── For CPA & EA practices
One missed form is $10,000.
$10,000 a form, per year, and the statute of limitations never starts. We test the triggers against the client's own statements — in January, not April.
Statutory: $10,000 initial, +$10,000 per 30 days after IRS notice, capped · IRC §6038D(d). Illustrative.
What it actually catches
If this 8938 is missed
$10,000
rising to $60,000 if it is still missing 90 days after the IRS notice · IRC §6038D(d)
Threshold crossed at $87,400 · test is $75,000
1 field still needs you — the account holder name does not match the return.
Every figure carries the document it came from. Anything it could not trace goes to a confirmation queue, not into the draft.
One cross-border engagement is, in practice, eight jobs.
Until now there was one way to staff them: hire, or have the same three people stay late through busy season. Each is real work. None of it is the work you sat the exam for.
Each one, at a large enough firm, is a salary. The agent is the eight of them at once — one engagement at a time, with a memory that does not reset between seasons. Judgment and the signature were never on this list. Those are yours.
One click from you. One link for them.
The part of busy season that costs the most hours carries the least judgment — and it is slow on both sides. Your team retypes what the client sent; the client is asked three times for the same file. You start the engagement once and the agent runs the rest of the loop. What has already landed is never asked for again.
- Click once to open the engagement
- Set the cadence, or leave it on automatic
- Look at the exceptions, not the inbox
- Opens an encrypted link — no account, no password, nothing to install
- Drops the whole folder in at once — no matching to a list, phone photos fine
- Is told on the spot if something is the wrong year or unreadable
- Comes back to the same link whenever the next statement turns up
- Identifies each file by what it is, not what it is called
- Files it against the engagement checklist
- Sends back the wrong year, the wrong account, the unreadable scan
- Chases what is still missing, in English or Chinese, until it lands
- Remembers what was sent back, and asks for it precisely next season
Eight domains, each with one number it is measured by.
Once the documents are in, the same file answers what clients actually pay for. Every domain below produces figures out of the client's own records — not a restatement of what they already told you. What those figures mean for the client is your call.
Cross-border assets and filings
LiveWhere practices startFBAR and Form 8938 trigger tests run on each account's yearly maximum, with a field-level draft and everything it could not source marked; Form 5471 and other forms are flagged for your determination
Measured by · Penalty exposure found in January instead of April
Compliance calendar and events
LiveEvery filing by date for the year, for each client and for your own practice, with the reason it applies and the consequence of missing it
Measured by · Missed deadlines: zero, and each one auditable
Cash flow and working capital
Building nowMonthly cash report and a 13-week rolling forecast, AR ageing, DSO and DPO, and the gap before it arrives
Measured by · Days from invoice to cash
Performance and benchmarks
Building nowA plain-language read of the numbers, year-over-year and period-over-period anomalies, and the same figures against the industry band
Measured by · Anomalies surfaced before the client asks
Entity and structure
Building nowWhat the current entity and residency setup obliges today, what an S-corp election would change in dollars, and which filings appear or disappear if it changes
Measured by · Self-employment tax difference, in dollars
Spending and pre-tax planning
PlannedWhere the money actually goes by category, business-versus-personal splits, depreciation timing, and the year-end items still open with the date each one closes
Measured by · Decisions still open before Dec 31
Financing and credit readiness
PlannedA loan-readiness package, DSCR, and the document list a lender will ask for
Measured by · Weeks saved getting to a lender-ready file
Valuation, exit and succession
PlannedAn annual valuation range, an exit-readiness gap list, and the data-room checklist — only the parts that can be computed
Measured by · Gaps closed before diligence starts
What ships in every domain is the same two layers: the figures, and what is off about them. The layer above — what to do about it — stays with you. That is the design, not a gap we are working around: a recommendation nobody licensed signed is worth nothing to your client, and a number your software guessed is worth less than that.
── How it is built
The model reads. It does not do the arithmetic.
Two different things get called “a number”, and the difference is the whole design. Reading a balance off a statement is a transcription — a model does that, and every figure it lifts is marked as read rather than computed, so it lands in front of you to check. Everything downstream of that reading — the totals, the threshold tests, the tax differences, the dates, the ageing — is arithmetic, and arithmetic is done in code that you can point at.
