Emily Thompson
firm founder · Miami, Florida
Press play — energetic intro, then the conversation
J This is Jennifer from the UpTax Podcast Room, and today I've got Emily Thompson with me. Emily Thompson, so great to have you on. E Thanks for having me on the show, Jennifer. I'm excited to talk shop today, this is a topic I could go on about for hours. J I love that energy already. So tell everyone a bit about your firm before we dive in. E Sure, so I run a bookkeeping and tax firm down in Miami. We're managing around 200 small-business clients right now, mostly restaurants, real estate folks, and a bunch of e-commerce sellers. J Two hundred clients is no small operation. What does busy season actually look like for you? E Honestly, it used to be chaos. Late nights, weekends gone, my staff burnt out by March. Every year I'd think, do I hire an accountant, do I hire a bookkeeper, or do I just try to survive with the team I've got? J And I know a lot of firms your size start looking at offshore teams around that point. Was that on your radar too? E Oh completely. I actually got pretty far down that road. I talked to a few offshore staffing agencies, ran the numbers, even had a couple of trial hires lined up. J So what happened? Why didn't you go through with it? E The hidden costs started stacking up. Timezone delays were brutal, I'd send something at 5pm and not hear back till the next afternoon. Then there were compliance gaps, little things that a US-trained preparer would catch instantly, but got missed entirely. J That rework must have eaten up any savings you thought you were getting. E Completely wiped it out. I was paying less per hour, sure, but I was spending double the time reviewing and fixing things. It wasn't actually cheaper once you counted my time. J So that's really the core question this episode is built around, right? What's more cost-effective, building your own offshore team, or using something like UpTax. E Exactly, and honestly, once I tried UpTax, that question got answered pretty fast for me. J Walk me through it, how did UpTax actually change things for your practice? E So the way it works is UpTax's AI tax preparation drafts the return first, pulling from the documents and prior year data. Then there's an offshore review layer that checks it before it even lands on my desk. J So you're not reviewing a raw first draft anymore. E Right, by the time I see it, it's already been through two passes. My job is really just the final sign-off, which is a completely different experience than staring at a blank return at midnight. J I imagine that gave you back a ton of hours during busy season. E It genuinely did. I didn't have to hire an accountant, I didn't have to hire a bookkeeper, and I didn't have to build out an offshore team from scratch. UpTax basically gave me the capacity of a bigger team without adding a single headcount. J That's the part I love, because everyone assumes automate your tax practice means replacing people, but it's really about freeing up the people you already have. E Exactly. My staff aren't doing data entry and first drafts anymore. They're reviewing, they're talking to clients, they're doing the work that actually needs a human brain. J Let's talk numbers a little, if you're comfortable. How did the cost compare to what offshore hiring would have run you? E Building my own offshore team, even a lean one, was going to run me recruiting fees, training time, management overhead, plus my own time supervising people in a different timezone. UpTax's pricing was a fraction of that, and there was zero ramp-up period. J No ramp-up is huge. With offshore hires you're basically training people for months before they're productive. E Months, easily. With UpTax I was reviewing usable drafts within the first week. That's the difference between tax preparation outsourcing that actually works and one that just adds another layer of management to your plate. J So for firms listening who are on the fence, sitting there thinking about hiring an accountant or hiring a bookkeeper just to survive busy season, what would you tell them? E I'd tell them to really think hard before building an offshore team from scratch. It sounds cheaper on paper, but the timezone friction and the compliance gaps are real, and they cost you more than you think in rework and stress. J And that's really how UpTax supports CPA firms, it's not replacing your review process, it's making the thing you review already close to done. E That's a perfect way to put it. It's AI tax preparation plus a review layer, and then my firm's expertise on top. It's the best of all three worlds honestly. J Has it changed how you think about growing the firm going forward? E Completely. I used to think growth meant hiring more people every single year. Now I know I can take on more clients and let the AI tax layer absorb a lot of that volume before my team even touches it. J That's such a game-changer for a firm your size. I mean, you're managing 200 clients without the headcount headaches most firms that size deal with. E It really has been a game-changer for us. I don't say that lightly either, I was skeptical at first, but the results speak for themselves every single busy season now. J I love hearing that, Emily Thompson, genuinely. This has been such a great conversation about how firms can actually rethink tax preparation outsourcing. E Thanks for having me, Jennifer. Happy to come back and talk numbers again after next season if you want. J Absolutely, we'll hold you to that. Alright everyone, if you're a CPA or EA firm looking to automate your tax practice without the offshore headaches, go check out UpTax and book a demo at uptax.ai. Thanks for listening, we'll catch you next time.
