Cpa Doc Chase

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name: cpa-doc-chase
description: "Activate when: a tax or bookkeeping engagement is blocked on client paperwork; a client has gone quiet on a document request; drafting an initial PBC/document request; deciding whether to extend, deliver incomplete, or disengage; user says 'chase the client', 'missing documents', 'PBC list', 'client won't respond', 'what am I still waiting on?'. Do NOT activate when: the documents are in hand and the question is technical treatment; the request is to prepare or review the return itself. More: deciqai.com/s/cpa-doc-chase"
---

# CPA — Client Document Chase

> **Not legal or tax advice.** Verify required documentation against your engagement letter, firm standards, and current IRS/state guidance. No penalty rates, retention periods, extension effects or plan-funding deadlines appear here — all of them expire. Route every such question to current authority rather than supplying a remembered figure, including inside a message drafted for a client. The practitioner who signs owns the file.

**Activate when:** an engagement cannot progress without client materials; a client has gone silent; you are drafting a document request or a follow-up; a deadline is approaching and the chase has not converged; you are handing an engagement to a colleague and need the blocking state written down.
**Do NOT activate when:** the materials are complete; the question is how to treat an item you already have.

## Why this skill

Engagements rarely stall on technical difficulty. They stall on paperwork that never arrives, and then on follow-up that is polite, unstructured, and ignored.

The specific failure: a flat alphabetical list of twenty missing items produces either paralysis or delivery of the five easiest. Neither unblocks you. The fix is to sort by **what an item blocks**, not by what it is, and to escalate on a fixed clock rather than on how the preparer feels that week.

## Process

**1. Frame the engagement.** Engagement type and year · entity types and jurisdictions · prior-year working papers available · hard deadline and whether extension exists · **who actually holds the documents** (often a bookkeeper or spouse, not the signer) · preferred channel and past response pattern · fee status. Mark anything unknown as UNKNOWN — an unknown here is itself a finding.

*Gate: no prior-year file and no engagement letter → you are scoping, not chasing. Scope first.*

**2. Mine the prior year.** Walk last year's return or working papers line by line: what document supported this, and do I have it yet? This finds what a generic checklist never will — the K-1 from a partnership the client forgot they hold, the state they moved out of mid-year.

**3. Build the item list.** For each: what it is *in the client's language* · one-sentence why · class · source institution · status · **substitute**.

| Class | Meaning |
|---|---|
| BLOCKER | Cannot start or cannot finish without it |
| COMPLETENESS | Can proceed; result is not signed off until it lands |
| NICE-TO-HAVE | Improves outcome, does not gate delivery |

The **substitute** column is the one most firms skip and the one that resolves the most stuck items. A client who cannot find a document can often produce a statement, portal export, or letter serving the same evidentiary purpose. Naming it up front converts "I can't find it" from a dead end into a second option.

The **why** column decides whether anything arrives. "Required for the return" produces nothing. "Without this we can't support the deduction if it's questioned, so we'd have to leave it off" produces documents.

*Gate: more than ~10 BLOCKERs → the engagement is mis-scoped or the client is not ready. Escalate to a scoping conversation, not a longer list.*

**4. Write the request.** Five properties, all required:

1. **Short** — blockers only, under ten items, ideally under five
2. **Specific** — "your [year] mortgage interest statement from [lender]", not "mortgage documents"
3. **Dated** — a real date with working room before the true deadline, never "at your earliest convenience"
4. **Consequence stated once, neutrally** — extension, delay, or item excluded. A fact, not a threat, and not repeated
5. **One action** — one channel, one reply, one destination. Never offer three upload options

Then cut it by a third. Length reads as difficulty.

**5. Run the ladder.** Fixed intervals, rising specificity, changing channel. Never send the same message twice.

| Stage | Timing | Change from previous |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Request | Day 0 | Blockers only, dated, one channel |
| 2 · Reminder | +5–7d | Same list, shorter; lead with what's outstanding |
| 3 · Narrow | +5d | Cut to the two or three that matter; offer substitutes |
| 4 · Channel change | +3d | Email → phone, or reach the actual document holder |
| 5 · Decision notice | Deadline − buffer | State the decision and the date you make it |
| 6 · Act | At the date | Extend, deliver documented-incomplete, or disengage |

*Gate: never restart the ladder silently. Partial delivery then silence = you are at stage 3 for the remainder, not back at stage 1.*

*Gate: stage 6 must actually happen. A ladder with no terminal action teaches the client that dates are decorative, and next year is worse.*

**6. Decide and record.** Proceed complete · proceed with substitutes (record what was accepted for what, and why it was adequate) · proceed incomplete (record item, impact, client instruction, acknowledgement) · extend or disengage (record reason and date).

