the extension date stated once.
Playbook: document-chase-sequence.md · in every plan
cpa-firms/
├─ SKILL.md
the router: reads your request, opens the right playbook
├─ your profile, saved at setup
└─ playbooks/
├─ citation-guard.md
├─ confidentiality-preflight.md
├─ client-reply-writer.md
└─ … 14 more
See all 17 playbooks
In every planBasic · $49
- Every Code section and ruling flagged before a client sees it
citation-guard.md - Client data de-identified before any work starts
confidentiality-preflight.md - Answers to the questions every client asks, in your voice
client-reply-writer.md - A verification block and an AI-use log line on every draft
review-ai-log.md - A chase sequence that names exactly what each client owes
document-chase-sequence.md - A return explained in plain English before the client signs
return-explanation-letter.md - A year-end planning email tailored to each client
year-end-planning-email.md
Added in ProPro · $99
- A separate engagement letter for every service, with an AI-use clause
engagement-letter-builder.md - A fee-increase email that keeps the client
fee-increase-email.md - An advisory proposal with three tiers, ready to send
advisory-proposal.md - A first-draft reply to an IRS notice, matched to the records
irs-notice-response.md - A state notice answered from the return and payment records
state-notice-response.md - Extension notices and estimate reminders that say it plainly
extension-and-estimates-notices.md - A personalized document request built from last year’s return
client-organizer-request.md - A 1099 readiness memo for each business client
form-1099-readiness-memo.md - A Circular 230 due-diligence note for the file
due-diligence-memo.md - Why the refund changed, line by line
return-comparison.md
Why not just ChatGPT?
Why not just paste the return into ChatGPT?
Most firms already use a general chatbot: in the Blue J and CPA.com 2026 survey, 90% of US tax professionals use platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude, and 60% use AI for tax research every week. But in Karbon’s 2026 report only 21% of firms have an AI policy. A plain chatbot is fast, but it doesn’t know your client, your figures or where its answer came from.
Generic AI
- The IRS Office of Professional Responsibility’s AI guidelines (June 2026) say practitioners cannot rely solely on AI: under Circular 230 §10.22 you verify every fact, citation and calculation. A chatbot gives you a figure without the page it came from.
- Rules changed for 2026. The 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC threshold is $2,000 for tax years beginning after 2025, the 1099-K threshold is back to $20,000 and 200 transactions, and Form 7004 gives C corporations six months for tax years beginning in 2026. A chatbot working from older material can still write $600.
- Threads on r/tax warn not to trust ChatGPT on taxes, after it made major mistakes and assumed facts instead of asking. In this kit, anything the documents don’t show is asked or marked [MISSING], never guessed.
- Return information pasted into a consumer account raises §7216. Unauthorized disclosure or use carries a civil penalty of $250 each, up to $10,000 a year (§6713), and the IRS hasn’t said whether an AI tool counts. The AICPA’s advice, as reported, is to get a signed client consent.
The Small Firm AI Kit for CPA Firms
Why this works where a plain chatbot didn’t
- 1
De-identified before anything starts
Confidentiality Pre-Flight runs first on every task: it swaps names for Client A and EIN 1, masks SSNs, EINs and account numbers, asks whether a signed §7216 consent covers anything identifiable, and reminds you to use a Claude plan that doesn’t train on your data.
- 2
Every figure sourced, every total computed with code
Return letters and planning emails tie each number to the return, the projection or the statement it came from, and differences are computed with code, inputs shown. The tax itself still comes from your tax software; anything without a source is marked [NO SOURCE].
- 3
No invented law or deadlines, and your signature last
Citation Guard never generates a Code section or ruling, and deadlines come from the notice or your Firm Profile, marked [VERIFY]. Every output ends with a verification block for your Circular 230 diligence, a line for your AI-use log and a line for your sign-off.
How it works
Set up once. Then just ask.
No coding, no prompts to copy. You install it the way you would add a document to Claude.
- 1
Download the ZIP
Right after checkout you get one ZIP, ready to download on the page: a single Claude Skill for your firm with every playbook in your plan inside. No account, no login, no subscription.
- 2
Upload it to Claude
Add it once in Claude’s settings. After that you just ask for the work: the Skill reads your request and opens the right playbook, so you never pick a file yourself. It runs on every Claude plan, including Free with code execution turned on. For real client files, use Team or Enterprise, which don’t train on your data by default, or turn training off on Pro or Max.
- 3
Answer the 5-minute Firm Profile interview
Firm name, the states you file in, your services and fee schedule, your tax software, house style and signature, your extension cutoff and the deadlines you work to, entered once from your own rules and never guessed. Saved once and read by every playbook.
