Build an AI System for Client Intake and Document Sharing

Many accounting firms rely on a patchwork of tools like ShareFile, Liscio, and general-purpose form builders. ShareFile and Liscio provide a secure portal for file exchange, but they treat documents as black boxes. An accountant still has to download a W-2 and manually type the data into CCH Axcess or UltraTax. The secure sharing is present, but the automation is completely missing.

Consider the typical onboarding process for a new client. Your firm emails a 10-page PDF organizer. The client prints it, fills it out, scans it, and emails it back along with a dozen other attachments like prior year returns and 1099s. An admin then spends 30-45 minutes downloading everything, creating a folder structure, renaming files, and transcribing data from the organizer into your tax software. If a K-1 is missing, an insecure email chain begins.

Workflow tools like Karbon try to solve this with checklists and basic forms, but they cannot perform data extraction. The structural problem is that these tools are either secure file vaults or task managers. They are not designed to be data intake systems. Their architecture is built around files or tasks, not the structured data contained within the files. To solve this, you need a system built from the ground up to connect document analysis with your core practice management database.

The first step is a discovery process to map every data point your firm needs for a new client. We audit the specific documents you collect, like W-2s, 1099-DIVs, and broker statements, and identify the exact fields to extract. We then map these fields to your downstream systems, whether that's CCH Axcess or QuickBooks. This audit produces a precise data schema and integration plan before any code is written.

The technical approach uses a FastAPI service to handle client uploads and a Claude API integration to perform the data extraction from PDFs. We use Supabase for its PostgreSQL database and user authentication, which allows us to create isolated, secure portals for each client. Documents are stored in AWS S3 with fine-grained IAM policies, and access is granted via temporary pre-signed URLs, which is far more secure than a standard shared link. The system creates a complete audit log for every action.

The delivered system is a simple web portal for your clients and an admin dashboard for your team. Clients upload documents and see a checklist of what is still needed. Your team sees extracted, validated data ready to be synced to your practice management software with a single click. The process reduces an hour of fragmented work into a 5-minute review.