Last updated 10 October 2026

Tax and Accounting Preparer

Five openings.

Apply for this role. Reading the page is not applying. The application is the only way to be considered, and it is the whole first step.

Why this role exists

We need someone to oversee these items:

• You prepare returns, and the number of returns the firm can deliver goes up by everything you do. The goal is seven invoiced a week for every preparer.
• Every return you prepare frees a reviewer to review, which is the step that decides how fast work reaches a client.
• Clients get a date and keep it, because there is enough preparing capacity to hold one.

Logistics

• Hours: Full time, which is eight hours of work and one hour for lunch. You choose one of three shifts.
  1. Indian time, in the morning: 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM in India, which is 10:30 PM to 7:30 AM Austin, Texas time. People on this shift do not talk to clients.
  2. Indian time, ending at 1:00 PM Austin, Texas time: 2:30 PM to 11:30 PM in India, which is 4:00 AM to 1:00 PM Austin, Texas time.
  3. Until 4:00 PM Austin, Texas time: 5:30 PM to 2:30 AM in India, which is 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM Austin, Texas time.
• The team: several of the tax and accounting team are in India, so you work with people in more than one country every day.
• Company stage: Small, growing firm with a lean leadership bench.
• Start: As soon as the contract is signed.
• Location: Remote.
• Reports to: the Head of Delivery.
• Direct reports: None.
• Video: On for every meeting.
• Equipment: Your own. You reach the firm's systems through a remote desktop we give you.
• Contract: Contractor. The agreement is here.

Work hours

• Part time is four hours a day. Full time is eight hours a day. You choose when you apply.
• On part time, two of those four hours are 12 pm to 2 pm, Austin, Texas time.
• In India that window is 10:30 pm to 12:30 am in summer, and 11:30 pm to 1:30 am in winter.
• Monday through Friday.
• Year round, and the hours run a bit longer through tax season.

Full time here

You are passionate about your work. Full time here means 8 to 10 hours a day, because you want to see things through to finished.

Who we want here

• Women. We want more of them here.
• Autistic people. The rules are written down. Nobody has to read a room.
• Direct communicators.
• People who think in systems. When something breaks, they look for what caused it instead of fixing only the part they can see.
• People who are optimistic about the outcome when they are under stress or facing a challenge.
• People who move fast and get a lot done.
• People who are all in.
• People who want the company to grow and are excited to help make that happen.
• People who, when they are stressed, notice what they are feeling, then say what they need and write it down. Stopping at the feeling, with nothing written down, is not a fit here.

Who should not apply

This is not the role for you if you:

1. Wait for somebody else to pick a thing up, or need the work handed to you tidy and already decided.
2. Report a problem and stop there.
3. Try somebody once, get no answer, and give up.
4. Go quiet when something needs raising, or find telling the truth consistently hard.
5. Read hidden meanings and office politics instead of the plain words.
6. Overstate what you can do, or are different before you are hired and after.
7. Have changed jobs every year or two, or want short projects and a work whenever schedule.

How your results are measured

• Seven returns invoiced a week, counted for you and not as a firm total.
• Every open return has a date the client has been told, and a new date before the old one passes.
• Chargeable hours at 75% of hours worked.
• Every client question gets a written reply inside 24 hours. Sometimes that means telling the client you need to investigate.
• Nothing reaches the Interim CEO because two people on the team could not settle something between them, or because you could not reach a reviewer.
• Your time entries are detailed enough that in six months, if a client questions the time, we can read the entry and answer the question. You do not have to remember it, and nobody has to ask you.

Role summary

You prepare returns and the books behind them. Somebody else reviews and signs your work, and that is a different role in this firm.

What you own

Preparing

• Individual and business returns: 1040, 1120, 1120S, and 1065.
• Bookkeeping, categorization, and month end close, to the point where somebody else can review it without rework.
• Sales tax filings where a client has them.
• Moving the client's files into Canopy. That sits with you and not with the reviewer.
• Sending a complete return to review. A missing basis rollforward, depreciation schedule, or client answer is a return that comes straight back, and review is the firm's bottleneck.

Chasing your own answers

• When you cannot reach a reviewer or a teammate, you try again, another way, and you say in writing what you need and by when.
• One attempt and a stop is not following up. Neither is asking the Interim CEO to make the call for you.

The client's question, answered in writing

• Answering in the client file rather than leaving the answer in Google Chat.
• Working the figures out where the question calls for them.
• Telling the client the order the work happens in, and giving them a date.

Helping build the firm

• The firm builds its own tools, and this role is part of building them.
• The first time a question or a mistake turns up, you say so, and it becomes a tool or an SOP instead of something only you know.
• Where AI makes a piece of the work faster or more accurate, you show us how.

Your own time entries

• Naming the client and the outcome on every entry.
• Logging the entry in the week the work happened, in five minute increments.
• Only time that is logged counts as work for the firm.

What this role does not do

• Final review and signing on returns. That sits with the reviewer, and it needs a credential this role does not require.
• Reviewing somebody else's returns or books.
• Pricing, invoices, and engagement letters.
• Anyone's schedule, pay, or performance.

How we work together

• We work at the same hours most of the time, and some of the work is done asynchronously. You will not always have somebody online to ask, so you write things down and you keep going.
• Written, asynchronous communication is modeled as part of the company's culture. Things are read in writing before a live call is requested, and writing is used to prevent the need for calls.
• When you say you will do something, say what day it will be done.
• If you are going to miss that day, say so before the day passes.
• If you need something from somebody else, ask them yourself.

Software we use

• Canopy, for the client record, the tasks, and time.
• ProConnect, where new returns are prepared and reviewed.
• UltraTax, for historical records only. No new return is done in it.
• QuickBooks Online and Xero, for the books.
• AI, which the firm uses heavily and will show you how we use.
• A hosted remote desktop, which is how you reach the firm's systems.
• Zoom phone
• Google Workspace.
• Our internal site, for the SOPs.

What we need from you

• Less than five years preparing US books and tax returns, counted across every employer rather than at your current one. Five years exactly is too many.
• Expertise across 1040, 1120, 1120S, and 1065.
• Expertise with companies doing $0.5M to $5M in revenue. That is the size we serve.
• Willingness to work inside our software rather than your own.

Pay

Pay starts at $1,000 USD a month and may be higher with experience.

How pay works here. The parts, how each one grows, the coverage bonus and sales commission.

Career growth

• Tell us what you want over the next three years. We will help.
• You have a growth meeting with your manager every week. That meeting is yours to run, and it is where we plan what you learn next.

The technology you need to work here

The setup is the same for every role here. The technology you need to work here lists the computer, the internet, the power backup, the audio and the workspace.

How to apply

Fill in the application. It is the whole first step.

It asks for a web address for a short video recording answering both of these questions. Put the video anywhere we can open without an account, and paste the address into the application.

• What do you do when you get a task/project you do not understand?
• From a logistics standpoint, when is the earliest that you could start if you were to be accepted?

Apply now. If you have read this far and it sounds like you, send it. We read every one.

Tax and accounting career levels, the levels used across the firm.