Compare your options
What the other options cost
These are the real alternatives a small CPA firm has today, at the prices published or reported for them. None of them is wrong, and the kit doesn’t replace your tax software or your practice management. They are priced for a different job, or billed every year.
- AI tax research (Blue J, Individual plan)$1,498 per user a year (Blue J’s published price)Built to answer research questions with sources, and good at it. It doesn’t chase a client’s missing 1099 or write the letter that explains the refund.
- Thomson Reuters CoCounsel Tax EssentialsAbout $1,300 per user a year, with Checkpoint-backed answers capped at 20 a week (as reported on a competitor’s comparison page)Research and document analysis, billed every year per user.
- An AI tax assistant subscription (CPA Pilot)$29–$199 a month, depending on how many messages you get (CPA Pilot’s published plans)Research, return review and client emails, billed every month with a message allowance. You still build each letter’s structure yourself.
- Practice management with AI features (Karbon, Canopy, TaxDome)Canopy from $74 per user a month billed annually (published); Karbon about $708 and TaxDome about $800 per user a year (third-party reports)Built to run your pipeline, portal and billing, so keep it. The letters, planning emails and notice replies are still yours to write.
- An AI course for CPE$55 for a 2-credit course to $500 for a 15-workshop series (CPE Today, CPE Inc.)Earns CPE and teaches prompting. On Monday you still write every letter from a blank page.
- Prompt packs for tax pros$37–$149 (Payhip, Gumroad), and free lists from vendorsPrompts, not procedures: no de-identification step, no source on each figure, no verification block, nothing that checks a §7216 consent.
- Your own eveningsYour hourly rate, on every reminder and every letterDone again for every client, every season, and almost none of it billed.
- The Small Firm AI Kit for CPA Firms$49 or $99, once$49 or $99, paid once. Even Pro costs less than one month of CPA Pilot’s unlimited plan, and it never renews.
Pick your plan
One payment. Yours to keep.
Less than one month of an AI tax assistant subscription, with no renewal after it. One payment, yours to keep.
Pro costs, once
$99
Basic: $49 once
It pays for itself after
≈30 min
of time won back, at $200 for a CPA hour
Get back just 1 hour a month
$200
a month, against a one-time $99. Our estimate is ≈6 h a week.
Break-even = plan price ÷ the hourly value set in “Where the hours go” above.
Basic
The core kit plus the three busy-season essentials.
$49one-time
7 ready-made playbooks
Try it on real work. Not for you? Full refund within 30 days.
- 4 core playbooks: Citation Guard, Confidentiality Pre-Flight, Client Reply Writer, Review & AI-Use Log
- Document Chase Sequence that names exactly what each client owes
- Return Explanation Letter, every figure tied to the return
- Year-End Planning Email from your own projection
- Firm Profile interview: set your services, fees, deadlines and house style once
- Verification block at the end of every output
Pro
The whole client year, from the engagement letter to the notice that follows.
$99one-time
All 17 playbooks
Only $50 more than Basic: +10 playbooks and the Pro bonuses below.
Try it on real work. Not for you? Full refund within 30 days.
- Everything in Basic
- Engagement Letter Builder: a letter per service, with an AI-use clause and §7216 language
- Fee Increase Email
- Advisory Proposal in three tiers
- IRS Notice Response
- State Notice Response
- Extension & Estimates Notices
- Client Organizer Request built from last year’s return
- 1099 Readiness Memo at the $2,000 threshold
- Due-Diligence Memo for your Circular 230 file
- Return Comparison, year over year
- Word templates for your transmittal letter, planning email and engagement letters
- Firm Style Guide: your house style, applied by every playbook
- Sample outputs from every playbook, to compare against your own
- 12 months of fixes and adjustments to the included playbooks
30-day money-back guarantee
Run the kit on a real, de-identified client file. If it doesn’t earn its place in your firm within 30 days, email us and we refund every cent. No conditions.
- One-time payment, no subscription
- Works on free Claude
Run a different kind of practice? Tax resolutionTax preparersBookkeepingTell us yours →
No Claude account yet?
No Claude yet? You’re 2 minutes away
Claude is Anthropic’s AI assistant. Its free plan runs The Small Firm AI Kit for CPA Firms: you create the account, switch on one setting and upload the kit, in about two minutes and without a credit card.
- The free plan works: no subscription and no credit card to start
- About two minutes from sign-up to your first request
- Paid plans only add more usage, for when you want it
Client confidentiality comes first. Every task starts with Confidentiality Pre-Flight, which offers anonymized mode and swaps names for placeholders like Client A and EIN 1. Try the kit free on anonymized facts, then run real files on a Claude business plan, which doesn’t train on your data.
