Opportunity Audit

Understand how, where, and why AI can become growth outcomes for your firm.

Learn where your highest-growth AI opportunity is, how to achieve it, and how to prove you did. Understand the commercial, technical, and human context that enables it.

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Three rings, commercial, technical and human, start far apart and slide together until they overlap. The one area all three share lights up, and from it a line climbs up and to the right, faster and faster.

What you get

Clarity on your growth goals, for everyone who has to deliver them.

For partners

The decisions

Framed around the growth goals we set together on the strategy call.

  • What’s limiting those goals, with the evidence.
  • Where to invest first, and what it’s worth on your own numbers.
  • What to stop paying for.
  • Whether to run it yourselves or with us, and who owns it.

For your growth team

The plan

Built around the work they already do, to multiply it.

  • Where business development time goes today, and where it should go.
  • The AI support that fits each role, from prospect research to content.
  • A 90-day plan with owners and the measures that count.

For IT

The blueprint

Gathered with your IT lead during the audit.

  • Every system, the data it holds, and how it connects: API, export or not at all.
  • Data security: where client data lives, who can reach it, and how 7216 consent is recorded.
  • Observability: what your environment can log today, and what each build must log.
  • A build brief for each priority, with guardrails, tests and a pilot estimate.
See the full sample report
Sample report For partners

The answer, on page one

Your goal

Grow fees 8% a year without adding partners.

The constraint

Partner review. Returns wait 6.2 days for a partner, and the business development hours in your plan go there instead.

The first move

Managers own the review. Partners sign off on what managers flag and take the freed time to their top clients.

  • 8,400 partner hours a year on work a manager could do
  • $13K a year on the AI stop list
  • $107K to $394K over three years, low to expected, against $97K to run it
Fictional 110-person firm.

How it works

Four to six weeks, planned around your firm’s calendar.

  1. Free

    Strategy consultation

    We agree your growth goals and who drives them, then plan the audit around them.

    Every step after this aims at those goals.

  2. Virtual or in person

    Interviews and surveys

    Conversations and targeted surveys with the people tied to your goals.

    You hear what’s in the way from the people closest to the work.

  3. With your IT lead

    Systems and data review

    We check that the data exists, the systems connect, and client data can stay protected.

    Every recommendation is one you can build safely.

  4. Live, with your leadership

    Private debrief

    We walk your leaders through the report and answer every question live.

    You leave with next steps you decided together.

Sample report

Preview your report

Sample report

A fictional 110-person firm

Names and numbers are illustrative. The systems and rules are real as of October 2026.

The answer, on page one

For partners

Your goal

Grow fees 8% a year for three years, mostly from CAS and advisory, without adding partners.

The constraint

Partner review. Returns wait 6.2 days for a partner, and the business development hours in your growth plan go there instead.

Found in your time entries, your Karbon status history and 11 of 16 partner interviews.

Also limiting: partner pay is set on charge hours, with no credit for bringing in new clients.

The first move

Managers own the review, and partners sign off on what managers flag. AI scan and K-1 import in CCH Axcess, plus a review-notes agent, give managers the hours to do it. Partners put the freed time into planning meetings with their top clients.

  • 23 top priorities

    named by 16 partners. Only 2 were named by more than half of them. 4 of the last plan’s 12 initiatives got done.

  • 8,400 hours a year

    of partner time on work a manager could do, by the partners’ own count. The first move frees about 1,500.

  • $64K a year on AI

    across 6 subscriptions. 23 of 60 Copilot seats are used weekly. Stop list: $13K a year.

  • 31% of staff

    say they’ve used personal AI accounts on client work. Anonymous survey, 94 of 110 responded.

  • $107K to $394K over three years

    Low to expected case, against about $97K to run it yourselves. Your partners set the assumptions, and your controller confirmed the inputs.

In the full report, every number names its source system and the person at your firm who confirmed it.

Where partner hours go

For partners
  • Partner review and sign-off 34%
  • Work a manager could do 24%
  • Client service 20%
  • Admin and internal 12%
  • Business development 6%
  • Firm leadership 4%

24% is work a manager could do, most of it first review. 6% goes to the business development your growth plan depends on.

Source: 12 months of Karbon time entries by work code, confirmed by your controller. The manager-level share is your partners’ own count.

Workflow: 1040 review

For partners and IT

Standard 4 steps: documents in, prepare, review, file

Reality 11 steps, 5 handoffs

6.2 days waiting for a partner

  1. Documents in through the portal
  2. Scan and K-1 entry
  3. Prep by the offshore team
  4. Preparer self-review
  5. Senior review
  6. Preparer fixes
  7. Manager review
  8. Preparer fixes
  9. Queued for a partner
  10. Partner re-review and sign-off
  11. E-sign and e-file

Partners re-review what managers already reviewed. Partner judgment is needed at 1 step of 11.

  • Fix One review checklist for every manager
  • Borrow AI scan and K-1 import, added to CCH Axcess in 2026
  • Build A review-notes agent that drafts the manager’s notes

For managers: about 10 more minutes a return at first, and about even once the agent drafts the notes.

Source: Karbon status history for 1,900 returns last season, walked through with a tax manager and a preparer.

Growth, last 12 months

For partners and growth team
  • 63qualified opportunities
  • 26new clients, 41% won
  • $18Kaverage first-year fee

Where the 26 came from

  • Client referrals 17
  • Referral sources 5
  • Inbound 3
  • Outbound 1

Two of every three new clients came from a client referral. Partners held 40 planning meetings with their top 150 clients and asked for an introduction 9 times.

