Case study: AI automation for an expat tax firmWicklow Expat Tax
A complete operating platform for a US expat tax practice, from first client contact to filed return.
- Client
- Wicklow Expat Tax
- Practice type
- US expat tax filing for Americans abroad
- Scope
- Practice platform, email, letters & billing, form automations
- Status
- Live and in active development
The challenge
US citizens living abroad still file US returns, and theirs are among the most form-heavy in the profession: foreign earned income, foreign tax credits, FBAR and Form 8938 reporting, K-1s from foreign entities, net investment income tax, and elections like Section 962.
Clients are spread across countries and time zones, documents arrive in different formats and currencies, and a single return can involve a dozen moving parts. Running that out of email threads, spreadsheets, and shared folders meant a lot of manual tracking and re-keying.
Off-the-shelf practice software is built for the average US firm. Expat workflows, multi-currency billing, and forms like Section 962 meant either bending Wicklow's process to fit a generic product or living with workarounds. Instead, we built the platform around how Wicklow actually works, and when they need something new, it ships in hours instead of waiting on someone else's roadmap.
What we built
Client portal & intake
A branded portal where clients complete an intake questionnaire, see their to-do list, upload documents, and sign, all in one place.
Document management
Per-client document storage with status tracking (requested, received, reviewed), previews, and recovery for deleted files.
Pipelines & stage automations
Kanban pipelines for every engagement, with automations that fire when a job enters a stage: emails, tasks, and reminders.
Custom email inbox
A firm inbox built into the platform instead of bolted on: every message is linked to the right client account, threads sit next to that client's documents and return status, and staff compose and reply in context.
Automated email answering
Incoming client email is read, categorized by client and topic, and answered with a drafted reply grounded in the client's real status: which documents arrived, where the return is, whether the invoice is paid. Staff approve with one click; anything sensitive waits for a person.
Email triage & routing
Messages are sorted by urgency and topic and routed to the right preparer, so questions about a Form 8938 or an FBAR deadline don't sit in a general inbox.
Engagement letters & e-signature
Letters generated per client from templates with their services and fees, signature fields placed on the document automatically, and signatures captured in the portal. No separate PandaDoc-style proposal tool.
Invoices & multi-currency billing
Line-item invoices built from the engagement, multi-currency support for clients paid abroad, and payment status tracked on every client account.
Automatic client updates
Stage automations email clients when their return moves forward: documents received, in review, ready to sign, filed.
Tasks & reminders
Firm-wide and per-client tasks and reminders, so nothing depends on someone's memory.
AI assistant
An AI chat assistant with access to account context, so staff can ask about a client and get an answer immediately.
Tax form automations
Dedicated automations for K-1 processing, Form 8960 (net investment income tax), the Section 962 election, and the FBAR worksheet, plus Spanish Modelo 100 and 200 for clients with Spain filings.
Firms often pay for separate tools to do this: a proposal tool like PandaDoc or Ignition for letters and invoices, a shared inbox, and an e-signature service. At Wicklow, it all lives in one platform designed around how they work.
Built for expat forms. Works for any form.
Every form automation follows the same pattern: pull the inputs from the client's documents, apply the form's rules, produce a worksheet a preparer can verify in seconds, and flag anything that needs professional judgment. Changing the form means changing the rules, not rebuilding the system, so what we built for Wicklow can be repurposed for any return.
Built for Wicklow
- K-1 processing, including K-1s from foreign entities
- Form 8960: net investment income tax
- Section 962 election calculations
- FBAR (FinCEN 114) worksheet from foreign account data
- Spanish Modelo 100 and 200 for clients with Spain filings
Repurposed for your firm
- Form 2555 and Form 1116: foreign earned income and foreign tax credits
- Form 8938, 5471, and 8621: foreign assets, corporations, and PFICs
- Form 1040 schedules (A, B, C, D, E) and the 1099 series
- Form 1065 and 1120-S returns and the K-1s they issue
- State returns and any form with a defined set of inputs
Results
We're measuring time savings across a full filing season and will publish real numbers here once we have them. We'd rather show you measured results than estimates. In the meantime, the platform is live and handles Wicklow's day-to-day practice operations.
What's next
- AI second reviewer that double-checks returns before they go out
- Daily and weekly AI review so nothing falls through the cracks
- AI account overviews summarizing what matters about each client
- More tax form automations (1099s, additional K-1 workflows)
Want something like this for your firm?
Some firms start with three or four automations. Others, like Wicklow, replace a stack of separate subscriptions with one platform built around how they work. The audit shows which tools you can drop and what to build first.
Find out where your hours are going.
In a free 45-minute session we map your workflows and hand you a ranked list of automations for your firm, with estimated hours saved for each. It's yours to keep whether or not you work with us.