- 1
Create a free account
Go to claude.ai and sign up with your email, Google or Apple account. It’s free and ready right away.
- 2
Turn on one setting
In Settings → Capabilities, switch on “Code execution and file creation”. Skills need it, and it’s free.
- 3
Upload your package
In Customize → Skills, click “+”, choose “Upload a skill” and select the ZIP you received. Then just ask.
Fair questions
What cpa firm owners ask before buying
Am I allowed to use AI on client work?
Yes, with care. The IRS Office of Professional Responsibility issued introductory guidelines on AI use in June 2026: under Circular 230 you verify AI-produced facts, citations and calculations (§10.22), you can’t rely solely on AI, you use secure, enterprise-approved tools for client data, and you document how AI is used and checked (§10.36). AICPA professional standards also expect you to understand the tools you rely on. The kit drafts and organizes; every output ends with a verification block, an AI-use log line and your sign-off. It is built to the guidance; it doesn’t certify compliance.
What about §7216 and my clients’ data?
The IRS hasn’t said whether using an AI tool is a disclosure under §7216, and its last formal §7216 guidance dates to 2013. The AICPA’s advice, as reported, is to be safe and get a signed client consent. We recommend a consent in the Rev. Proc. 2013-14 format, kept as a separate document for 1040 clients. Every task starts with Confidentiality Pre-Flight, which swaps SSNs, names, EINs and account numbers for Client A and EIN 1 and asks whether a consent covers anything identifiable before it is used. On Claude, Free, Pro and Max users can turn off the use of their chats for training; Team and Enterprise don’t train on your data by default.
Will it invent tax law or numbers?
Citation Guard never generates an authority: it extracts every Code section and ruling, marks it [VERIFY] and tells you whether it appears in your uploads. Figures come from your return, projection or statements with their source, totals are computed with code, and the tax itself always comes from your tax software. Reply dates are read from the notice. We don’t promise zero errors. We promise every figure, citation and deadline is flagged for you to check.
I already have tax software and a practice management system. Why would I need this?
Keep them. Your tax software computes the return and your practice management runs the pipeline. The kit writes what goes around them: the chase, the answer to the same question, the letter that explains the return, the planning email, the engagement letter and the reply to the notice.
Doesn’t Anthropic already do this?
Anthropic’s public plugin library includes a free tax-season organizer skill that prepares material for a CPA. It isn’t built for running a firm: no engagement letters per service, no return explanation letters, no notice replies, no §7216 consent check. These playbooks fill that gap. We are independent and not affiliated with Anthropic.
Built for your rules
Built for the clients you actually have
Tell the Firm Profile who your clients are and the playbooks change what they ask for, what they explain and which letters they draft. Thresholds and deadlines stay marked [VERIFY] until you confirm them.
Your setup
Individuals and families
W-2 households, retirees and side income: the 1040 season.
- Document lists built from last year’s 1040: W-2s, 1099s, 1098s and this year’s life events
- Return letters explain the refund or balance due and the change from last year in plain English
- The §7216 consent stays a separate signed document for 1040 clients, never a paragraph in the engagement letter
- 1040-ES reminders before each due date, amounts from your vouchers
Guardrails
Verification isn’t a disclaimer. It’s the product.
Every output ends with the same verification block: the key figures and the source of each, the items marked [VERIFY], the calls left to you, a line for your firm’s AI-use log and a line for your signature. We never promise zero errors. We promise every figure, citation and deadline is flagged for you to check.
Sample verification block
From: Your year-end plan, Client A and Client B (excerpt)
- Checked: Every figure from the projection, with its page or scenario
- Checked: Balance computed with code: $41,860 − $28,400 = $13,460
- Flagged: No 2026 planning engagement letter on file, flagged before sending
- Verify: Deduction timing marked [CPA]: your judgment, never assumed
- 01
Citation Guard
No Code section, regulation or ruling is ever generated. Every citation is marked [VERIFY] and checked against your uploads, as the IRS OPR guidelines of June 2026 ask: check citations, and treat AI text as a draft.
- 02
A source on every figure
Every refund, balance, payment and projected effect carries the return page, projection scenario or statement it came from. Anything without one is marked [NO SOURCE], and differences are computed with code, inputs shown.
- 03
Your tax software computes the tax
The playbooks never compute tax from rules they guess. Tax figures come from your return or projection, and the kit only totals, compares and explains them.
- 04
No invented deadlines or thresholds
Reply dates are read from the notice. Your extension cutoff and other deadlines come from your Firm Profile, and 2026 changes such as the $2,000 1099 threshold are marked [VERIFY] until you confirm them.
