How It Works
Stop spending tax season chasing clients, documents, and signatures
Small accounting firms rarely struggle with the accounting itself. You know the tax code and you know the numbers. What wears your team down is the operational drag: half-returned document lists, spousal e-signature stalls, scattered status spreadsheets, and unbilled advisory calls.
Six operational bottlenecks every CPA recognizes—and how CPA Relay fixes each one.
Bottleneck Nº1
The partial document dump and the missing K-1
Clients email four PDFs in February, forget the remaining three items until April 10th, and reply to old threads with "attached!" (with no attachment). Your staff can't start the return, but the client assumes you've been working on it for weeks.
How CPA Relay solves it: Instead of a 35-page blank organizer or a 14-reply email chain, clients get an itemized PBC checklist on their portal Home page. Uploads (including iPhone HEIC photos up to 50 MB) land straight in shared amber folders on the project, and automatic reminders nudge overdue items.
Explore document requestsBottleneck Nº2
Engagement status trapped across spreadsheets, drives, and private inboxes
A client calls asking where their return stands. The partner doesn't know. The preparer who touched it is at lunch. The workpapers are in a local folder, the tracking spreadsheet hasn't been updated since Tuesday, and the client's last question is buried in someone's personal email.
How CPA Relay solves it: The project stage, Message Board, PBC to-dos, amber client folders, sky-blue firm workpaper folders, signatures, and invoices live in one place. Anyone on the project team can open the engagement and answer the client in ten seconds.
CPA Relay vs. spreadsheets + emailBottleneck Nº3
Monday morning guesswork: "What is waiting on us vs. waiting on clients?"
Everyone at the firm is busy, but nobody has a single list showing whose move it is. An unanswered client message or unsigned engagement letter can sit quietly for two weeks because it's hidden inside an individual project tab.
How CPA Relay solves it: Open What's Outstanding. It gathers every overdue to-do, unsigned 8879, pending approval, client message awaiting a reply, profile change request, and unpaid invoice across the firm—sorted by urgency with one-click Nudge buttons.
Explore engagement managementBottleneck Nº4
Finished returns stuck waiting on Form 8879 and shared-email spouses
The return is prepared and reviewed, but you can't transmit the e-file until both spouses sign Form 8879. When a married couple shares one email address, standard e-sign tools either throw an error or let one spouse sign both lines—violating IRS rules.
How CPA Relay solves it: Upload the 8879 PDF right inside the project. CPA Relay refuses "no verification" so you record your in-person or third-party KBA check on the audit certificate, sends separate tokenized links and email codes to spouses sharing an inbox, and seals the executed PDF with a SHA-256 fingerprint.
Explore signatures & 53 templatesBottleneck Nº5
Unbilled advisory calls and hours that quietly get written off
A client calls with a "quick question" about an S-Corp election or equipment purchase. You spend 25 minutes giving high-value advice—and forget to log it. Or you discount an invoice in another billing app and lose track of how much time your firm actually wrote down.
How CPA Relay solves it: Log time in 6- or 15-minute increments from the Dashboard or project using locked-in Price Book rates. Pull unbilled time onto an invoice in one click—and if you adjust a line item's hours or price, CPA Relay privately tracks the exact Write-down or Write-up amount and reason for your firm.
Explore time tracking & Price BookBottleneck Nº6
Chasing paper checks and losing 3% on card payments
Once a return is filed, collection leverage drops. Mailing PDF bills leads to 45-day waits, and taking credit cards on large tax and advisory bills eats thousands of dollars in merchant processing fees.
How CPA Relay solves it: Every invoice includes a no-login online payment link for Stripe ACH, credit card, and Cash App Pay, backed by automatic payment reminder schedules, client Auto-Pay for monthly retainers, and optional processing fee passthrough so your firm nets 100% of the bill.
Explore invoicing & Stripe paymentsReplace the administrative drag in your firm
One workspace for the engagement letters, PBC checklists, Form 8879s, time logs, and invoices your team is currently chasing across five tools.
Concierge onboarding for every firm · Unlimited free client logins