Now’s the Time to Build a Better Busy Season
The final tax return may be filed, but for forward-looking firms, the real work starts now. As the dust settles, many Canadian CPA firms are entering the short window where they can reflect, recalibrate, and plan for a more efficient—and more profitable—tax season next year.
Whether your team is wrapping up corporate filings, shifting into advisory mode, or catching their breath after a grueling spring, this is the ideal time to ask a simple but important question:
Are you planning for capacity—or reacting to chaos?
Think Like a CEO, Not Just a Technician
One of the biggest mindset shifts for firm owners is learning to step away from doing everything themselves. The most successful practices are led by partners who act like CEOs, not solo technicians. That means looking at team structure, capacity planning, technology adoption, and workflow design—before the next season begins.
Your job as a firm leader is to:
Determine your demand for the year ahead
Build a resourcing model that matches it
Know your capacity constraints
Fill the gaps before they show up in April
Capacity Planning Starts with Numbers
Planning for next year starts with understanding what you handled this year. How many personal returns did your firm prepare? What was the mix of corporate, advisory, and project work? What did each team member contribute during peak periods?
Use real data, not guesswork. Many Canadian firms operate without tracking basic productivity metrics. But knowing your billings per preparer, your average turnaround times, and your seasonal revenue concentration allows for informed decisions—not overhiring or overextending.
For example, if you prepared 1,000 personal returns this year, and your goal is to grow by 10%, you’ll need the capacity to complete 1,100 returns next season. If an entry-level tax preparer can handle 150 returns during tax season, and a more senior team member can handle 200, you now have the framework to build your team.
Will you hire full-time staff? Seasonal part-timers? Outsource specific functions? The answer depends on your client mix, your off-season work volume, and your overall practice model. But the equation doesn’t change: demand must meet capacity—or you’ll carry it into extension season.
Don’t Forget Admin and Review Staff
Many firms underestimate the volume of admin and review hours needed to support tax preparation. Scanning, sorting, follow-ups, e-signatures, appointment management, and client communications require a dedicated support team.
Just as importantly, if you want partners and managers to stay out of day-to-day prep work, they need capacity allocated for review—not triage. Waiting until mid-season to hire or assign review roles almost guarantees bottlenecks.
Post-Tax Season: What Happens to Your Team?
A smart staffing plan doesn’t just focus on March and April. If you’re relying on six full-time staff to power your tax season, what happens in July? Do you have enough off-season work to keep them productive, or would a mix of part-time and contract roles better suit your model?
In many practices, 50–60% of annual billings occur between January and April. If your team can’t maintain productivity levels through the remainder of the year, that capacity becomes a cost centre—not an asset.
This is where tracking billing by role, service type, and season is invaluable. If your senior tax manager is expected to bill $200,000 annually, and she only bills $150,000, you’ve got a gap that needs to be addressed—through workflow adjustments, additional advisory work, or changes to staff planning.
What Gets Measured Drives Better Decisions
One major challenge for firms embracing value-based pricing or project-based work is the temptation to ignore time and cost data. But even if you don’t bill by the hour, knowing how long work takes and what each role contributes is key to ensuring profitability.
You don’t need a hyper-complex system—just a baseline understanding of:
Average returns per preparer by type
Revenue per team member
Admin and review time ratios
Seasonal vs. annual capacity
These are CEO-level metrics, and they’re essential if you want to grow strategically—not reactively.
Look Ahead Now—Not in January
Fall planning is what separates firms that thrive in tax season from those that scramble. Start asking:
What’s our expected volume next season?
What mix of full-time, part-time, and seasonal staff will we need?
Where were our bottlenecks this year?
Are we still relying on senior staff to do work that can be delegated?
Answering these now gives you time to recruit, train, and test systems before you’re buried in T1s.
Final Thought: You Don’t Need More Hours, You Need Better Structure
Tax season is never going to be easy—but it doesn’t have to feel like survival mode. With intentional planning, better data, and a CEO mindset, you can build a firm that’s not just more efficient—but more sustainable.
The best time to start is now.
