A managed, on-prem AI system for tax practices, accounting firms, and financial advisers. Document classification, workpaper assistance, client checklists, and policy lookup — on hardware your firm controls. Designed around IRS Publication 4557 and the FTC Safeguards Rule.
Tax season pressure makes AI tempting. Client SSNs, K-1s, financial statements, and engagement-letter language are exactly the kind of data the IRS expects you to safeguard. Three frictions our tax-firm clients walk in with.
IRS Pub 4557 and the FTC Safeguards Rule expect a written information security plan with vendor oversight and access controls. A consumer-tier chatbot doesn't fit cleanly into a WISP. A managed appliance does.
Most consumer AI tools train on inputs by default. Even tools that don't are generally not built to be a "service provider" under the Safeguards Rule. Private AI removes the question by keeping data in-firm.
WISP and standard internal-control practice expect access logs, MFA, and review steps. Audit trails on a public chatbot are largely absent. The appliance comes with them by default.
Workpaper acceleration first. Final returns and signoff stay with the CPA or EA, where they belong.
Inbound client documents (W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, brokerage statements, business records) → automatic classification by document type, tax year, and engagement. Cuts the front-end sorting work that eats hours every week.
Pre-fill workpapers from classified documents. Flag missing items per checklist. The CPA reviews and signs; the system handles the assembly.
Engagement-specific checklists generated from prior-year files and engagement letter terms. Sent to clients on schedule. Reduces missing-document chase by a meaningful margin.
Internal-knowledge search over your firm's tax memos, IRS guidance, and engagement notes. Faster answers in client conversations without leaving your knowledge base.
The architecture maps cleanly to what your WISP is supposed to document — and to what an IRS or FTC audit would expect to see.
Fewer cloud vendors in the data path means less to oversee under the Safeguards Rule. The local appliance is one documented system, configured per the WISP, managed under a single retainer.
Identity, audit logging, and role-based access aren't bolt-ons. They're how the appliance is built, with logs scoped to engagement and CPA.
Local storage encrypted. Network segmented. WISP language maps cleanly to what the appliance actually does — useful when an examiner asks for evidence.
"Operating expenses for safeguards" is a real WISP question. A fixed retainer answers it cleanly: one line item, predictable, documented.
Wilcoe Private AI is designed around your obligations. Final compliance signoff is firm-specific and remains with your designated security coordinator under the Safeguards Rule. Read the full IRS Pub 4557 + FTC Safeguards explainer →
A representative starting point. Right-sized in the Readiness Sprint and quoted firm-specifically.
| Element | Tax & accounting firm (10–50 users) |
|---|---|
| Hardware | 2–3× Mac mini Pro racked, or 1–2× Mac Studio M4 Max with encrypted storage. Department namespaces (audit, tax, advisory). Retention by engagement. |
| Models | Local models for all client-financial workflows. Cloud fallback only for non-SSN, non-financial work (firm marketing, generic research) under written policy. |
| Knowledge layer | Local vector DB. Engagement-level partitioning. Role-based retrieval (preparer vs. reviewer vs. partner). Retention aligned to your records-retention policy. |
| Controls | WISP-aligned config: MFA, RBAC, audit logs scoped to engagement and preparer, encrypted backup, vendor-oversight pack, breach-response playbook. |
| Cloud fallback | Off by default for SSN, account-number, or financial-record-bearing work. Allowed via written policy for non-sensitive tasks. |
One workflow live in a single department, with WISP-aligned documentation your security coordinator can defend.
Inventory client-data flows. Map the first workflow. Coordinate with your designated security coordinator.
Right-sized appliance. Updated WISP language to cover the new system.
Network segmentation, MFA, role-based access, encrypted backup, audit logging by engagement.
Document portal indexing or your DMS connector. The first vertical copilot, with reviewer signoff gates.
Preparer + reviewer + admin training. Audit log review. Decide what to add next.
It's designed to support compliance. A managed appliance with documented controls, RBAC, audit logs, encryption, and vendor oversight slots cleanly into a Safeguards-aligned WISP. The Safeguards Rule expects YOU to designate a coordinator and run the program; we provide the architecture and the documentation that supports it.
Yes — under your written policy. The appliance is the approved place for that data. Public-cloud AI tools, by contrast, generally shouldn't touch it at all. We segment by data type and gate access by role.
Sized to your peak. Hardware is procured for tax-season concurrency, not just average load. We benchmark during the pilot.
Read-only integration where APIs allow it. Document-portal indexing where they don't. The appliance doesn't replace your tax software; it sits beside it for document and workpaper acceleration.
The appliance enforces engagement-aligned retention. We can implement automated destruction on retention expiry. Audit logs document the destruction so your records-retention policy is provable.
The Readiness Sprint scopes the pilot in two weeks. Most firms launch live inside 90 days from sprint kickoff.
Sized in the Readiness Sprint. Pilots vary several-fold across firm shapes. How we think about cost →
Book a 30-minute Readiness Call. We'll walk through your highest-leverage workflow, the WISP frame for your firm, and what a 90-day pilot would look like.
Book a Readiness Call →or
Take the readiness check →