John Carter
CPA · Austin, Texas
Press play — energetic intro, then the conversation
J This is Jennifer from the UpTax Podcast Room, and today I've got John Carter with me. John Carter, so great to have you on. J Thanks for having me on the show, Jennifer. I'm excited, this is a topic I could talk about for hours. J Well good, because we've got a few minutes, not hours! So set the scene for us. Tell everyone about your firm. J Sure. I run a mid-sized CPA firm in Austin. We've got about 450 individual clients and around 80 business clients. So it's a real mix, W-2 folks, small business owners, a handful of real estate investors thrown in there. J That's a serious client load. What does busy season actually look like for a firm your size? J Honestly, it's brutal. January through April, my staff is putting in sixty, seventy hour weeks. We're drowning in data entry, document chasing, and just the sheer volume of returns that need to get drafted and reviewed. J And I imagine the instinct for a lot of firms in that spot is, okay, we need more bodies. Did you go down that road? J We did, actually. Last year I seriously looked at hiring an accountant, maybe two, just to get through the season. And then I also explored building an offshore team, because a lot of firms do that now for tax preparation outsourcing. J So what happened? Walk me through that decision. J So the math on hiring is rough. A qualified accountant in Austin, salary, benefits, training, that's a real commitment, and it doesn't scale down after April fifteenth. Then I looked at an offshore team, and yeah, the labor cost is lower, but you're now managing a whole separate operation. Recruiting, training, time zones, quality control, data security agreements. It's a project in itself. J It's basically a second business you have to run just to support your first business. J Exactly. And that's when one of my colleagues mentioned UpTax to me. J I love that this is where it turns. So what was your first reaction when you looked at UpTax? J Honestly, I was skeptical. I've seen a lot of software promise the world. But the concept made sense to me immediately, it's AI tax preparation software, the AI actually drafts the return, and then there's an offshore review layer on top of that before it ever gets to me. J Right, and I always want to be clear with our listeners, UpTax doesn't file anything. It's not e-filing software. It drafts the return and your firm reviews and files, you're always in control. J That's exactly it. That control piece is what sold me, actually, because I wasn't handing my clients' returns off to some black box. The AI does the heavy lifting on the draft, pulling data, organizing it, doing the initial calculations. Then there's a review step before it lands on my desk. J So walk me through what changed once you actually started using it. J Within the first month of busy season, I could already tell the difference. My staff wasn't spending hours on data entry anymore. The AI tax engine was drafting returns overnight, literally, we'd come in the morning and have a stack of drafts ready to review. J That's wild. How much time would you say that actually freed up? J We tracked it. Over the year, it gave us back more than two hundred billable hours across the team. That's not small. That's time we redirected into actual client advisory work, the stuff that pays better and clients actually value. J Two hundred hours is basically like getting an extra part-time staff member, without the payroll headache. J That's the exact way I described it to my partner. It's like we got capacity without hiring another accountant, without hiring a bookkeeper, without any of that overhead. J So let's talk numbers, because I know that's what a lot of firm owners listening want to hear. How did the cost compare to building your own offshore team? J Night and day. Building an offshore team, even a small one, you're looking at recruiting costs, management time, software licenses for them, quality assurance. When I actually ran the numbers, UpTax came out significantly more cost-effective, and I didn't have to manage a single new employee. J And that offshore review layer inside UpTax, that's already built in, so you're not sourcing it yourself. J Right, that's the part people don't realize at first. It's baked into the workflow. The AI drafts, trained reviewers check it, and then it lands with me for the final review before anything goes out the door. I'm not managing that layer, it's just there, working. J I think that's really how UpTax supports CPA firms, it's not just software you install, it's this whole ecosystem behind your practice. J That's a good way to put it. It genuinely feels like we automated our tax practice without losing the quality control that matters so much in this profession. J Did your clients notice a difference at all, or was this mostly behind the scenes? J A little of both, honestly. Turnaround times got faster, which clients definitely noticed. But mostly it was behind the scenes, my team was less burnt out, which meant better communication with clients, fewer mistakes, less of that April chaos energy. J Less chaos energy, I love that phrase. So if another CPA firm owner is sitting where you were a year ago, debating hiring versus offshore versus something like this, what would you tell them? J I'd tell them to really think hard before building an offshore team from scratch. It sounds cheaper on paper but it's a lot of hidden work. If you want to actually automate a CPA practice without adding headcount, UpTax genuinely is a game-changer. I don't say that lightly. J I love hearing that, because I use this platform every day talking to firms, and your story is exactly why I keep recommending UpTax to everyone who'll listen. J Well, it's earned it. My busy season this year was the calmest it's been in five years, and my client count didn't shrink, it actually grew. J That's the dream, right? Growing without burning your team out. John, this has been such a great conversation. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. J Thanks for having me on the show, Jennifer. Happy to talk about this anytime. J To everyone listening, if you're a CPA or EA firm wondering how to get your time back this coming busy season, go check out UpTax and book a demo at uptax.ai. We'll see you next time on the UpTax Podcast Room.
