taxdome • intake

saas platform for accounting and tax firms, replacing a dozen disconnected tools with a single system that helps automate work with clients

end-to-end scenario that turns tax season into a structured workflow

every tax season firms collect client information through separate tools, then piece it all together by hand before filing

goal

increase intake completion rates, reduce manual follow-ups, and remove the uncertainty

solution

designed a single intake flow with ai-checklist, system tracks progress and handles reminders

checklists created: 40,752
activation: 44%
completion rates: +25%

Intake flow overview: the firm creates a document checklist with AI, edits it, and the client completes one task — welcome screen, questionnaire and document checklist

discovery

I ran interviews with firms, pulled support tickets, and reviewed prior research.

Interview quotes grouped by stage: season prep, sending the request, follow-up, handoff

personalization. each client has personal docs. firms chased the gaps for weeks.

one giant form. organizer felt endless, so clients stalled and left it unfinished.

benchmarked the competitors. SafeSend, Soraban, Truss, Canopy already had what we lacked: a unified flow, a document checklist, reminders and missing reasons.

concept to ship

sketched the concept, mapped the roadmap. wireframes and flow, low-fi

Low-fi wireframes of the firm side and client side of the intake flow

de-risked it with engineering early. I brought disputed calls to engineering to gather constraints first. Reminders got approved straight off a sticker flow.

Flow diagram reviewed with engineering to collect constraints

Sticker flow for reminders, approved by engineering

decomposed it into 9 iterations. I prioritized the release order and user stories with the PM, from MVP to full flow

shipped the AI checklist first. the core win: AI reads last year's return and proposes a personalized checklist the firm just edits.

Create document checklist: generate with AI from last year’s Form 1040, then edit the proposed documents

First version of the client checklist flow

then the client checklist broke. my 3-column table overloaded once I added reasons and reminders. A quick hallway test confirmed it: 4 of 6 skipped the reason and submitted half-empty.

rebuilt it as tasks. I split the table into card-tasks and moved reasons into a sidebar at submit. Fewer doc-requests after.

Client document checklist rebuilt as card tasks with upload and status per document

Submit sidebar asking the client for a reason for each missing document

fixed nearby screens too. engineering was already in that code, so I bundled small fixes to neighboring screens at almost no cost.

launched it at our Vegas forum. I demoed it to the beta community to top anticipation, then turned it into template for PMs and sellers.

Slack shout-out thanking Max for presenting Intake & Delivery at the TaxDome forum in Las Vegas

Max on stage at the Las Vegas forum demoing “Send organizer to client”

scope & constraints

scoped the bet to one package. I cut it to an organizer + AI checklist from last year's return, with a clear endpoint.

existing architecture instead of a new section. reused the design system and shipped the MVP by November, in time for the season.

Client portal “Your to-do list” with the tax questionnaire task inside existing surfaces

Client welcome screen listing what the firm needs: questionnaire and document checklist

Questionnaire step of the client intake flow

result

for the client one task, visible scope, self-check at the end. The firm gets everything in one place.

business won too. Intake feeds the tax-program integration: every data send is a monetized transaction, a new revenue stream.

4,235 firms created at least one AI-generated checklist → less prep time.

44% activation sent a combined package to a real client → faster intake.

40,752 checklists in peak week, 79% AI-generated.

~25% lift in client completion rates. Simpler forms, clear gaps, visible progress

scale & system

10 → 10k clients. same package fits 10 clients or thousands. AI scales without template upkeep.

reusable across the design system. shipped as templates other clusters reuse.

smarter each season. each completed intake trains next year's generation.

reflection

scale in B2B is about attention. I embedded intake into surfaces firms already use instead of building a dashboard. Shipping less surface is its own kind of feature.

new scenario tempts you to build a dedicated screen. But for a firm with hundreds of clients, that's just one more thing to open in a day with no slack.