Your entire tax-prep workflow, automated from intake to e-file.
Marcus’s return is ready — filed in one sitting.
Sarah reviewed 48 flagged items with full context. Everything else was already done.
Works with UltraTax CS · CCH Axcess · Drake · Lacerte · ProConnect
Chronexa doesn’t sell an AI. We orchestrate the leading models — mostly Claude — inside your firm’s own tools: TaxDome, your document store, UltraTax CS and your EFIN. We build and run the pipeline; your CPA reviews and signs every return.
Click a step above to jump · the run loops on its own
What it is
What is the AI CPA & Tax Engine?
The AI CPA & Tax Engine is a multi-agent system purpose-built for US accounting firms. It handles the labour-intensive stages of tax prep — document collection, classification, data extraction, gap detection, and return population — autonomously, while leaving professional judgement and sign-off to the CPA.
Think of it as a senior staff accountant who has already processed all 42 of a client's documents, extracted every W-2 box, verified every 1099-B lot, identified the missing K-1, and handed you a pre-built file with a punch-list — before you sit down. The engine does not file anything. You do, after reviewing what it prepared.
This matters legally: under the revised AICPA Statements on Standards for Tax Services (effective January 1, 2024), the signing CPA is personally responsible for the completed return, regardless of what tools prepared it. The engine is designed around that constraint — not against it.
How it works
How the CPA & Tax Engine works, step by step
Six specialised agents work in sequence, each handing structured data to the next. Each stage is purpose-built for its document type — a K-1 extraction agent trained on Boxes 1–20 of Schedule K-1 (Form 1065) outperforms any general-purpose OCR model on the same data.
- 01
Document Intake
Connects to wherever your clients submit documents — TaxDome, SmartVault, SharePoint, Google Drive, Box, or Dropbox. Every file is pulled, deduplicated, and queued for classification. No one opens a folder. No manual upload. A timestamped intake record is created before any human touches the file.
What you get Complete, timestamped document record per client — before a preparer opens the file.
- TaxDome
- SmartVault
- SharePoint
- Google Drive
- Box
- 02
AI Classification
Every document is identified and tagged by type — W-2, 1099-INT, 1099-DIV, 1099-B composite, K-1 (Form 1065), K-1 (Form 1120-S), Schedule E, prior-year return, organizer, receipts. The classifier is trained on the specific visual and structural signatures of tax documents, not a generic document model.
What you get A labelled document set, sorted by type, with any unrecognised files flagged for human review.
- W-2
- 1099-B / DIV / INT
- K-1 (1065 / 1120-S)
- Schedule E
- Brokerage composite
- 03
Field Extraction & Verify
Each document class routes to a specialist extraction agent — W-2 Box 1 through Box 20, every 1099-B lot, K-1 Boxes 1–20 for partnership returns. After extraction, an ML verification pass compares each value against the PDF text layer and flags low-confidence reads rather than silently accepting them. Nothing is quietly wrong.
What you get Extracted data with a confidence score per field and a flagged-items list. Low-confidence reads surface for review, not into the return.
- OCR engine
- ML verifier
- PDF text layer
- Confidence threshold
- 04
Gap Detection
Cross-references the extracted document set against the prior-year return and engagement organiser. Missing K-1 from a partnership that filed an extension? Foreign account in the prior return not in this year's organiser? Each gap generates a targeted client reminder via your practice management system — with context, not a generic "please send documents" email.
What you get A gap report per client and automated reminders through TaxDome, Karbon, or Canopy. You stop manually tracking who owes what.
- TaxDome
- Karbon
- Canopy
- 05
Return Population
Structured, verified data is mapped to your tax software's native import format and pushed in — UltraTax CS, CCH Axcess, Drake, Lacerte, ProConnect, GoSystem Tax RS — through the same import mechanisms that SurePrep and GruntWorx use today. The return arrives pre-filled; the flagged items arrive as a structured punch-list in the preparer's workflow queue.
What you get A return that is 90–94% complete before the preparer opens it, with a clear list of what still needs professional judgement.
- UltraTax CS
- CCH Axcess
- Drake
- Lacerte
- ProConnect
- 06
CPA Review & E-file
The preparer sees a review dashboard: source document and extracted value side by side, every flagged item with context, and a single-click approval flow. Nothing is filed until the CPA approves. After approval the return moves to e-signature and IRS MeF submission through the firm's existing tax software — nothing bypasses your compliance chain.
What you get A review that starts on the judgement calls instead of the data entry — the repetitive work already resolved, the uncertain items already flagged.
- Review dashboard
- e-signature
- IRS MeF
- SafeSend
The problem
The tax-prep problem it solves
Every US CPA firm runs the same gauntlet from January through April 15. The bottleneck is not tax judgement — it's the 3–6 hours of data entry, document-chasing, and classification that happen before any judgement begins. That labour is expensive, error-prone, and can't be hired away.
- Client documents arrive late — the bulk of them well after mid-February — compressing the real work into the last six weeks of the season.
- A complex 1040 with K-1s and brokerage composites requires 3–6 hours of data entry before any tax analysis begins.
- The final 48 hours before April 15 are when tired staff make the errors the signing CPA is personally liable for.
- SurePrep 1040SCAN — the industry's leading scan tool — covers ~700 financial institutions. Any other brokerage gets only summary data, not full extraction.
- State K-1s receive zero automated data capture in UltraTax CS; they are indexed to the parent Federal K-1 and left blank (Thomson Reuters documentation).
