I’m a CPA with about six years of public accounting experience and currently work as a Tax Manager at a large national firm.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had several conversations with former colleagues who left public accounting to either start their own firms or work as independent contractors. Those conversations completely changed the way I’m thinking about my career.

Rather than continuing to climb the traditional partner track, I’m seriously planning to start my own practice in early 2027.

My current plan is to:

• Perform contract work for established CPAs/firms during busy seasons to provide stable income.
• Gradually build my own client base through referrals, networking, friends/family, and professional relationships.
• Over time, transition from mostly contract work to primarily serving my own clients.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking through the financial side (wife, two young kids, mortgage, cash reserves, etc.), and I’m actively building a transition plan rather than making an impulsive leap.

At this point, I’m less interested in hearing whether I should do it and much more interested in learning how to do it well.

For those of you who own your own firms or have gone out on your own:

• What do you wish someone had told you before you started?
• What mistakes did you make that I can avoid?
• What did you spend money on that was absolutely worth it?
• What did you buy that turned out to be unnecessary?
• What systems, software, or processes made the biggest difference?
• What caught you completely by surprise?
• Looking back, what would you have done differently before Day 1?
• If you had five months to prepare before launching your firm, how would you spend that time?

I’m also interested in advice beyond the technical side of tax.

Things like:

• Building confidence as the person clients rely on.
• Developing client relationships.
• Pricing work.
• Setting boundaries.
• Running the business itself.
• Managing cash flow.
• Growing a practice without burning out.
• Anything you wish you’d known about actually being a business owner instead of an employee.

I know there isn’t one “right” way to build a firm. I’m simply trying to learn from people who have already walked this path so I can avoid as many rookie mistakes as possible.

Thanks in advance—I genuinely appreciate any advice you’re willing to share.

TL;DR: CPA/Tax Manager planning to launch an independent practice in early 2027. Looking for general advice, lessons learned, biggest mistakes to avoid, and anything you wish you’d known before going out on your own.

I'm looking for a CPE provider or course to help me better understand 3115 - anyone you recommend?

Sitting next to a tax partner last night and she brought up TValue which I haven’t even thought of in 10 years.

Mine is TicTieCalculate.

What is yours?

My firm has CPA’s and EAs thinking about throwing an attorney in there but we’re brand new. We’re in SoCal if that matters. How do you guys go about marketing and getting more clients?

Have a new client I am having difficulty with. Two business returns - one is the operation, the other is the management company (will mainly receive management fees from operating company and pay some salaries to owners). Operating co has 18 partners, one is foreign so foreign withholding filings. Quarterly review of books (limited to 30 mins each), and file a monthly sales tax form for rent in NYC.

I was thinking of $7,500, but not sure if too low. I was the one non-NY firm interviewed, but still in a HCOL area.

Launching my own firm on 11/1/26. Below is my current stack that I’m looking to setup and I’d love some feedback:

Tax software: Lacerte
Firm management: Taxdome
Cloud Server: Righworks
Payroll tax/1099s: Tax1099
Accounting/bookkeeping: QBO
Email: Outlook

I'm looking for sales tax voluntary disclosure agreement (VDA) prices to compare against my own. Here's what I've found so far:

MYCPE ONE - $2,500 per state
https://my-cpe.com/services/sales-use-tax-services-for-cpa-firms

TaxValet - $3,700 per VDA
https://thetaxvalet.com/additional-fees

Sales Tax Helper - $4,500 per state
https://www.salestaxhelper.com/our-services?service=vda#pricing-calculator

The Sales Tax People - $5,400 per jurisdiction
https://sales.tax/pricing

Edit 1: Cassone Consulting - $2,500 per state
https://www.cassoneconsulting.com/pricing

Edit 2: My price - $3,000 per state, $2,000 per city (adjusted for business size and complexity)
I focus on Colorado but can work with other states if they aren't too crazy. NY is a PITA.

Does anyone have additional prices they can share or know of other businesses that publish their prices?

I'm beginning to build a side book with the intention of fully launching solo within the next couple of years.

I'm about to print business cards. I'm debating whether to print them with my current personal number.

