Illustrative scenario: a two-partner Toronto tax practice through T1 season
A two-partner Toronto tax practice carrying about 400 T1 files and 90 corporations runs April on triage. The constraint is rarely preparation capacity — it is knowing which files are stalled while there is still time to chase, and keeping the June 15 self-employed tail visible after the April 30 push ends.
The firm in this scenario
An archetype, not a client. The figures below describe the shape of the practice being modelled — they are inputs to the scenario, never results.
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
| Archetype | Two-partner personal and corporate tax practice |
| Location | Toronto, Ontario |
| Firm size | Two partners and three seasonal staff |
| Client profile | Roughly 400 personal files and 90 corporate files |
- Client CRM
- Services catalogue
- Task Master
- SLA dashboard
- Email digests
The problem
April triage lives in one shared spreadsheet. Rows have no owner, so a file waiting three weeks on a single slip looks identical to a file actively being prepared. The partners discover what is missing in the final week, when chasing it costs the most.
The second failure is seasonal amnesia. Once April 30 passes, attention drops — but self-employed clients still file by June 15, and their balances were already due April 30. The tail is where the late-filing penalties actually land.
The workflow, step by step
- 1
Import the client book
Clients arrive by CSV with legal name, fiscal year-end, contacts and program accounts, so the season starts from one list rather than three.
Client CRM with CSV/XLSX import
- 2
Assign T1 and T2 services with cadences
Each client's obligations are recorded as typed services. The cadence is what generates dates: annual for T1, fiscal-year-end-driven for T2.
Services catalogue
- 3
Open season projects with stages and owners
Every file becomes a project with a document-chase stage, a preparation stage and a review stage — each with a named owner and a definition of done.
Task Master projects
- 4
Rank everything by proximity
Deadlines colour by how close they are: red for overdue, orange for due soon, green for on track. The board is computed from real due dates, not from status meetings.
SLA dashboard
- 5
Send the morning digest
Each preparer receives one email listing what is theirs and what is closest, so nobody has to open the board to know the day's order.
Reminder digests
What this changes
Firms in this position typically stop discovering missing documents at the deadline: a stalled file ages into a colour while there is still time to chase it, and the June 15 tail stays on the board after April ends rather than disappearing with everyone's attention.
About this scenario
Related reading
Where this applies
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