Comparing CPA Pilot, TaxGPT, CoCounsel or ChatGPT?Fourteen Agents on one client record.
AccuMax covers research, review, planning and drafting, plus the rest of the engagement, with a complete practice OS behind every Agent.
What separates AI tools for tax work
Assistants such as CPA Pilot, TaxGPT, CoCounsel and ChatGPT help with research, review, planning and drafting. The questions that separate them are what each one works from, whether its answers carry citations, and whether a person reviews every output. AccuMax's Agents work from the client's own record, the Researcher Agent cites its sources, and a qualified member of your firm reviews and decides.
Two questions to put to every AI tool
AI assistants tend to cover a few jobs, such as research and drafting, and are typically bought apart from the practice system. Ask each vendor these two things.
14
jobs covered
How much of the engagement does it cover?
AccuMax covers the whole engagement with fourteen Agents, from the first website visit to the response to an IRS notice.
1
practice OS behind it
What practice system sits behind it?
A complete practice OS: Client and Team portals, workflows, time, invoicing and payments, e-signature, dashboards and audit logs. The Agents work on that same client record.
- FrontDesk Agent
- Intake Agent
- Profiler Agent
- Recognizer Agent
- Extractor Agent
- Bridge Agent
- Preparer Agent
- Reviewer Agent
- Researcher Agent
- Planner Agent
- Defender Agent
- Concierge Agent
- Responder Agent
- Scribe Agent
The jobs an assistant is used for, and the jobs around them
The first group is where AI assistants are most often used. The second is the rest of the engagement, handled on the same client record.
| The job | AccuMax Agent | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Jobs AI assistants are often used for | ||
| Research a tax question, with citations | Researcher Agent | Answers from federal and state tax sources, the client's own context and the documents, audio and video your firm uploads to its Knowledge Hub, with citations every time. |
| Check the return before a person does | Reviewer Agent | Surfaces audit flags, omissions, inconsistencies and missed opportunities, on returns from the Preparer Agent or from external software. |
| Model planning scenarios | Planner Agent | Models outcomes, cashflow and tax impact across scenarios, and turns the chosen strategy into a workflow. |
| Write letters and messages | Scribe Agent | A custom content generator and tone refiner: engagement letters, notes, messages and IRS correspondence, in your templates and your tone. |
| Draft the reply to a client email | Responder Agent | Finds the mail for your assigned accounts and drafts the reply. |
| The rest of the engagement, on the same record | ||
| Turn a website visitor into a lead | FrontDesk Agent | Gives IRS-sourced answers to common tax questions on your own website, then converts the visitor into a lead. |
| Collect what you need from the client | Intake Agent | Authors client dialogs seeded with last year's data and forms, so the client confirms and updates instead of starting from blank, and builds the Tax Organizer. |
| Scope the engagement | Profiler Agent | Summarizes every client input and works out the work and forms needed, so scope is known before work starts. |
| Sort and split what the client uploads | Recognizer Agent | Identifies the file and the form, splits composite files into individual forms, and tags 250+ IRS and non-IRS forms. |
| Read the forms into the record | Extractor Agent | Extracts every field, writes it to the client record, and offers a side-by-side view of the original and the extracted data. |
| Move data into your tax prep software | Bridge Agent | Moves approved data into your tax prep software. Drake today, more coming. |
| Draft the return | Preparer Agent | Drafts federal and state personal returns from the client record, with optional manual iteration. |
| Handle an IRS notice | Defender Agent | Processes IRS notices, examines the evidence in the client record, proposes a strategy and how to implement it, and drafts the responses. Your firm decides what goes out. |
| Answer clients' own questions | Concierge Agent | Gives clients self-help in the portal, answering from IRS guidance and the client's own profile. |
Every Agent drafts and assists. A qualified member of your firm reviews the output and decides.
What sets AccuMax apart
Works from the client's record
Every Agent reads and writes one client record, so a plan and a return are built from the same facts instead of from whatever was pasted into a prompt.
Citations and review built in
The Researcher Agent answers with citations. Every Agent drafts and assists, and a qualified member of your firm reviews each output before it is final.
Client data never trains models
The models come from the Azure AI platform and AccuMax is hosted on Microsoft Azure. Client data is never used to train models.
Questions firms ask
- Can I use a general assistant such as ChatGPT for tax work?
- General assistants can help draft and explain. Tax work also depends on the client's own facts, citations you can check, and a qualified reviewer. AccuMax's Agents work from the client record, the Researcher Agent cites its sources, and your firm reviews and decides.
- Does AccuMax replace a tax research tool?
- AccuMax includes the Researcher Agent, which answers from IRS.gov, the client's own context and your Knowledge Hub, with citations. AccuMax runs beside the tools you use, so some firms keep a research library alongside it.
- Is client data used to train AI models?
- Never. The models come from the Azure AI platform, so client data is not handed to an outside model provider and is not used to train anyone's models.
- How is AccuMax different from a standalone AI assistant?
- A standalone assistant answers questions and drafts text. AccuMax has fourteen Agents covering the whole engagement, built into a complete practice OS, so the Agents' work lands in the same client record, workflow, billing and e-signature your firm runs on.
- Who makes the final decision?
- Your firm. The Agents draft and assist, and a qualified member of your firm reviews the output and decides what goes out.
See it on your own returns
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