Enrolled Agent Finds Everything
He Needs in IRS Solutions

The Company

Bruce Hicks is an Enrolled Agent with more than 30 years of experience in tax resolution and tax preparation. In 2017, after selling his previous company to a national tax preparation organization, he launched The Freedom Group, a four-person operation based in Nashville. The Freedom Group now prepares and files over 1,000 personal, partnership and S-Corp tax returns annually. The company also handles numerous tax resolution and tax debt relief cases for grateful clients each year.

The Challenge

Bruce anticipates a quickly-approaching and ongoing need to expand tax resolution services at his practice, and he’s glad for it. They are higher revenue generating and he finds them more challenging and more engaging than tax preparation. He believes that the need for qualified tax revenue professionals will continue to rise exponentially. “The IRS has been gutted in the past 12 years,” he says. “They’ve lost $1 billion in funding. Their staffing levels are the same as in the 1960s and their technology is out of date.” Those shortfalls have made it hard for IRS agents to pursue as many audits and debts as they once could. The influx of cash and 80,000 new hires provided by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act will almost certainly increase the agency’s capability. An increase in audits, creating an uptick in tax resolution cases, will likely follow. 

Bruce wanted the Freedom Agency to be ready to rise to the occasion with software that would enable his staff to keep careful records, communicate with clients, and manage the practice efficiently and effectively. He tried many of the options that were available to him but nothing he found could meet all of his needs at a single price. One company only offered an expensive a la carte menu of services. Others offered base packages, but they didn’t include everything Freedom Group employees would need to get their work done. 

The Solution
"I can accomplish more work in less time with IRS Solutions”

In 2022, Bruce Hicks met the IRS Solutions team at a professional conference. A product tour and a meeting with David and Suzanne was all it took to convince him that IRS Solutions was the right software for his practice. “I’ve tried other products including Pitbull, Canopy and THS,” Bruce says. “They’re expensive and don’t do everything that I need. What I liked right away about IRS Solutions was the fact that everything is included.” He continues, “It’s not just a tax resolution software. Having as much information in one place as possible has been challenging for us, with some things here and other things there. We lost a lot of time just trying to locate and access what we needed."

"What drew me in to IRS Solutions right away was being able to combine practice information, notes, and documents in one location. It’s got all the features I need for practice management. I can upload and store documents and communicate with clients as well.” 

Bruce and his employees immediately found IRS Solutions easy to use and were pleased by the team’s responsiveness to their needs. “I’m not much of a ‘watch it on video’ guy,” Bruce says. “When I have questions, I do a quick Zoom call with Suzanne and Dave. Also, I know that they’re open to feedback and ready to incorporate suggestions from me and other users into the product.” The Freedom Group currently has over 1,000 client profiles loaded into IRS Solutions and staff members are using the product daily whether in the office, on the road, or working from home.  Contrasting his new software with past options that were single-user and locally hosted, happy IRS Solutions member Bruce proclaims, "My staff and I can access it from anywhere!”

The Result

After fast and easy onboarding, the Freedom Group team was comfortable using IRS Solutions and is now logging in daily to manage client needs efficiently. As April 15 approaches, Bruce is particularly excited about introducing their tax preparation customers to the client portal. “I think that everyone will really like being able to access documents easily,” he says, “It will streamline and improve client communication.”

Bruce is looking forward to exploring everything that IRS Solutions has to offer, as well as to accessing some of the exclusive continuing education opportunities in the coming year. For now, he says that his work would take much more time without the software. “I can accomplish more work in less time,” he says. “Hopefully I’ll be able to take on more clients soon and make more money. I also hope that I’ll be able to spend more time not working and reclaim a little bit of my life.”

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