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Practice Profile: Dreaming up a better tax season

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Accounting firm ASE Group does not do taxes on April 15, and its employees don’t work Fridays.

That’s the vision founder Al-Nesha Jones conjured up when she asked herself: “What would tax season look like if we had our way?”

Flexibility was a foundational principle for Jones in establishing her New Jersey-based practice in 2016, after she felt rushed back to work at her corporate job following maternity leave.

(From left to right) ASE Group founder Al-Nesha Jones, comptroller Ugo Williams, and chief of staff Amanda Hansley
(From left to right) ASE Group founder Al-Nesha Jones, comptroller Ugo Williams, and chief of staff Amanda Hansley

tamara fleming photography

By the time the pandemic hit four years later, Jones and her fully remote team of four had already mastered the new working models that COVID would normalize, but that period also inspired her to expand the practice from pure tax preparation to full-service accounting.

“We were catering to client needs — whatever brought the money in,” Jones recalled. “We didn’t get serious about [expanding] until the pandemic, when we realized people wanted more. Providing tax prep work was not enough. In a short period, people became day traders, moved out of state … We needed to pivot in the way we operated. We now offer a full-service solution to clients — accounting, tax prep, advisory. It entirely changed how we feel about the profession, how busy season feels. All good changes came out of it.”

However, Jones acknowledged, there was one bad change: having to cut the clients that did not align with the pivot.

“We like to think of it as finding a place that’s a better fit for them,” she explained.

The firm currently serves about 150 clients — specifically individual small-business owners who live or work in New Jersey, New York or Pennsylvania and are sole proprietors or single-member LLCs — though ASE is “slowly working [its] way down to 100.”

Jones exercises empathy in letting these clients go, explaining that the firm has outgrown their more simple service requirements. “We give them plenty of time to evaluate their options,” she said. “When we are parting ways, we don’t say, ‘You can’t stay anymore,’ we give a one-on-one explanation that, ‘You’d be a one-off to us, and that’d be a disservice to you.”

Jones also gives departing clients references to other accountants that specialize in their industry, with the caveat that ASE gets no commission, and they should do their own due diligence.

“We felt better not just sending them out in the wild,” she said, adding that these conversations often happen right after tax season, “so they have six-plus months to seek another accountant. We also provide one hour of transitional services at no additional charge. We gather documents; we are happy to do that at no additional fee. The intent is to not make it any more difficult than it needs to be. I’m training

my own brain: This is better for everyone. We do what’s best for them, and better for us also. Better for both parties. We get the capacity back to serve the clients we’re best equipped to serve.”

What Jones has also found to be universally beneficial is her team’s four-day work week. While her staff is all women, Jones said that it just “sort of worked out that way” after the interviewing process yielded women (and mothers) as the best candidates.

“What I love about working with moms is they tend to get it done, with an any-means-necessary attitude,” Jones shared. “I don’t condone an environment where you burn yourselves out. Moms are creative in their solutions and pivot well. This team adjusts quickly to change.”

No-email Fridays

It was Jones’ own adjustment period, launching her firm with a newborn in tow after she “didn’t want to be rushed back to work sooner than ready” in her prior job, that inspired her team’s flexibility.

In April 2016, she started renting an office with a security deposit and a promise to the landlord that, although she didn’t currently have the first month’s rent, she soon would.

That June and July, she started paying for the office space in the building where ASE Group still resides, though she is the only one of her virtual team who comes in.

“In the first 20 months of running the business, I was bringing my daughter to work two to three times a week,” Jones shared. “I was on meetings with her, Zoom calls; I nursed during meetings. In hindsight it sounds crazy.”

Jones’ philosophy of balancing work and personal life persists in the way her firm supports colleagues who “all prioritize family,” whether that’s a sick child or caring for a parent, as long as staff is accountable and takes care of their work. Productivity is also expected in ASE’s shorter work weeks, which were born out of COVID.

“With so much going on, as a mom of three children, with remote learning, a husband working from home — it was a challenging time to take a small breather… I felt so unbalanced working five to six days a week,” she explained.

“I explored four-day work weeks during the summer to see how clients would adjust,” she continued. “They were the easiest. Then to see how we adjust. What efficiencies of a normal work day can get done in four days instead of five days. I absolutely work some Fridays because of travel and school schedules. But we schedule no meetings or calls on Fridays, with no exceptions.”

While employees can of course still get work done as necessary, instituting the no-email and no-calls rule is so staff “don’t create unnecessary expectations,” Jones explained. “Friday is all of our days off — no one sends messages to anybody. You get to enjoy your Friday off.”

Both this policy and ASE’s mandate to get clients’ tax preparation work done well before the Internal Revenue Service deadline requires planning and adjusting client messaging.

“We revamped the process and changed the way we communicate with clients,” Jones said. “We had to start from scratch and reverse-engineer how it would work. It started with what we wanted it to look like, not the systems or software, but blue-sky thinking, what tax season would look like if we had our way. What it would look like was: no surprises, talking to clients during the year. We talk to clients at least four times a year. We call 30 days before the estimated tax deadline.”