With AI support: a Monday list of in-market companies for each partner, and proposal first drafts from your past wins.

Measurable today: wins and fees, from billing. Not yet: the pipeline, which lives in two partners’ spreadsheets.

Source: new-client flags in billing, proposal files, and partners’ recall where the files were thin.

What the first move is worth

For partners
LowExpected
Added planning meetings a year 55 110
Expansion work won, $8K each 4 14
New clients from introductions, $18K each 1 6
New annual fees $50K $220K
Three-year margin at your 40% $81K $355K
AI stop list, three years $26K $39K
Total over three years $107K $394K
Cost to run it yourselves $97K $97K

Expected case: 1 meeting in 4 finds expansion work and half of it is won; 1 introduction in 8 becomes an opportunity, won at your 41%. The low case halves the meetings and lowers every rate. New clients bill for half their first year, and 88% stay each year.

Cost: about $21K to build and run the agent, and $76K of your people’s time.

Not counted: freed hours at billing rates, fewer extensions, staff who stay, and anything after year three.

Source: assumptions set by your partners, low and expected. Inputs confirmed by your controller.

Systems and data

For IT and AI leads
SystemWhat it holdsAccessStatus
CCH Axcess Tax Returns, workpapers Open Integration Platform, keys by request Needs work
Karbon Work in progress, time entries REST API Ready
QuickBooks Online CAS client ledgers API and MCP Ready
SharePoint, Outlook Client folders, email Microsoft Graph Ready
HubSpot Contacts, no pipeline API Needs work
Microsoft 365 Copilot Reads any file its user can open 23 of 60 seats used weekly Needs work
Personal AI accounts Client data, unmanaged No firm control Risk

Logging: the Microsoft 365 audit log is on. Each build must log every action and its source.

Source: admin screens and usage reports, reviewed with your IT lead.

Build brief: review-notes agent

For IT and AI leads
Starts
When a return moves to manager review in Karbon.
Reads
The return, last year’s return and your review checklist, from CCH Axcess.
Produces
Draft review notes for the manager to accept or edit. A manager signs off every note.
Guardrails
Runs in your own Microsoft tenant. Only on returns whose signed 7216 consent names the AI provider: 71% of 1040 clients today. Your WISP gets an AI section before the pilot.
Tested on
50 past returns, against the notes your partners wrote. It goes live only if it catches 8 in 10 of their issues.
Effort
About three weeks to a pilot, then one extension season beside your reviewers before anyone relies on it.

Source: the systems review with your IT lead, and consent records from your engagement letters.

Also in the report

  • The plan execution ledger: what the last plan promised, and what happened
  • The constraint map: human, structural, process, technical and timing limits, each with its evidence
  • Your AI spend ledger, with the stop list
  • Where each partner wants freed hours to go
  • AI support for each growth role, from prospect research to proposals
  • A recommended owner, and a builder shortlist (opt-in only)
  • Training needs, by level
  • The blocker log, with patterns by level and no names
  • Signed 7216 consent coverage, and what your WISP needs for AI
  • Which results your systems can verify today
  • A 90-day plan that runs without us

You keep all of it, whether you build it yourselves or with us.

Pricing

One fixed fee, and it counts toward what comes next.

$5,000 fixed fee

  • Covers the strategy consultation, interviews and survey, systems and data review, report and private debrief.
  • If you continue with our AI Transformation Advisory program or a custom AI agent, the full fee is credited toward it.
  • The report stands on its own, whether or not you continue with us.

Request your strategy consultation today

Email:
derek@theoutlierpractice.com
Phone (call or text):
402-972-6339

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Our why

Independent firms must prosper.

In a desirable world, the underdog must have a chance to win. Speed versus size, legacy versus brand, ingenuity versus strength. Dynamism requires competition. Clients and professionals must have the ability to choose independence and thrive.

Today, resources win.

Size is a proxy for power. There are few things that can’t be won with more available resources to throw at them. Industry consolidation is emptying out the “middle,” pressuring independent firms to sell, stay small, or struggle.

Technology is the great equalizer.

Every firm has access to the same intelligence. The outliers are breaking away based on how, where, and why it’s used. Firms of all sizes deploying AI strategically across the people, services, and operations that grow them can benefit disproportionately to the resources they have available. But to do so requires thinking and acting differently, aligning resources correctly, and moving boldly into the future.

Embrace the new leverage.

Leverage is the multiplier between what you put in and what you get out. For decades, the profession has embraced Maister’s vertical leverage: the staff-to-partner ratio. To increase leverage, a firm had to add people and push work down. In this model, size won. AI adds the horizontal dimension, a multiplier for every person and process in the firm. Growth potential becomes untethered from available time, headcount, and capital. This is how an outlier firm finds its unfair advantage.

Heart is now the differentiator.

In the Industrial Revolution, machines disrupted muscle. In today’s intelligence revolution, machines are disrupting minds. The heart must take center stage, so that human ethics guide financial engineering. We must ensure that AI works for us, not instead of us. This approach forces us to choose raising ambition over reducing costs, expanding human capacity over replacing it, increasing agency over reducing it. It’s easy in theory but difficult in practice. Implementing this ideology means an increasing number of professionals will have the ability to earn more while working less. The outlier firms that lead with heart will become magnets for top talent, creating an upward spiral that elevates the owners, employees, and clients alike.

Be an outlier.

History had room for slow and steady. The future will reward those who embrace it first. Our job is to live in that future, translate what we find, build what you’re missing, and teach what will help you win. Our job is to ensure your prosperity.

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