Updated
The problem every option is solving
The return is not the hard part. The hard part is the client who arrives the week of the deadline with a shoebox and expects the return tomorrow. Before you can judge anything, someone has to sort a year of statements and receipts into something you can review. That someone is usually you, in the weeks you have the fewest hours.
The usual answer is a bookkeeper who organizes and categorizes the client's expenses before review. In season, that bookkeeper is hard to find and booked solid. So firms look at the alternatives.
Option 1: Seasonal staff in-house
You hire for the season and train them in your systems.
- What you gain: full control. The work happens in your software, under your security plan, to your standard.
- What it costs you: you are hiring in the same few months as every other firm, training again each year, and paying for hours whether or not the work arrives. And the hours still go to sorting.
Option 2: Outsourced bookkeepers
A bookkeeping firm or independent bookkeeper, in the US or offshore, organizes client records under contract, sometimes under your firm's name.
- What you gain: hours you don't have, at a cost that follows the work.
- What it costs you: the good ones are booked before the season starts, and February turnaround is not July turnaround. Client information leaves your firm, which brings confidentiality and consent questions to settle before you send anything. Our bookkeeping capacity guide sets out what the regulations say and the questions to ask a provider. The work still needs your review.
Option 3: Tools the client uses
The client organizes their own records before they reach you.
- What you gain: the sorting moves to the person who knows what each charge was for, and nobody new has to be hired.
- What it costs you: it depends on the client using it. And you are relying on what the tool produces, so it has to show where every number came from. It is no substitute for full books where a client needs them.
Option 4: Push the client to an extension
Late or incomplete records go on extension, with a new document date.
- What you gain: time, and a return prepared from records rather than guesses.
- What it costs you: the sorting is postponed, not removed. An extension (Form 4868) gives more time to file, not to pay: tax unpaid by the April deadline accrues interest and may draw a late-payment penalty, so someone still estimates the balance by then. Clients who expected a return in April are rarely pleased. Our shoebox client guide has a script for that conversation.
The options side by side
| Option | Control | Cost | Timing in season | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seasonal staff | Full | Fixed, paid every season | Slow to hire and train | Firms with steady volume |
| Outsourced bookkeeper | Shared, set by contract | Follows the work | Depends on the provider's load | Clients who need full books |
| Client-side tool | Client sorts; you review | Depends on the tool | Ready when the client is | Clients who mainly need their expenses |
| Extension | Full | Little for the firm; interest, and possibly a penalty, on tax unpaid by April | Moves the work to later | Records that are incomplete, not unsorted |
These are general tendencies, not quotes. Many firms combine them.
Which clients need full books
Clients with payroll, inventory, loans, several entities or accrual books need full, reconciled books, and their bookkeeper stays in place. Many cash-basis Schedule C clients, and employees with a side business, mainly need complete statements and documented expenses. They are also the clients most likely to arrive with the shoebox.
Where Reapt fits
Reapt is a client-side approach, for that second group. Your clients talk to Amy, the face of Reapt, by text message, email or the web, with nothing to download. You get the result: their expenses arrive organized and explained, every number traced back to its source. The judgement stays yours.
It is not a bookkeeping service and keeps no books. It is not a CPA firm, gives no tax advice, and prepares and files no returns. Your intake, your engagement letters and your tax software stay as they are; our intake form template still covers the income forms and other items a return needs.
What stays yours
- What is deductible, and in what amount.
- Whether a record is adequate, and what to ask the client for when it isn't.
- The return itself, and any advice to the client.