ASE Group works under internal deadlines. “We don’t care about the April 15 deadline for tax,” Jones said. “We only operate under our own deadlines, which tend to be at least two weeks before external deadlines. If, God forbid, we can’t meet internal deadlines, we can breathe easy with a buffer in place.”

ASE staff meet these self-imposed deadlines with more frequent client communication and weekly team calls internally.

Jones said it’s OK if two or three clients end up falling closer to the April or October deadlines, but “if half of clients go on extension or wait until October, there’s panic. It doesn’t have to be that way, and if the client likes to operate like that, it’s not a good fit.”

Advisory is the cure

Jones was not even sure the accounting profession was a fit for her until she participated in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program and learned to conceptualize a new future for her career.

“I was thinking, ‘I’m not a good accountant, I can’t do this, it’s way too stressful,'” she explained. “It was realizing it’s not tax I hated, but the constant working toward deadlines, doing things last minute, all a surprise. But it’s not. It’s one of the easiest, most predictable industries. You can plan due dates. Operating with blue-sky thinking, I could step away from what I’m doing now, and it taught me what it could be like and how to make that a reality.”

ASE Group’s lower-stress tax seasons involve scheduled phone calls to check in on clients’ current financial needs and lean more into the advisory side of tax planning.

“What you need first, is advisory all throughout the year,” she said. “So that at the end of the year it’s not a pop quiz — what am I going to do on my taxes? It doesn’t have to be a surprise. I hate delivering bad news, and I also hate surprises. It’s like Groundhog Day, telling people [what to do on their taxes] … having the same conversations over and over again. People expected that they did all they needed all year, then dump it on their accountant. I’m not a magician. I felt so anxiety-ridden. The cure for that suffering is advisory.”

ASE’s regular client calls — scheduled six months out — also alleviate other common ailments, like financial anxiety and procrastination.

“It’s getting us in the position to help them reduce surprises,” Jones explained. “By the time tax season rolls around, it’s just filing season. Not strategizing season, not planning season. When a child has a test, like the SATs, they don’t show up on test day ready to study. When they show up to the test, they make sure they had a good night’s sleep, they ate breakfast, and they sharpened their pencils. All year is study season.”

The phone calls are mandatory, whether or not clients have updates. “Some clients don’t have anything new to tell you. Those clients don’t have to use all the time — if they get on the phone and tell me absolutely nothing … I’m happy to end the phone call early. The beauty is creating a routine, the consistency of it.”

Often, however, clients who think they have nothing new to report realize that they do when Jones and her colleagues engage them in more casual conversation leading to relevant life updates.

“Sometimes they struggle with financial anxiety, and don’t always want to tell you things aren’t great,” Jones shared. “The conversation is relaxed, and those conversations become more fluid and open.”

“We don’t want you to go on Google and Tiktok trying to be your own advisor,” she continued. “We ask that you allow us to prepare you for what creates an issue versus what doesn’t. We are talking in conversations about kids, family trips. In those conversations we have an agenda of listening to what they are saying … . If [for example] they are thinking of starting a new job, ‘We can help you complete a W-4.’ Something we can support you in.” AT

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Accounting

IAASB tweaks standards on working with outside experts

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The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board is proposing to tailor some of its standards to align with recent additions to the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants’ International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants when it comes to using the work of an external expert.

The proposed narrow-scope amendments involve minor changes to several IAASB standards:

  • ISA 620, Using the Work of an Auditor’s Expert;
  • ISRE 2400 (Revised), Engagements to Review Historical Financial Statements;
  • ISAE 3000 (Revised), Assurance Engagements Other than Audits or Reviews of Historical Financial Information;
  • ISRS 4400 (Revised), Agreed-upon Procedures Engagements.

The IAASB is asking for comments via a digital response template that can be found on the IAASB website by July 24, 2025.

In December 2023, the IESBA approved an exposure draft for proposed revisions to the IESBA’s Code of Ethics related to using the work of an external expert. The proposals included three new sections to the Code of Ethics, including provisions for professional accountants in public practice; professional accountants in business and sustainability assurance practitioners. The IESBA approved the provisions on using the work of an external expert at its December 2024 meeting, establishing an ethical framework to guide accountants and sustainability assurance practitioners in evaluating whether an external expert has the necessary competence, capabilities and objectivity to use their work, as well as provisions on applying the Ethics Code’s conceptual framework when using the work of an outside expert.  

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Tariffs will hit low-income Americans harder than richest, report says

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President Donald Trump’s tariffs would effectively cause a tax increase for low-income families that is more than three times higher than what wealthier Americans would pay, according to an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The report from the progressive think tank outlined the outcomes for Americans of all backgrounds if the tariffs currently in effect remain in place next year. Those making $28,600 or less would have to spend 6.2% more of their income due to higher prices, while the richest Americans with income of at least $914,900 are expected to spend 1.7% more. Middle-income families making between $55,100 and $94,100 would pay 5% more of their earnings. 