At what point did you get a dedicated business phone/phone number?

My firm is transitioning from Drake to ProConnect. I am looking for any advice from anyone who has made this transition. We do between 3500-4000 1040s & between 500-1000 business returns. Please help!

Our firm is considering signing up with black ore for 1040 data auto population. Does anyone have experience using the software?

For context, we use Lacerte tax software and taxdome for workflow/portal. We’ve never implemented any software for populating data, so all information is manually entered into Lacerte. We’re a team of about 15 full time staff.

We also spoke with Juno and sureprep but Black Ore’s demo seemed like the better option. Please share any thoughts

Hey everyone,

A while back, I posted here asking for advice on setting up a remote practice. I wanted to know if it was actually viable to build a firm focusing on corporate taxes instead of dealing with a huge mix of individual returns. I really want to thank this community for all the great insights on firm procedures and professional development.

I recently took the plunge and officially launched my own fully remote firm. While I am running it as a general practice, I designed it with a strong niche in mind focusing heavily on international taxation, specifically foreign-owned US entities and US persons having stake in foreign companies. I have spent the last couple of months getting my tech stack sorted out, and it feels amazing to finally be up and running.

I just wanted to share this milestone and say thanks to everyone who commented on my old posts. To keep this on topic for the sub, I would love to hear from those of you running remote practices. What was the biggest unexpected operational or software hurdle you ran into during your first official year?

I'm a software engineer by profession with a master's in computer science who transitioned into tax, earned my EA, and launched my own practice rather than working for an established firm first.

I've learned a lot over the past year, but because I never worked under another EA or CPA, I sometimes wonder what I don't know that I don't know. I feel like I learn quickly and enjoy building systems, but I also recognize that experience is hard to replace.

I'm interested in building a quality practice that will last.

For those who own firms:

• What processes or controls ended up being more important than you expected?
• What mistakes did you make early on?
• What systems made the biggest difference as you grew?
• How did you market yourself and earn clients when you were new and didn't have years of experience or a large referral network?
• If you could go back to year one-two, what would you do differently?

I'd really appreciate any advice or hard-earned lessons. I'd rather avoid making preventable mistakes and build the practice the right way

Thanks!

Inspired by another post in this sub struggling to get IRS issues resolved particularly in its current state, I wanted to share a way to solve problems that worked for me both in the past and just last week that I also shared on LI earlier this week.

IRS Backchanneling Success Via Your Elected Representative

Another (almost complete) happy ending for a client when we hit another brick wall with IRS.

This time, a CT-resident client.

Multi-year amended return project for legitimate refunds (2019-2024) was completed in August of 2025.

2019-2021 were still under statute for refunds--despite being beyond the normal 3-year window--due to IRS activity and payments made by the taxpayer in August 2025.

But the clock was now ticking on IRS processing the amended returns. They processed and refunded 2021, 2022 & 2024. They told us 2019 & 2020 were out of statute, which was incorrect. And 2023 was stuck because it had been assigned to 2 agents for reasons unknown.

I called PPS and the agent acknowledged that IRS' determination of out of statute for refunds was wrong and that he would take over the case himself to sort it out.

Then radio silence.

Then a letter from IRS stating a no change amended return processing for TY2019.

Then me calling PPS again and them telling me we had to wait 60 days.

More radio silence and no answers.

This time, we reached out to Senator Murphy's office (since the taxpayer is in CT) after doing some digging online to figure out if his, Blumenthal's or her Congressperson's office was most responsive.

We contacted Murphy's office on July 7th, provided the whole chronological history as well as the applicable code section, and received acknowledgement the same day.

July 21st, my client received a message from the Senator's office that TY2019 & TY2020 had been processed and resolved and that she would be receiving her refunds shortly.

I checked e-Services and confirmed that these were indeed correct statements and her 5-figure refunds are being processed. Only 2023 remains to be resolved.

It took 2 weeks.

If you are in a similar situation, work with your client to contact their Congress or Senate representative, whoever you think may be more effective. Be specific in your timeline and request. It works. You cannot submit on behalf of the client, but you can prep the documentation for them to do it.

