Before Soraban, intake ran on a patchwork the owner built herself. A conditional Cognito questionnaire handled engagement letters and intake questions. Clients dumped documents into a portal, or dropped paper off at the office for staff to scan by hand. Scanned PDFs went to GruntWorx's pay-by-the-page service, where someone still had to correct whatever it had misfiled before another person keyed everything into Lacerte, one field at a time.
The biggest drain was not any single step. It was checking and rechecking what had come in, what was missing, and what each client had sent the year before. The generic organizer from the tax software went ignored, so the owner typed up custom document lists client by client, then spent the season back-and-forth over the gaps.
Akore is thorough about software, and she shopped the category hard: Truss, SafeSend, and Stanford Tax all got a look. Anything that touches a client has a high bar at this firm, and Soraban cleared it. The change was hard to even measure, she says — the work she used to do simply disappeared, to the point where she barely registered it was gone.
Clients get a document checklist that adapts to them, and 99% complete it without help. Automated reminders took over the follow-up a staff member used to track by hand, from unsigned engagement letters to missing documents.
"The process just changed so much that it was just like a breath of fresh air."
— Akore Chemello, CPA & Owner
Paper drop-offs are at zero. Connect's output needs almost no cleanup. When something occasionally lands in the wrong spot, it takes seconds to fix instead of a complete rework session.
The custom lists, the status checks, the reminder emails, the scanning, the keystroking: each one felt small on its own, but together they were the intake department — a function the firm used to hire for.
What the firm gained instead is visibility. Staff can see at a glance who has submitted, who hasn't signed an engagement letter, and who needs a nudge, without anyone keeping a tracker. And when one issue did come up this season, the Soraban team repaired it the same day — the kind of support Akore describes as people who actually care when something breaks.
"It takes all the little pieces and just poofs them away. They didn't feel like a big deal, but a thousand pounds of feathers still weighs a thousand pounds."
— Akore Chemello, CPA & Owner, The Tax Business Group
Under 30 days to your first live season. No migration, no commitment until you're ready.