Trump has imposed the steepest U.S. duties in more than a century, including a 145% tariff on many products from China, a 25% rate on most imports from Canada and Mexico, duties on some sectors such as steel and aluminum and a baseline 10% tariff on the rest of the country’s trading partners. He suspended higher, customized tariffs on most countries for 90 days.

Economists have warned that costs from tariff increases would ultimately be passed on to U.S. consumers. And while prices will rise for everyone, lower-income families are expected to lose a larger portion of their budgets because they tend to spend more of their earnings on goods, including food and other necessities, compared to wealthier individuals.

Food prices could rise by 2.6% in the short run due to tariffs, according to an estimate from the Yale Budget Lab. Among all goods impacted, consumers are expected to face the steepest price hikes for clothing at 64%, the report showed. 

The Yale Budget Lab projected that the tariffs would result in a loss of $4,700 a year on average for American households.

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Accounting

At Schellman, AI reshapes a firm’s staffing needs

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Artificial intelligence is just getting started in the accounting world, but it is already helping firms like technology specialist Schellman do more things with fewer people, allowing the firm to scale back hiring and reduce headcount in certain areas through natural attrition. 

Schellman CEO Avani Desai said there have definitely been some shifts in headcount at the Top 100 Firm, though she stressed it was nothing dramatic, as it mostly reflects natural attrition combined with being more selective with hiring. She said the firm has already made an internal decision to not reduce headcount in force, as that just indicates they didn’t hire properly the first time. 

“It hasn’t been about reducing roles but evolving how we do work, so there wasn’t one specific date where we ‘started’ the reduction. It’s been more case by case. We’ve held back on refilling certain roles when we saw opportunities to streamline, especially with the use of new technologies like AI,” she said. 

One area where the firm has found such opportunities has been in the testing of certain cybersecurity controls, particularly within the SOC framework. The firm examined all the controls it tests on the service side and asked which ones require human judgment or deep expertise. The answer was a lot of them. But for the ones that don’t, AI algorithms have been able to significantly lighten the load. 

“[If] we don’t refill a role, it’s because the need actually has changed, or the process has improved so significantly [that] the workload is lighter or shared across the smarter system. So that’s what’s happening,” said Desai. 

Outside of client services like SOC control testing and reporting, the firm has found efficiencies in administrative functions as well as certain internal operational processes. On the latter point, Desai noted that Schellman’s engineers, including the chief information officer, have been using AI to help develop code, which means they’re not relying as much on outside expertise on the internal service delivery side of things. There are still people in the development process, but their roles are changing: They’re writing less code, and doing more reviewing of code before it gets pushed into production, saving time and creating efficiencies. 

“The best way for me to say this is, to us, this has been intentional. We paused hiring in a few areas where we saw overlaps, where technology was really working,” said Desai.

However, even in an age awash with AI, Schellman acknowledges there are certain jobs that need a human, at least for now. For example, the firm does assessments for the FedRAMP program, which is needed for cloud service providers to contract with certain government agencies. These assessments, even in the most stable of times, can be long and complex engagements, to say nothing of the less predictable nature of the current government. As such, it does not make as much sense to reduce human staff in this area. 

“The way it is right now for us to do FedRAMP engagements, it’s a very manual process. There’s a lot of back and forth between us and a third party, the government, and we don’t see a lot of overall application or technology help… We’re in the federal space and you can imagine, [with] what’s going on right now, there’s a big changing market condition for clients and their pricing pressure,” said Desai. 

As Schellman reduces staff levels in some places, it is increasing them in others. Desai said the firm is actively hiring in certain areas. In particular, it’s adding staff in technical cybersecurity (e.g., penetration testers), the aforementioned FedRAMP engagements, AI assessment (in line with recently becoming an ISO 42001 certification body) and in some client-facing roles like marketing and sales. 

“So, to me, this isn’t about doing more with less … It’s about doing more of the right things with the right people,” said Desai. 

While these moves have resulted in savings, she said that was never really the point, so whatever the firm has saved from staffing efficiencies it has reinvested in its tech stack to build its service line further. When asked for an example, she said the firm would like to focus more on penetration testing by building a SaaS tool for it. While Schellman has a proof of concept developed, she noted it would take a lot of money and time to deploy a full solution — both of which the firm now has more of because of its efficiency moves. 

“What is the ‘why’ behind these decisions? The ‘why’ for us isn’t what I think you traditionally see, which is ‘We need to get profitability high. We need to have less people do more things.’ That’s not what it is like,” said Desai. “I want to be able to focus on quality. And the only way I think I can focus on quality is if my people are not focusing on things that don’t matter … I feel like I’m in a much better place because the smart people that I’ve hired are working on the riskiest and most complicated things.”

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