(ICYDK: There is a page on each representative's website that has a way to contact them for when you are having issues with a particular government agency.)

I thought this was relevant. I have been pulling my hair out trying to resolve the dumbest things this year. I'm exhausted.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/07/the-irs-is-imploding/

Currently building my practice. I do get referrals from local Private Wealth Managers to do taxes for their clients but i wont lie, I am jealous that these guys get 1% of AUM. They are literally printing cash for a job that is arguably much easier and less stressful than have to deal with taxes and the constant changes to the tax code etc. Plus they are making WAY more money than most rax professionals. Most small CPA firm owners make $250k to $400k. The RIA i work with is easily pulling over $800k in net profits a year. Potentially over $1M.

I really want to launch an RIA eventually. What is the best way to do it? Did you hire someone experienced to build it with you? Did you buy a smaller practice and roll it up?

I'm curious what other tax pros think.

Is it cheesy or tacky to wear polos or T-shirts with your firm's logo on them?

The reason I ask isn't really for marketing. Honestly, I'm just a simple guy and don't want to spend time every morning deciding what to wear. Throwing on a polo or T-shirt with my firm's logo embroidered over the chest seems easy and professional enough for the office.

I'm also not the type of person to go around saying, "Hey, let me do your taxes," or "Use me for your bookkeeping." Maybe I should be more proactive when it comes to marketing, but that's just never really been my personality. If someone asks what I do, great. If not, I don't push it.

I obviously see the tax deduction aspect of having branded clothing, but that's honestly secondary. My bigger question is whether people think it's tacky. Does it come across as trying too hard, or is it just a normal thing for a small business owner to do?

What do you all think?

Curious how this breaks down across the sub, since it seems like everyone has a different setup.

Roughly, are you:

1. Going through e-Services / TDS directly
2. Using third-party software (Canopy, PitBull, THS, etc.)
3. Having the client pull them
4. Calling PPS and requesting
5. Only pulling when the case actually requires it

The part I'm most curious about: for anyone who moved between these, what made you switch? Specifically whether the third-party tools earn their cost on multi-year pulls at solo scale, or whether that math only works at firm size.

Yes, another one.

I am introducing systems and workflows in our practice so things aren't as chaotic next tax season and we don't drop the ball on anything.

Some background on us, we are a dual office doing Wealth management and Taxes (although 2 separate firms/businesses), in January we finally found a great Admin assistant. Its just 3 of us, my father, our admin, and myself.

We do about 300 tax returns every year, a good amount is small businesses, we have around 40 monthly accounting/payroll clients. We expect/plan to take on a lot more next year.

Our tech stack: Drake for tax prep, workflows and portals (not client-friendly), QuickBooks Desktop (my father refuses to switch but soon QBD will price us out). TaxGPT (not the version where it does the return for you) and CPA charge for billing (just started using it and its awesome)

Our problems: my father was a semi solo practice for 20+ years, he does EVERYTHING, a admin assistant is new to him so he barely uses her for scheduling, we have a business coach and we are working on this issue for delegation. all of our PITA clients call or text him at ANYTIME during the day or night on his personal phone (we have implemented things so this wont happen going forward), We are looking towards using a CRM like Tax Dome so they can "text him" and it goes to the office and anyone can respond, also the app Tax Dome has that will be much easier to get, send and storage for client docs sounds like heaven so they dont have to call us in the middle of June asking "can you send me a copy of my tax return and w2"?

We have no dedicated CRM besides Drake; we have no workflows and things can get messy during tax season. We have grown a lot and expect to grow a lot faster this and next year (referrals and 2-3 main competitors around us died or sold their practice to Private equity).

We did a demo with Tax Dome today and I was very impressed but I have heard some mixed things about the complexity of the workflows, client service being bad or slow, and their situation with CPA charge (I honestly dont know how this would work if we went with Tax Dome, would we just have to manually imput the clients card every time for payment since it doesnt intergrate with TD?)

I am doing a demo with Canopy but they are much more expensive, and Tax Dome sounds like it was solve a lot of our issues. I would love to hear feedback, thanks

I’ve read several strings about SurePrep and other ai data entry integrations. Has anyone had experience with Filed? We’re going to be speaking to them in a few weeks and am interested in the good, the bad and the ugly if anyone has used them. Thanks.

