How KSZ Advisors Fixed the Hardest Part of Tax Work With Truss

KSZ Advisors has its hands full every day. The firm serves mostly high-net-worth individuals who own multiple businesses and/or multimillion-dollar companies, many of which operate both inside and outside the U.S.

The work is highly technical, the stakes are demanding, and the small team of three partners and two managers faces high expectations from clients. For partner Yani Marx, there’s no choice but to properly navigate the complexities of each engagement.

“International forms and international work, those can lead to big penalties from the IRS if not filed and done properly,” Marx explained.

Marx decided to join the fledgling KSZ and head up their operations after a 13 ½-year career at three well-known, large accounting firms: Cherry Bekaert, Grant Thornton, and EisnerAmper. The firm handles roughly 900 tax returns per year while continually expanding its capacity, dipping into fractional CFO work and family office wealth management.

“I wanted to just have some agency over my clients, my work, my time, things I was involved in,” she said.

KSZ was still figuring out how it wanted to shape its busy seasons, and wherever Marx worked, she found herself consistently dealing with the same headache at the start of every cycle.

“Honestly, intake. Client intake was always, no matter who I worked with, a difficult thing,” she said.

“Working in bigger firms, you work with different people, and your different bosses have different ways of doing things. So there wasn’t a standard workflow,” she continued. “And that could create extra time and inefficiencies.”

Marx found herself building an Excel spreadsheet containing checklists for each of her clients so that she and her staff could have a standardized reference for every individual and keep tabs on any updates. It was a tedious process, but it was crucial to keeping tax season on the rails.

“If I didn’t have some standardized paper that anytime someone jumped in, they could see exactly what we need and what we were missing, they would have to rebuild it every single time,” she said. “You’re talking about someone spending half an hour anytime you get a new person on your engagement.”

The spreadsheet was doing its job, but it was a bottleneck at the beginning of a long process, and Marx was tired of the constant upkeep.

KSZ had an obvious need for workflow software to accompany its growing practice, but Marx’s many years of experience at large firms left her skeptical about the possibility of a new-age tool sweeping in and solving the intake problem.

“I was very hesitant before signing on. Is this actually going to work the way they say it works? Are they going to keep growing? Are they going to keep developing?”

Part of that hesitancy when it came to Truss, specifically, was that she’d already tried a different AI-powered intake tool. That attempt had proven fruitless because very few people at the firm liked using the software enough to adopt it. An unused tool is an impossible expense to justify.

“If no one was using it, there was no point in paying for it or having it as part of our workflow,” Marx said.

KSZ’s leadership team was motivated to give something new a try, leading Marx to conduct a demo with Truss. It was that initial demo that helped overcome any lingering skepticism about a new AI-powered workflow tool and whether it would keep up with her demands.

“What led us to stay is how responsive and willing to work with us (Truss was) — and correct and fix and mold and change with us,” she said.

The adoption problem, both on the firm’s side and the clients’, quickly evaporated.

“It’s easy for them to see what they’re missing. It’s easy to just click on a link and go in,” Marx said.

KSZ saw immediate changes upon implementation. Truss made the intake process, previously the firm’s biggest pain point, much more efficient.

“Intake and getting information in the door (is) way quicker than we have in the past,” Marx said.

The firm’s partner and managers were able to consolidate work that used to be spread across a handful of tools into one user-friendly platform.

“I love how (Truss does) workpapers. I know you can get other tools that do it, but it’s nice to have it already in the system,” Marx said. “Having a standardized delivery method and way of presenting the information to clients, I feel like it makes it seem more professional. It gives clients more of what they’re looking for as well.”

KSZ splits a high volume of returns and a lot of other work across a team of five, so eliminating touchpoints on each return frees up hours for everyone, while allowing team members to do higher-value work at the head of the firm.

And while spending less time on taxes, KSZ has found that clients overwhelmingly love the new system. KSZ saw a 98.18% client satisfaction rate among all its Truss users in the first year of implementation.

Meanwhile, Marx’s skepticism about whether the product would evolve at the requisite pace to keep up with her plans for growth has evaporated.

“Since signing up, that hasn’t been my experience ever,” she said. “New features all the time. Like, I almost can’t keep up with it.”

Asked to sum up what sets Truss apart as a fit for KSZ and its clients, Marx didn’t point to a feature.

“For me, I always want to say it’s customer service,” she said. “That is my genuine experience with Truss: that there’s someone that wants to know my pain points, wants to help me work through my pain points, and wants to make my life easier.”

Truss is proud to partner with firms like KSZ for exactly that reason – because accountants have tough jobs, but there’s no reason they should stay tedious or exhausting for one’s whole career.