- 55,152 accounting degrees awarded in 2023–24 — down 6.6% year-over-year. The staffing shortage is structural. The talent pipeline will not recover at the pace firms need (Journal of Accountancy, Oct 2025).
The result: your most expensive staff spend most of tax season on work that is not tax work. The engine doesn't change tax law or replace CPAs — it eliminates the hours that should never have been billable in the first place.
Time to value
How fast you go live
Most firms are live in 3–5 weeks — not months.
- Week 1–2Connect document sourcesAuthenticate to your DMS — TaxDome, SmartVault, SharePoint, Google Drive, Box. Read-only access; nothing is modified at source.
- Week 2–3Configure & testTune the document classifier for your client mix. Run the engine on 10 de-identified prior-year returns. Validate extraction accuracy side-by-side.
- Week 3–4Map to your tax softwareConfigure the import format for your primary tax software — UltraTax, Drake, CCH, ProConnect, Lacerte, or GoSystem. First full end-to-end import tested.
- Week 4–5Parallel run & go-liveRun 20 live returns in parallel with manual prep. Compare outputs. CPA team signs off. Engine goes live for remaining returns.
What you need to start
- A practice management or portal system (TaxDome, Karbon, Canopy, or equivalent).
- Client documents stored in any standard DMS (Google Drive, SharePoint, Box, SmartVault).
- Access to your tax software's import/export format — provided by your software vendor.
- A designated "Qualified Individual" per FTC Safeguards Rule — most firms already have one.
- Your EFIN. The engine does not e-file on your behalf; your existing software and credentials do.
No public API is needed for any major tax software. Integration uses the same file-import mechanisms SurePrep and GruntWorx use today — proven in production at thousands of US CPA firms.
ROI
The return on a CPA & Tax Engine
The economics are easy to reason about and easy for you to verify. At a $250–$500 blended billing rate, every hour of prep time removed is margin you either reinvest in advisory work or keep. We are deliberately not printing a percentage here: the comparable figures in this market come from other vendors’ deployments rather than ours, and your own mix of 1040s, partnership returns and brokerage composites will drive the result far more than any benchmark. So we run a parallel test on 20 of your live returns before full deployment — engine and preparer working the same files side by side — and you get your own throughput number to decide on. The signing CPA still reviews and signs every return.
Want your firm’s number instead of the benchmark? Run the tax-season capacity calculator — your preparers, your return volume, your fee, in ten seconds.
Proof
How we prove it — before you commit
We run a parallel test on 20 of your live returns — the engine and your preparer work the same files side by side, and you compare the output line by line before anything changes in your workflow.
That test gives you your own throughput number — how much prep time actually came out of your mix of 1040s, K-1s and brokerage composites — instead of a percentage borrowed from another firm’s deployment.
Before any client data moves we walk your partners through the §7216 consent position, the US-hosted architecture, the WISP documentation and the retention policy — the review your firm has to pass anyway.
FAQ
CPA & Tax Engine FAQ
Does the engine replace the CPA reviewer?
No — and it's not designed to. Under the revised AICPA Statements on Standards for Tax Services (effective January 1, 2024), the signing CPA is personally responsible for the completed return, regardless of what tools prepared it. The "under penalties of perjury" statement on every filed return means this cannot be delegated to software. What the engine changes is what the reviewer looks at: an organised, pre-filled file with flagged items, instead of a blank screen and a folder of PDFs.
Which tax software does it work with?
Drake, ProConnect (Intuit), CCH Axcess (Wolters Kluwer), UltraTax CS (Thomson Reuters), Lacerte (Intuit), and GoSystem Tax RS. Integration works through each software's native import format — the same mechanism SurePrep 1040SCAN and GruntWorx use to populate returns today. No public API is required from any vendor.
What happens with K-1s from late-filing partnerships?
The Gap Detection agent identifies missing K-1s based on prior-year return data and sends targeted reminders to the client. When the K-1 arrives — in September after an extension — it is processed automatically and the return is updated. The preparer is notified. No manual tracking required.
Is sending client tax data to a third-party AI tool legal under IRC §7216?
Yes — with conditions. IRC §7216 and 26 CFR §301.7216-2 permit disclosure of tax return information to third-party service providers without taxpayer consent, as long as the purpose is tax return preparation. The engine is deployed on US-hosted infrastructure, which avoids the separate written-consent requirement that applies to processors located outside the United States. Chronexa provides a standard service agreement that satisfies the §7216 service-provider conditions.
We already use SurePrep 1040SCAN — what does the engine add?
1040SCAN is strong for W-2s and brokerage statements from its ~700-institution coverage list. But it explicitly does not capture state K-1 data, and any brokerage not on the list gets only summary amounts — not line-item detail. Crypto CSVs, multi-state allocations, Schedule E worksheets, and non-standard documents remain largely manual. The engine handles the edge cases that represent the majority of your most expensive prep hours — the complex clients who, incidentally, also pay the highest fees.
Is our client data used to train AI models? What about retention and SOC 2?
No client data is ever used to train models — not ours, and not any provider's. Returns and source documents are processed inside US-hosted infrastructure dedicated to your firm, never on shared infrastructure, and are retained only for the period your engagement letter and record-retention policy specify, then deleted on that schedule. We support your firm's security review with the WISP documentation, the §7216 service-provider agreement, and our current security posture and audit status — ask us directly and we will tell you exactly where we stand rather than point at a badge.
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