Practice Automation Calculator
Payroll & sales-tax firms · today vs portal vs portal + AI
What could a portal and AI earn your practice?
Answer a few questions about your firm. The calculator compares three ways of working, side by side, over the next three years.
Today: clients email spreadsheets; your team chases, re-types and fixes. Portal: clients enter payroll in one standard form and checks run before anything reaches you. Portal + AI: AI drafts the checks, reminders and marketing; a person always approves.
Change any number and the results update at once.
What this means
Profit by year
Where AI helps a payroll and sales-tax practice
Production: more payroll per person
- Pre-check every submission. Compares this period with the last one and flags new hires, missing hours, pay jumps and duplicate employees before processing starts. Questions 30 and 31
- Reviewer brief. A one-page summary of what changed and what looks unusual, so the reviewer reads exceptions instead of whole registers. Question 30
- Draft client queries and reminders. Specific, polite messages for staff to send, such as an employee showing zero hours. Question 32
- Tax notice triage. Summarises IRS and state notices, matches them to the period and drafts the reply for a preparer to finish. Questions 21 and 22
- Sales-tax checks. Spots rate or jurisdiction changes and filings out of line with prior months. Question 30
- Standard templates from messy sheets. Maps each client's own spreadsheet columns into one standard form at onboarding. Question 26
Outreach: more clients in your local market
- Local search presence. Regular, reviewed posts and service pages for your suburbs and neighborhoods, so owners searching for a payroll accountant nearby find you. Question 34
- Niche pages. Pages for the trades you already serve well, such as restaurants, clinics, contractors and family businesses. Question 35
- Compliance explainers. Short guides on employer rules owners must follow. In the Chicago area that includes the Illinois Paid Leave for All Workers Act, the Chicago and Cook County paid leave ordinances and Illinois Secure Choice. Question 34
- Same-day replies to enquiries. AI drafts the answer and a quote request; staff send it. Question 35
- Referral partners. Drafted updates for bankers, insurance agents and bookkeepers who send you work. Question 7
- Cross-sell. Spots payroll clients without sales-tax filing, and the reverse, and drafts an offer. Question 5
Where the market values come from
| Item | Value used | Market range | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payroll fee, 25-employee client | $450 / month | $300 – $800 | Base $50–150 a month plus $6–12 per employee per run: Skyline Financial; $145 + $20 per employee: Blue Cloud CPA; software alone $199: TaxDome |
| Sales-tax fee | $150 / month | $75 / month – $275 / filing | WCG CPAs; Tax Happens CPA |
| Pay schedule | Every two weeks | Most common (36.5%) | BLS |
| US admin cost per hour | $43 | Median pay $30.25 | Payroll clerks, Chicago metro, May 2025: BLS via Wagedex; pay is 70% of employer cost: BLS, June 2026 |
| US reviewer cost per hour | $61 | Mean pay $43.03 | Accountants and auditors, Chicago metro, May 2023: BLS, grossed up the same way |
| Back-office salary (Karachi) | PKR 120,000 / month | PKR 67,000 – 261,000 | WageIndicator |
| Exchange rate | PKR 277 per $ | Interbank, 9-Oct-2026 | Mettis Global |
| Runs needing a correction | 10% | Payroll about 80% accurate; $291 per error | EY survey of US employers with 250–10,000 staff: HR Dive |
| Enquiry to client | 15% | 5% – 20% | Webtonic |
| Marketing spend | $1,500 / month | $200 – $800 per content or search lead | Webtonic |
| Local employer rules | Paid leave: Illinois from 1-Jan-2024, Cook County from 31-Dec-2023, Chicago from 1-Jul-2024 | Jackson Lewis | |
Common questions
How does the calculator work out profit?
Profit = fee income minus the back-office team, US time spent on admin and review, penalties, everything else, and the portal, AI and marketing costs. New clients join evenly through each year, so a year counts half of that year's new clients.
Why does time saved in the back office not always lower cost?
You pay the team you have. Time saved there becomes room for more clients before you hire. The calculator charges the larger of your current team or the team the work needs.
How are the portal and AI savings combined?
Each AI saving applies on top of the portal saving, to the time that is left.
Is anything I type stored or sent?
No. The calculator runs in your browser. Your figures are remembered only in this browser so you can come back to them.