── Selling the planning work · From a lead to a signed engagement
From a five-factor screen to an accepted planning proposal
A structured advisory workflow for identifying planning opportunities, collecting the right records, completing the analysis, and delivering an actionable client proposal. Staff screen the prospect against four strategies without a partner's time; the partner makes the go/no-go call; the agreement, the records, and the proposal follow. The thresholds, the fee, the assumed rates, and the legal clauses all belong to the firm — the product does the arithmetic and shows its working, and refuses to send a document whose terms nobody approved. Synthetic sample data throughout, marked on screen for the full running time.
3:30, no voiceover. Synthetic demo data throughout, marked on screen for the full running time.
The workflow, stage by stage — what each stage produces, and the decision that gates the next
- 1
Screen — intake & strategy triage
Five factors — state of residence, taxable income, real estate holdings, profession and income sources, family wealth — plus two flags for short-term rentals and recent acquisitions. Front-line staff run it live with the prospect, or the client fills in the same short form themselves; no partner time is spent here. The screen tags four strategy tracks (REP status with cost segregation, short-term-rental material participation, state residency and PTET positioning, multi-generational wealth transfer) as Recommend, Consider, or Lower priority, each with its reasoning, and computes an estimated tax value from the client's answers and rates the firm sets for itself.
Output: a screening summary with a staff view and a client view — the client-facing side drops the formulas and carries the disclaimers, printable.
Decision: does the estimate clear the firm's own qualification standard — a minimum-dollar floor and a fee-multiple test, both firm-editable? Clears → planning candidate. Doesn't → compliance-only prep, a flat-fee consult, or parked with a revisit trigger.
- 2
Decide — the go / no-go
The first time a partner touches the lead. They see the verdict and its breakdown — and a flag when the estimate hangs on a single large assumption — then proceed, offer an alternate track, or decline.
Output: the decision itself, logged against the lead with the reason and the date.
Decision: go → the agreement goes out. No → alternate track or close, on the record.
- 3
Agree — the engagement agreement
The agreement is generated with the screening estimate frozen in as an appendix, disclaimers attached — the number the client signs against cannot drift afterwards. Fee terms, liability, and governing-law language come from the firm's own configuration, each clause reviewed once by the firm's counsel with the reviewer's name on it; Send stays disabled while any clause is missing that text.
Output: the engagement agreement, out for signature.
Decision: signed → collect the records. Not signed → the lead stays at the decision stage or closes out.
- 4
Collect — the records
The request list is trimmed to the strategies flagged at the screen — sections that do not apply are dropped, and each authorization item says what it blocks. The client uploads through a link, no account needed; what arrived and what is still missing are tracked in one place.
Output: a tailored document request list, and the running record of what came in.
Decision: enough to analyze → the proposal. Critical records missing → the follow-up loop, until they are in.
- 5
Propose — findings, fee, acceptance
Findings are written per strategy against the actual records. The proposal carries only what a reviewer signed off — with the conditions they attached — and says plainly where records have not arrived. The fee statement prints as a balance due, less any deposit already collected: the estimated value for the client and the fee the firm bills sit in the same document.
Output: the planning proposal with its fee statement and an acceptance section the client signs.
Decision: the client selects which recommendations to proceed with and signs; that selection is kept. Implementing what they selected is scoped as its own next engagement.
Every version of the estimate, the agreement, and the proposal a client actually saw stays on one append-only record — including what was later superseded.
What you can watch it do
- The five-factor screen is run by staff — or the same short form goes to the client to fill in themselves — and the partner enters only at the go/no-go, logged with its reason
- The screen asks what the client paid for the properties, not what they are worth — depreciation runs on basis, and the formula on screen says which one it used
- A one-time acceleration and a recurring saving sit in separate rows — the only combined figure is the first-year total, labeled as exactly that
- Every figure prints the arithmetic that produced it, naming which percentages are the firm's own assumptions
- Send stays greyed out while one legal clause is unreviewed; the agreement shows the placeholder in red, and only sends after the firm's counsel text is in with a reviewer's name on it
- The client's document list drops the sections that do not apply, and each authorization says what it blocks — the 8821 blocks pulling IRS transcripts
- The proposal carries only what a CPA signed off, with the conditions they attached — and the document itself states which fact set it was and wasn't built on
- Every decision, every voided document, every superseded acceptance stays on one visible record
Every name and number in this film is fictitious. Figures are arithmetic on self-reported inputs and assumptions each firm sets for itself, not a promise; actual results depend on each taxpayer's facts, on elections made timely and correctly, and on the practitioner's judgement at the time a return is prepared. This is not tax advice.