How the Akopyan Group Modernized and Scaled Tax Workflow In a Single Season

Balancing tax and advisory is challenging enough for any firm, but the Akopyan Group, CPAs is attempting to do so while growing by acquisition.

With a team of 20 that runs roughly 1,400 returns a year spread across three offices in the Puget Sound region of Washington state, the Akopyan Group operates with a part-time CFO mindset and stays close to clients long after their returns are filed each year.

“It’s not just about preparing the return and getting it out to them,” said founder Yuriy Akopyan. “It’s about following up and reminding them about quarterly estimated tax payments, and having that back-and-forth communication about missing information. It’s always good to have a platform that streamlines things so you’d spend more time truly helping clients instead of just writing a bunch of emails.”

In December, the Akopyan Group acquired Toyer, Dietrich & Associates and maintained the firm’s existing Everett office. The latter was a long-established, largely paper-based practice, and consistency was key when it came to building a cohesive operation for the first tax season with all three offices.

“If we’re changing how the firm does things, we want to make sure everybody is on the same platform, everybody is handled the same efficient way,” Akopyan said. “You have to have a nice platform to be able to bring it up as an offering, where people say, ‘Oh, this is an upgrade.’”

Before acquiring Toyer, Dietrich & Associates, the Akopyan Group was an early adopter of client technology. The firm says it was employing client portals as early as 2009. But the various pieces of technology never lived under the same roof. There was a platform for electronic delivery and organizers, another for workpaper processing, and a third for following up on estimated taxes.

“We were using two different platforms, basically, on top of the tax return,” Akopyan said.

Handoffs between systems are opportunities for client information to get lost in the shuffle, especially if that information was incomplete upon first submission. With that, a firm faces pressure to make uncomfortable decisions while losing precious time on the spot.

“We know that 90 to 95 percent of the time, whenever clients bring their documents, drop off, or upload, it’s almost always incomplete,” Akopyan said. “So that whole process of, ‘Okay, missing information, how are we going to get back? Are we going to email, are we going to call the client?’”

At the newly acquired Everett office, meanwhile, the hands-on method was still far from being brought up to the modern technology standard. Jill Martz, now the Akopyan Group’s Client Success Specialist, spent years at Toyer, Dietrich working to digitize the paper practice the hard way.

“My old workflow, we’d get the paperwork in, I’d scan it in, organize it, get it prepped, and put it on the shelf for them to grab,” Martz said. On assembly and delivery, a single morning could disappear fast. “It would normally take me half the day to get five of them done.”

Document scanning wore on Martz enough, but constantly chasing down documents was even more taxing.

“We had all these different things in different places to look for different stuff. To me that was really counterproductive,” Martz said. “I was really, really wishing that we had just one spot to look for everything.”

So in essence, two firms that had unique platform problems were merging into one right ahead of busy season. Without a new system, the workflow grind had a chance to spiral out of control.

The move to Truss was spurred by the firm’s Operations Manager, Scott Hancock. Though he couldn’t remember how Truss first came to his attention, Hancock led the evaluation and brought the platform to Akopyan’s attention after seeing the product guide a client through busy season from both sides.

“One of the things we were missing internally was just an easy, step-by-step procedure to give clients at the front end and the back end, the gathering of the tax documents and the delivery of the tax return,” Hancock said. “The fact that Truss just easily lays that all out for everybody, without having to log in, without really any obstacles. I just sort of knew that our clients needed something like that and weren’t getting it up until that point.”

There were lots of tools available that could do one piece of the workflow well. But the deciding factor for Akopyan was the fact that Truss could consolidate everything into one platform.

For a growing firm making a bet on a new platform, the Akopyan Group also needed a vendor that would be agile enough to help with adjustments on the fly. The relationship had to be productive and communicative, and Truss was able to deliver on Akopyan’s expectations.

“The biggest thing for us was that we have a partner that listens to us and is willing to improve and make a change,” Akopyan said. “There were a lot of changes that were asked for, and we got them, whether it was a matter of a couple of weeks or a couple of months, but it was done.”