- 05
De-identify first, and a §7216 check
Before any task, SSNs, EINs, names and account numbers are swapped for Client A and EIN 1. If anything identifiable is needed, the playbook asks whether a signed §7216 consent covers it first. The IRS hasn’t ruled on AI tools; the AICPA advises a signed consent, and we recommend one in the Rev. Proc. 2013-14 format.
- 06
Circular 230 diligence, built in
Every draft lists the facts and calculations to verify (§10.22). Return letters flag penalties reasonably likely to apply for you to disclose (§10.34(c)), and the due-diligence note records the inquiries you made (§10.34(d)).
- 07
An AI-use log for your WISP
Each output adds one line to your firm’s AI-use log: what was drafted, what was checked and by whom. The OPR guidelines ask firms to document AI use and verification, and IRS Pub 5708, the Security Summit WISP template, doesn’t cover AI yet.
- 08
Nothing reaches a client without you
Letters, emails, proposals and notice replies carry a “CPA review required before sending” banner. You review, decide and sign everything that leaves the firm.
FAQ
Everything else
Didn’t find your answer? Email us:hello@summonskills.com
What exactly is in the ZIP?
One Claude Skill for your firm. Inside: a router file (SKILL.md) that reads each request and opens the right playbook, one Markdown playbook per job (7 in Basic, 17 in Pro), each with its instructions, templates and verification block, and the Firm Profile interview every playbook reads. Pro also includes the Firm Style Guide inside the Skill, plus a bonus pack: Word templates for the transmittal letter, the planning email and the engagement letters, and sample outputs from every playbook. 12 months of fixes and adjustments to the included playbooks are included (new playbooks for future rule changes are not part of that).
Does it work on Claude’s Free plan?
Yes. The Skill runs on every Claude plan, including Free, as long as code execution is turned on. Free is fine for trying the kit with de-identified or fictional facts. For real client files, use Claude Team or Enterprise, which don’t train on your data by default, or turn training off in the privacy settings on Pro or Max. The IRS OPR guidelines ask for secure, enterprise-approved tools for client data.
I use ChatGPT. Will this work there?
No. The kit is built as a Claude Skill, and ChatGPT has no equivalent way to install it once and have it open the right playbook for each request. Claude’s free plan is enough to try it, an account takes a minute, and you can keep ChatGPT for everything else.
Does it prepare the return or compute the tax?
No, by design. Your tax software and your review do that. The kit starts where they stop: it reads the finished return or your projection and writes the letters, emails and memos around it, every figure tied to its source.
Do I need a §7216 consent to use it?
There is no IRS ruling yet on AI tools and §7216. The AICPA’s advice, as reported, is to get a signed consent, and we recommend one in the Rev. Proc. 2013-14 format: signed and dated before use, naming the use, one year by default, and a separate document for 1040 clients; for business returns it can sit in the engagement letter. The kit’s Confidentiality Pre-Flight de-identifies SSNs, names and account numbers first, and the AI Compliance Kit add-on includes a consent form in that format. Confirm your own approach with your counsel.
Does using AI change my WISP?
Under the FTC Safeguards Rule, tax preparers count as financial institutions and must keep a written information security plan. IRS Pub 5708 is the Security Summit’s template, and the PTIN renewal form (W-12) asks you to confirm you are aware of the requirement, so the question comes up every renewal season. Pub 5708 doesn’t mention generative AI. The kit’s AI-use log gives you the record of how AI was used and checked, and the AI Compliance Kit add-on includes an AI addendum to your WISP following Pub 5708’s structure.
Which states does it cover?
Any US state. Your Firm Profile records the states you file in and the deadlines you work to. State notice replies take the deadline printed on the notice, and any state rule you haven’t entered stays marked [VERIFY].
Does it connect to my tax software or portal?
No connector needed. Export the return, projection, tracker or ledger as PDF, Excel or CSV from UltraTax, Lacerte, Drake, ProSeries or whatever you use, and upload it to Claude.
What if it isn’t right for my firm?
Email us within 30 days and we refund the full price. No conditions.
Is this tax advice?
No. The kit is for CPAs and their staff. It drafts and organizes; you review, decide and sign. You remain responsible for every return, letter and reply that leaves your firm.
Your next chase, return letter and planning email, every figure sourced before it leaves the firm.
Trackers, returns and projections in; every figure tied to its page or scenario, differences computed with code, deadlines only from the notice or your own rules, and your signature last. About 6 hours a week back, by our estimate. $49 or $99, paid once. Use it on a real, de-identified file, and if it doesn’t earn its place within 30 days, we refund every cent. Not tax advice; for CPA firms.
One payment, yours to keep · 30-day money-back guarantee