Tax CRM software is asked for in the quiet months by a practice that has just survived a season it does not want to repeat. The problem is rarely the tax work; it is the hundred small facts around it: which clients have confirmed they are coming back, which have sent their documents, which have extended, what each was charged last year, and who in the firm is handling whom. A tax practice's client book is a season laid out in advance, and the software that keeps it has to be organised around that season rather than around a sales pipeline. This page sets out the fields that make the difference and the order in which a practice usually discovers it needs them.
Who is coming back, and who has not said
The first question of every season is the size of the book. A record that holds, for each client, whether they have confirmed for this year, when they were last contacted and what they paid last time lets a practice see in November how March will look, chase the silent clients while there is still time, and decline new work honestly when the book is full. Practices without that field start the season not knowing whether they have a hundred and forty returns or two hundred, and staff accordingly wrong.
Extensions and status, on the client
Once the season is running, each client is in a state: documents requested, documents received, in preparation, in review, filed, or extended. The state has to live on the client record where the whole firm can see it, with the person responsible against it, because the question a practice manager asks fifty times a day is which returns are waiting on the client and which are waiting on the firm. A shared spreadsheet can hold the state; it cannot stop two people changing it in two copies.
Last year's fee is this year's starting point
The fee for a returning tax client should be reviewed from evidence: what was charged, how many hours the return actually took, how many documents arrived late, and whether the scope changed. When those figures are on the client, the review is a reading exercise and the fee moves with the work. When they are not, the practice charges what it charged last year, absorbs the extra hours, and wonders in May why a full season produced a thin margin.
Pricing the season's work
A return, a year end or a payroll engagement is priced the same way: hours at standard rates across partner, manager and staff, blended into one rate and realized at what the practice actually bills. The blended rate worksheet on this site works that on the page for any engagement, and the billable rate worksheet works what a preparer's hour has to charge from salary, burden, overhead and the hours that reach an invoice. Both are free; the paid plan keeps the fee and the season on the client record.
Questions people ask about tax crm software
Is tax CRM software the same as tax preparation software?
No. Preparation software prepares and files the return. The CRM keeps the client book around it: who is coming, their state, their fee and their owner. Yearendo publishes no tax rule and files nothing.
Does it handle clients who only appear once a year?
That is the point. A client who is silent for eleven months still has a record with last year's fee, last year's hours and a confirmation state for this year, so the practice knows in November what March will hold.
What happens to the client book if the practice leaves the software?
It exports as a CSV, every client with its state, fee and calendar. A client book the practice cannot take with it is not the practice's.