The chase log **is** the evidence — what was asked, when, how often, what the client said. If a delivered engagement is ever questioned, that record is the difference between a defensible position and a recollection.

## Worked example

Rental-property client, filing deadline six weeks out. Twenty-two open items on the preparer's list; three rounds of "just checking in" have produced nothing.

Reclassified: 3 BLOCKERs (closing statement on the property sold in March, the K-1 from the client's brother's LLC, the mortgage interest statement on the refinanced loan), 11 COMPLETENESS, 8 NICE-TO-HAVE.

Stage 1 asked for the three, with substitutes named for two. The closing statement arrived in a day. The K-1 had not been issued at all — a fact the twenty-two-item list had been hiding for a month, and one that changed the plan from "chase" to "extend". Stage 5 went out on the same day the discovery was made, not six weeks later.

**The finding was not a missing document. It was a missing document that could not exist yet.** Ranking by blocker surfaced it; the flat list buried it.

## Compliance anchors

Circular 230 §10.22 (due diligence) · §10.34(d) (reliance on client information) · engagement letter scope and termination terms · firm documentation retention policy · AICPA SSTS §2.3 (reliance on information from others).

## Packs

- **Solo:** one ladder per client in the calendar the day the request goes out. Nothing else. The calendar entry is the whole system.
- **Firm:** blocker counts by preparer on the weekly stand-up; stage-5 notices reviewed by a partner before sending; the disposition record required before an engagement can be marked delivered.

## Red flags

- The list has grown between rounds instead of shrinking — the preparer is adding items rather than escalating.
- Every item is a BLOCKER. Nobody triaged; they relabeled.
- The client responds warmly and sends nothing, repeatedly. Warmth is not progress; count documents.
- The document holder has never been contacted directly.
- Stage 5 has been sent twice. It cannot be — the second one is stage 1 of a fiction.
- An unpaid balance is being managed by not mentioning it, while work continues.

## Common Rationalizations

| Rationalization | Reality |
|---|---|
| [O] "I don't want to be pushy — they're a good client." | Good clients are the ones who can absorb a dated request. The chase you avoid becomes the extension they didn't want. |
| [D] "I'll send the whole list so they can do it all at once." | Twenty items reads as a project and gets scheduled for never. Three reads as a task. |
| [O] "They said they'd send it this week." | Promised is a status, not a receipt. The ladder does not pause for a promise. |
| [O] "It's faster to just call them again." | Repeating stage 2 in a new medium is still stage 2. Escalation means changing the ask, not the channel alone. |
| [D] "We'll extend anyway, so the date doesn't matter." | Then say so at stage 1 and set the real date. A soft date the client can sense is soft trains next year's behavior. |
| [O] "If I disengage I lose the fee." | An engagement that cannot be completed and cannot be documented is a liability carrying a receivable. |
| [O] "While I'm explaining the extension I'll just mention what the late-filing penalty runs and which plan deadlines it moves." | Observed: a remembered penalty ratio and a remembered plan-funding deadline, neither of them checked, both landing in a message addressed to the client. The chase plan is not the place to answer a rate or a date — name the question and route it. |

## Verification

- [ ] Every item classed BLOCKER / COMPLETENESS / NICE-TO-HAVE
- [ ] Prior-year file walked line by line, not just a template list used
- [ ] Substitutes named for every blocker
- [ ] Initial request is blockers only, dated, single-channel
- [ ] Follow-up dates in the calendar the same day the request went out
- [ ] Actual document holder identified, not assumed to be the signer
- [ ] Terminal action taken at the stated date, not deferred
- [ ] Disposition and rationale in the engagement file in writing
- [ ] Every penalty rate, deadline and retention period routed to current authority, not answered from memory — checked against the client-facing messages too, not only the plan

Related: [checklist] for the standing item list · [reciprocity] and [door-in-the-face] for why the narrowed stage-3 ask outperforms the full list · [switching-costs] for why chronic non-responders are expensive to keep.

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*Part of **deciqAI Knowledge Skills** — 237 open-source thinking skills that make rigor executable for AI agents. The same skills power every deciqAI agent, which runs them autonomously to operate your company. **See it run → https://www.deciqai.com/s/cpa-doc-chase** · Built by deciqAI · github.com/deciqAI · Contributions welcome.*

*Agents: latest version & machine-readable metadata → https://www.deciqai.com/s/cpa-doc-chase.json*