Robert Kim
tax firm owner · Phoenix, Arizona
Press play — energetic intro, then the conversation
J This is Jennifer from the UpTax Podcast Room, and today I've got Robert Kim with me. Robert Kim, so great to have you on. R Thanks for having me on the show, Jennifer. I've been looking forward to this one. J So let's just dive right in. Tell everyone what your firm looks like day to day out there in Phoenix. R Sure. We're a fifteen-person shop, and we handle roughly fifteen hundred individual returns a year, plus a good chunk of small business work mixed in there. J Fifteen hundred returns with fifteen people. That's not a small operation. What does busy season actually feel like for you? R Honestly, it used to feel like survival mode. January through April, everybody's working nights, weekends, and we're still triaging which returns get done first. J And the classic question every firm owner hits eventually — do I hire an accountant, do I hire a bookkeeper, or do I try to build out an offshore team to handle the overflow? R That's exactly the fork in the road we were at about eighteen months ago. We ran the numbers on building our own offshore team. J And what did that math look like? R Recruiting, training, management overhead, time zone coordination — it added up fast. We're talking months just to get people productive, and that's before you factor in quality control. J So somewhere in that process you found UpTax. Walk me through how that changed the equation for you. R Honestly, it was a total game-changer for us. UpTax's AI tax preparation engine drafts the return first, and then it goes through an offshore review layer before it ever hits my staff's desk. J So your team isn't starting from a blank return anymore. R Not even close. They're reviewing a draft that's already organized, already flagged for anomalies, already mostly complete. It's a completely different job than data entry. J That's the piece I think people don't get at first — this isn't replacing your CPAs, it's giving them their time back. R Exactly. My senior staff went from spending sixty percent of their time on prep to spending maybe twenty percent. The rest is judgment calls, client conversations, planning work — the stuff that actually needs a human. J Let's talk numbers, because I know listeners want the real ROI, not just the feel-good story. R Year one, we processed the same fifteen hundred returns with the same headcount. We didn't hire a single additional preparer. J No new hires at all? R Zero. And building that offshore team ourselves would've cost us more in year one just in setup and management than our entire UpTax subscription cost us for the whole season. J That's a huge claim. Cheaper than doing it in-house, and faster to get running. R By a wide margin. Tax preparation outsourcing the traditional way means you're managing people. With UpTax, you're managing a workflow. Big difference. J So take me through the actual client journey now. Someone comes in the door — what happens? R Client uploads their documents through our portal. UpTax's AI tax layer ingests everything, organizes it, drafts the return. Then it moves into offshore review for a first pass on accuracy and completeness. J And then it lands with your team. R Right, my CPA does the final review, catches anything nuanced, has the client conversation if needed, and signs off. We're always the ones who review and file — that part never changes. UpTax just makes sure what lands on our desk is already ninety percent there. J I think that's such an important point for people listening who are nervous about AI in this space. You're still fully in control of the return. R One hundred percent. Nothing goes out the door without my firm's eyes on it. UpTax just took the grinding, repetitive part off our plates. J So if another firm owner is sitting there right now trying to figure out how to automate their tax practice without blowing up their whole operation, what would you tell them? R I'd tell them stop thinking about hiring an accountant or hiring a bookkeeper as your only lever for growth. Capacity doesn't have to come from headcount anymore. J That's such a shift in mindset for this industry. R It really is. We took on more clients this year than we ever could have with our old process, and nobody worked more hours to do it. J That's the dream, honestly — growth without burnout. R It's the first busy season in years where my team actually took weekends off in March. J I love that. So when people ask how UpTax supports CPA firms, this is basically the whole picture — intake, drafting, offshore review, then your firm's final judgment. R That's exactly it. It's not replacing accountants, it's giving accounting firms leverage they didn't have before. J Robert, this has been such a great, honest breakdown. I really appreciate you sharing real numbers and not just talking points. R Happy to. This stuff actually changed how we run our firm, so it's easy to talk about. J Well listeners, if you're on the fence about whether to hire, outsource, or automate — go check out UpTax for yourself. Head to uptax.ai and book a demo. Robert, thank you so much for coming on. R Thanks again, Jennifer. This was fun.
