# Plan staffing and deadlines for a CPA firm's busy season

A tax-season capacity plan that maps returns and engagements against filing deadlines, staff hours, and extension decisions.

- Topic: Projects & Operations
- Framework: Few-Shot
- Level: Advanced
- Tags: Analyze, Plan, Fill-in Template
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/plan-staffing-and-deadlines-for-a-cpa-firm-s-busy-season

## Prompt

```text
Help me plan staffing for my accounting firm's busy season so we hit deadlines without burning out the team.

**Season dates:** [e.g. "January 15 to April 15, plus September and October extension season"]
**Work volume by type:** [e.g. "220 individual 1040s, 60 S-corp and partnership returns, 15 C-corp returns, 8 audits with March deadlines"]
**Typical hours per item by complexity:** [prep hours and review hours - e.g. "simple 1040: 2 prep / 0.5 review"]
**Team:** [name or level, available hours per week, skills, planned time off]
**Review bottleneck:** [who can sign off on what]
**Filing deadlines that apply:** [e.g. "March 15 for partnerships and S-corps, April 15 for individuals and C-corps" - confirm current dates]
**Client document arrival pattern:** [e.g. "60% of documents arrive in the last 3 weeks"]

Build:
1. A week-by-week capacity table: hours needed vs. hours available, split into prep and review, with the gap shown.
2. Review capacity as its own constraint - flag the weeks where partner or manager review is the bottleneck.
3. A cut-off date for client documents, after which a return goes on extension by default.
4. An extension triage rule: which clients get extended early (K-1 dependent, missing documents, complex) and which must file by the original date.
5. Options to close any gap: seasonal staff, outsourced prep, shifting work to pre-season, or capping new clients.
6. A weekly status view the team can update: received, in prep, in review, waiting on client, filed, extended.

Use my numbers only; mark assumptions as [ASSUMPTION]. Remind me to confirm filing deadlines for the current year and any disaster-relief postponements.
```

## What to fill in

- who can sign off on what
- e.g. "60% of documents arrive in the last 3 weeks"
- ASSUMPTION

Free to copy and use. From ThinkWithPrompt (https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/), a library of 2,663 curated AI prompts.