5 Things Your CPA Wishes You'd Prepare Before April 15

Every CPA in America has the same private frustration in March and April: clients who show up with a grocery bag of receipts, a bank statement, and the cheerful instruction to 'let me know if you need anything else.' That CPA is going to send you an invoice reflecting every hour they spent doing work you could have done yourself — and a lot of clients never realize the bill would have been hundreds of dollars less if they had just shown up prepared.

We talked to several tax professionals about what they wish clients would bring to the first meeting. Five things came up over and over. Do these before April 15 and you will save real money — regardless of whether you use our own AI Pro Tax Prep service or prepare everything by hand.

1. All Your Income Documents in One Place

Sounds obvious. It is not. Most people hand their CPA a partial set of income documents and then spend three weeks emailing extras as they find them. Every email is another item on your invoice.

Before your first meeting, make one folder — digital or physical — with every document in these categories:

• W-2 from every employer you had this year, even jobs you only worked for a month
• 1099-NEC from every client or platform that paid you over $600 (Uber, DoorDash, Upwork, Fiverr, direct contracts)
• 1099-MISC for other income — rental, royalties, prizes, legal settlements
• 1099-INT from every bank account that paid interest, even tiny amounts
• 1099-DIV from every brokerage or mutual fund
• 1099-B for stock or crypto sales, with cost basis info
• 1099-R for any retirement account withdrawals
• K-1 from any partnership, S-corp, or trust you have an interest in
• SSA-1099 if you receive Social Security
• Any 1095-A from the marketplace if you had ACA insurance

If something is missing, your CPA cannot finish. Every delay between initial drop-off and final filing is time you are paying them to chase you.

2. Expenses Categorized (Not Just Piled)

A shoebox of receipts is not 'organized' — it is an invoice waiting to happen. What your CPA actually needs is a categorized summary with running totals. For each business expense category, they need to know: what category, how much, what it was for, and ideally which business purpose it supports.

Standard categories to organize your expenses into:

• Advertising and marketing
• Auto and mileage (separate fuel, tolls, parking, maintenance)
• Business meals (50% deductible, keep the business purpose noted)
• Office supplies and equipment under $2,500
• Software and subscriptions
• Phone and internet (business percentage)
• Travel — flights, hotels, ground transport
• Professional services — legal, accounting, consulting
• Insurance premiums (health, business liability, etc.)
• Home office expenses if applicable (utilities, rent portion)

A simple spreadsheet with columns for date, category, amount, vendor, and description does the trick. Your CPA does not want to squint at a faded receipt from August — they want a line item they can confirm and post. The more you do this yourself, the less they charge.

3. A Real Mileage Log

The IRS standard mileage rate in 2026 is roughly 70 cents per mile. If you drive 10,000 business miles, that is a $7,000 deduction — but only if you can document it. Every CPA has the same nightmare: a client who says 'I drove a lot for work this year' and cannot produce a single dated record.

What your CPA actually needs is a log with: date, starting location, ending location, business purpose, and miles driven. You can reconstruct this from calendar appointments, client meeting records, Google Maps history, or a dedicated app like MileIQ or Hurdlr. Do not wait until April to try to reconstruct a year of driving — that is when details get wrong and deductions get denied in audits.

Pro tip: many business owners miss that commuting from home to a regular workplace is NOT deductible, but travel between work locations IS. If you have a home office, trips from your home to clients or secondary offices can count. Knowing these rules in advance changes how you track.

4. A Clear List of Life Changes Since Last Year

Tax law treats your financial life as a series of events — and if your CPA does not know an event happened, they cannot reflect it on your return. Write down every major change from the year:

• Got married or divorced (filing status changes everything)
• Had a child, adopted, or a dependent aged out
• Bought, sold, or refinanced a home (mortgage interest, points, capital gains)
• Moved states or changed residency
• Started a new business, closed one, or changed entity type
• Made retirement contributions (traditional IRA, Roth, 401k, SEP, SIMPLE)
• Took money out of a retirement account early
• Had major medical expenses (over 7.5% of AGI is deductible)
• Made significant charitable donations
• Sold a rental property, second home, or investment
• Inherited money or property
• Received a settlement (legal, insurance, disability)
• Paid or received alimony (rules differ by year divorced)

Any one of these can change your entire tax picture. Handing your CPA this list as a short memo saves an hour of interrogation they would otherwise have to do — and ensures nothing gets missed.

5. Your Prior Year Return With Any Carryovers Noted

This is the one even organized clients forget. Your prior year tax return is not just history — it contains information your current year needs. Specifically, your CPA wants to see:

• Carryover losses from stocks or crypto (capital losses above $3,000 carry forward indefinitely)
• Unused charitable deductions that exceeded the annual limit
• Net operating losses from prior business years
• Depreciation schedules for business assets or rental properties
• State tax refunds from last year (may be taxable this year)
• Estimated tax payments you already made for the current year
• Any tax credits you did not fully use (foreign tax credit, general business credit, etc.)

If your CPA did last year's return, they have it. If someone else did it or you changed firms, bring a copy. Carryovers left unused are money left on the table — and it is your money, not theirs.

The Common Thread

Notice what every item on this list has in common: it is all data entry and organization. None of it requires tax expertise. None of it is what you are actually paying a CPA to do. A CPA's real value is in tax strategy, complex judgment calls, knowing which deductions apply to your specific situation, and defending your return if questioned. Those are $300-an-hour skills.

The other 80% of what happens during tax prep is organization — and that is work an AI can do in minutes for a fraction of the price. This is exactly why we built AI Pro Tax Prep. Upload your documents once, let the AI produce the organized package, hand it to your CPA, and pay them only for the expert work that actually requires a human.

Action Items Before April 15

If you are reading this in February or March, here is the quick version of what to do in the next two hours:

1. Make one folder labeled 'Taxes [current year]' and put every income document you can find in it — physical or digital, both works
2. Download transaction history for any business bank accounts and credit cards as CSV
3. Spend 30 minutes categorizing your expenses into the standard categories above
4. Open your calendar and Google Maps timeline and start a mileage log for any trips you can verify
5. Write a one-page memo listing every major life change from the year
6. Pull your prior year return and flag any carryover items

That is it. Do those six things and your CPA invoice will drop dramatically — or better yet, let an AI do them for you and your invoice drops even further.

Either way, the principle is the same: do not pay your specialist's rate for work a non-specialist can do. Save the expensive hours for what those hours are actually worth.