Code, deterministic
- Totals, ageing buckets and ratios over your clients' books
- Threshold tests, and which figure crossed which line
- Every filing date in the compliance calendar — from the statutory rules, weekend and federal-holiday roll-forward included
- Tax differences, and the forecast arithmetic behind a projection
Model, reading and language
- Lifting a balance or an account number off a statement — flagged as read, for you to confirm
- Why this rule applies to this client, in a sentence
- What the consequence is if it slips
- Never a total, never a due date, never whether a form is required
This is the whole reason a licensed professional can put their name on what comes out. A figure a model invented is not reviewable — you would have to redo it to trust it, and then the software saved you nothing.
The tests it applies, and where they come from
Citations on output: nextThese are the published thresholds the agent tests against, with the authority for each one. It applies them; it does not decide whether a form is required. Attaching the authority to every output — so a draft leaves your desk already sourced — is the next piece of work, not something running today.
| Form | Authority | Test applied |
|---|---|---|
| FinCEN Form 114 (FBAR) | 31 CFR 1010.350 | Combined highest balances exceed $10,000 at any point in the year |
| Form 8938 | IRC §6038D · Form 8938 Instructions | Unmarried or MFS: over $50,000 at year-end, or over $75,000 at any time. MFJ: $100,000 / $150,000. US residents who file a return. |
| Form 5471 | IRC §6038 · §6046 · Form 5471 Instructions | 10% or more of vote or value (§6046), or control over 50% (§6038); §6038(b) penalty starts at $10,000 per form, per year |
Thresholds shown are the current federal tests for US residents and are re-checked against the instructions each filing season. The agent applies them; it does not decide whether a form is required.
── Capability expansion
The cross-border engagements you turn away today, you can take next quarter.
Most small practices run domestic work only. Cross-border clients walk in the door and get referred out, because the exposure of getting FBAR or Form 8938 wrong is not worth the fee. That is a revenue problem, not a time problem.
Learn
A short course on the cross-border filings — FBAR, Form 8938, Form 5471 — what triggers them, what the penalties are, and where the judgment calls sit.
Run it with the agent
The white-label cross-border package runs the trigger tests against the published thresholds and drafts the fields, marking every one it could not source. You review and sign.
Keep the client
The engagement stays in your practice instead of going to the firm you referred it to — and existing clients with overseas accounts become billable work.
Learning is the entry point; the reviewable execution package is what you actually bill against. Nothing reaches a client without your review.
What the agent does, and what you sign
This is the whole architecture, not a disclaimer at the bottom of a page. Every draft arrives with the source document behind it, a confidence level, and the fields the agent could not confirm marked as exceptions rather than filled in.
| Work | Agent | CPA / EA |
|---|---|---|
| Document extraction | Every document | Review |
| Missing-document detection | Every client | Handle exceptions |
| Classification suggestions | Suggested | Approve |
| Reconciliation | Agent runs it | Approve exceptions |
| Cross-border trigger analysis | First pass + evidence | Final determination |
| Tax research | Retrieval | Professional judgment |
| Diagnosis | Draft | Final judgment |
| Tax position | Supporting only | CPA / EA |
| Return preparation | Supporting only | Preparer |
| Signature and filing | Never | Licensed professional |
| Legal opinion | Never | Attorney |
Four things it will not do
Never a negative conclusion
It will say a threshold appears crossed. It will not say a filing is unnecessary.
Never reasons about detection
No output suggests something is unlikely to be found, and no aggressive position goes in writing.
Never signs or files
Not a signing preparer. Returns, filing positions and signatures stay with you.
Never guesses a field
Anything it cannot trace to a source document is raised as an exception.
Built around §7216 client consent and the FTC Safeguards Rule (16 CFR Part 314) written information security plan requirement, for which IRS Pub. 5708 is the template. Every action is logged.
Where practices start
Chasing first, because it costs the most hours and carries the least judgment — and it is what earns the document access everything else runs on. Cross-border is the advisory domain to open next: highest exposure, and the one no incumbent is pointed at for this client base. See the cross-border workflow in detail.
Bring one client file.
Last year's return and this year's statements. See the draft before you decide anything.
Start free