Onboarding was another challenge to overcome, especially considering that the staff from the acquired firm had to participate while adjusting to all the other changes that come with a new leadership structure. Hancock credited the platform’s existing resources and the responsiveness of the Truss team working in tandem.

“There’s a ton of detail, which is something we as a firm haven’t always seen with other products,” Hancock said. “It feels like the support team is right there with an answer if we can’t figure it out ourselves.”

The first major difference Akopyan and his team noticed came in the organizer step. Instead of generic questionnaires being sent to reluctant clients, Truss custom-built each client’s organizer off prior-year data, leading to documents coming in much faster.

“Truss took it to a different level, where it’s customizable at every client level, by simply rooting off the prior-year data and doing that dynamic customization,” Akopyan said.

Not only was high client adoption accelerating the intake phase, but if a document was missing, anyone on the team could request it without leaving the platform.

“I can create a task and send that client a task and say, with a couple of words, ‘Give me your closing statement on the purchase of that property,’” Akopyan said. “And then it lands right there within that client’s documents, in that project, and it’s easier to process.”

Meanwhile, Martz noticed the biggest difference during the assembly and delivery phases from her own seat. Scanning and renaming files one at a time became a relic of her past, and the daily time savings were quantifiable.

“The biggest difference is just the ease with which you send out the returns. It’s just that drag-and-drop, and then having it sort everything for you,” Martz said.

Put a number on it, and it adds up across a season of returns.

Firms also know client adoption is everything, and the signs were immediately encouraging when the Akopyan Group rolled out Truss. One of the first returns of the season belonged to a client in her eighties, and that experience immediately quelled some of Martz’s fears.

“She absolutely loved using it. Said it was so easy to use,” Martz said. A paper organizer went out as a backup and came back unused. “She said, ‘I didn’t even need it.’”

There’s nothing more discouraging for a firm than rolling out a new intake or delivery system and getting inundated with questions about how to submit documents or log in to sign off on a finished return. For Hancock, the fact that inboxes were much cleaner and phones rang much less throughout the season was a difference-maker.

“We’ve gotten far fewer questions from clients about what to do when they’re in the process of sending us everything for their tax return, as well as on the delivery end too,” Hancock said. “It’s also seemed to lessen the number of phone calls we’re getting. It’s definitely increasing the positive impression of the firm that we want to cultivate.”

The season also got off to a much faster start, which had a multiplier effect with the increased adoption from clients.

“There was one year where we didn’t send anything out until January 25th, or something crazy like that,” Hancock said. “I don’t feel like we have any concerns like that either with Truss.”

Martz became the firm’s Truss champion, running a lunch-and-learn for colleagues and building how-to guides. Next season, she believes enthusiasm for the platform at the firm could drive even better results.

“My fellow admins are really enjoying it,” Martz said. “Now they’re asking me, ‘Hey, how do you do this?’”

Akopyan believes Truss can be much more than a time-saver. He sees the platform as a foundation for the firm to build its ideal tax workflow, both in and out of season. He thinks the next gains will come in faster new client onboarding and in allowing his preparers to move their work hours up the value chain.

“That’s going to be a huge time saver for us, and less of a headache for the client,” he said.

Standardizing a growing, multi-office firm with existing client-chasing headaches seemed like a tall task for the Akopyan Group. Now that Truss can handle the entire workflow from intake through delivery on one efficient platform, the firm spends less time juggling documents and disconnected systems, leaving more time for the work clients actually value.

And when preparers are used to acting as reviewers, Akopyan anticipates a morale boost across the firm.

“That would bring their blood pressure down and not have them stressed during taxes,” he said. “That’s what I’m looking forward to.”

Truss is proud to partner with firms like the Akopyan Group, because accountants’ jobs are already demanding enough. The tools they use to prepare returns shouldn’t create extra hoops to jump through.