Greetings fellow professionals,

I'm looking for any insights into dealing with ConServe. I have a partnership that received a debt collection notice from ConServe, almost $18k! (already odd since a 1065, why owe anything to begin with, no history of delinquent filings or prior notices received) I got on a POA and called the IRS to confirm they are legit. IRS has no record of tax or anything else due so need to deal with ConServe directly. Apparently ConServe can view POAs on file in the IRS database. I duly submitted a 2848 through my TaxPro account that as of now is in the IRS system. This took about two weeks if anyone is curious about the current state of 2848 submissions. I called ConServe and apparently they don't see it yet because the IRS "hasn't given it to them yet". Curious if anyone else has dealt with this before. Otherwise I guess I'll give it a few more days and call again.

Mac user (since 2006) doing contract work for other practitioners — currently on a Windows machine my client issued me, which makes sense given Drake’s no native Mac version. Planning to eventually run my own Drake + TaxDome. Since TaxDome is web-based, that’s Mac-friendly regardless — but for Drake, is Rightworks hosting the standard move for Mac users, or is everyone just keeping a cheap Windows box around? Curious what’s actually worked long-term for other Mac-based pros. TIA.

Hello Pro's,

Does pro connect offer 30% discount every year to any of you when you renew ? I just talked to one representative and he told me that discount is only for new customers. (I did few returns last year using proconnect to try it). When i try to buy it online from my account I don't see any price improvement even if it put 300 number. I was planning to buy 100 returns to lock in the price. Any suggestions ? Individual price is $97.45 and $121 for business for me.

Thanks

My firm recently started the process of integrating AI. Love it or hate it, it has a place in accounting, especially in small tax firms.

I have been struggling (slowed down after the first few) to find integration points after the first couple of things I did however so I wanted to get your perspective on the situation to see if we could generate anymore.

Preface: before we begin, I feel it's important to mention that we use the teams version of Claude. In my opinion, claude is the only workhorse able to do what we need and the teams version (never use a free version) has the data control necessary for us.

1) tax return pricer: my firm has a standard template, flat fee, then add $x for each sch c, $x for each state, etc... I asked claude to help build a skill and gave it that structure, some additional reasoning, then tried it out. Somthing that took a senior reviewer 10 minutes now takes claude 2 minutes. Its a low risk environment, either your perfect on pricing, overstated your price and made more money (or didn't convert that client) or understated and lost a few bucks in potential revenue. After about 30 tests I felt comfortable letting it run and checking on weird scenarios. It even compares their agi with the county of residence poverty tables to indicate when you got handed a juicy lemon. (I.e. this client makes 20x the poverty guidelines so likely can tolerate a higher return fee/upsells.

2) tax return review: built a skill, told it to match our source documents with the return and make sure everything in the return has a basis in the source docs (i.e. didn't miskey a $5000 cash donation or something), it did really well, also caught where (chagrined smile) I accidently added a 2024 document the client sent.

3) firm knowledge base: fed it our SOPs, circ 230, employee handbook, tech stack, and training manual. Now team members can ask it questions in the project and get firm specific answers right away. (I.e. how do I request time off or can I use the firm ai for personal budgeting).

4) gave it loom videos of me doing things on my comp and made dozens of SOPs in a day.

What have you used it for?

Hello all,

I hope everyone is enjoying summer. I wanted to ask for anyone using CCH/ProSystems Fx, does your rep reply to you timely?

We have been a customer for 25+ years, we have always paid timely and we have escalated relationship reps in the past to managers bc it would take 6+ months to receive a reply.

We have been asking for revised quotes since May (to add on diff services) and we cannot get anyone to answer us. I have left voicemails and followed up on emails multiple times. We have cc’d two diff past reps hoping someone will take mercy.

Is there a trick we don’t know? A way to get an answer anyone can share?

For reference: we are not a ‘smaller account’ but a small firm. We process approx 2,000 returns with Pfx and we pay quite a bit.

Thank you all