Tax & Professional Services · Agentic AI
Partners Now Save $4.8M a Year by Reviewing Less and Advising More
A Top-10 US accounting firm reviewed partnership tax returns across 150 federal and state form variants. We rebuilt the review process around agentic artificial intelligence (AI): an engine that surfaces only what changed. Partner review time per return fell 65%, manager review time fell 80%, and the firm saves an estimated $4.8M a year.
$4.8M/yrEstimated annual saving at 1,000 returns a season
80%Less manager review time per return65%Less partner review time per returnThe Challenge
Partnership tax review ran across 150 federal and state form variants. When a preparer changed one figure, they sometimes touched others too, and partners had no way to see what had actually moved. So they re-read every return end to end, hundreds of returns across a single tax season. Partner time bills at up to $1,000 an hour. Every hour spent checking internal work was an hour not billed to a client, at exactly the rate where that trade cost the most. Across a season of hundreds of returns, it capped how many engagements the team could take on at peak.
What We Did
We started with the firm's Head of Tax and reimagined the review process end to end, designing around the best possible outcome rather than the workflow that already existed. The goal was to let partners see what a preparer had changed, instead of re-reading everything. The data was not ready for a full agentic workflow on day one, so we introduced the AI agents in stages, as trusted data became available. We launched on the review step with the biggest payoff first, proved the model on trusted data, then extended it across the cycle.
The Solution
An agentic AI engine now guides preparers through each form and surfaces only the exceptions. Partners no longer re-read returns end to end. They review what changed, approve it, and move on.
The Outcome
At 1,000 returns a season, the firm saves an estimated $4.8M a year, and $2.4M even at 500 returns a season. Partner review time per return is down 65%, manager review time down 80%. The bigger shift is where those hours went. They belonged to the firm's most senior people, and they now go to clients instead of to internal checking. The firm can also take on more engagements at peak, when review time used to cap the workload.
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Still spending partner hours on internal review instead of on clients?
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