Client-first file structure
One home per client, with tax year, engagement type, entity type and responsible partner held as columns, so “every 1040 for this household” is a filter rather than a folder crawl.
SharePoint consulting for CPA practices
SharePoint Consultant for Accounting Firms
An accounting practice runs on clients, tax years and engagements, not on matters or departments. As a SharePoint consultant for accounting firms, we configure the Microsoft 365 you already pay for around that cycle: one home per client with the year and engagement type held as metadata, permissions that let seasonal preparers in and back out cleanly, client document exchange that replaces emailed attachments, and retention that starts when an engagement closes. No custom code. One written fixed fee, typical delivery in 2–4 weeks, 30 days of hypercare included.
One fixed price, approved before work begins · 30 days of hypercare included
Sample dashboard. Illustrative data, not a client’s numbers
One fixed price, agreed before any work starts
You get a written proposal with one fixed price, clear deliverables and a timeline, and you approve it before anything starts. If the scope changes, the price changes in writing first, and every engagement includes 30 days of hypercare after handover.
What we configure
What does a SharePoint build for a CPA practice include?
Six pieces, each one configuration of tools already inside your Microsoft 365 licences — scoped in writing before anything is built.
Permissions by role and client
Partner-only clients, payroll and HR files, and staff members’ own returns kept behind boundaries that hold when someone searches or shares a link, not only when they remember to ask.
Seasonal staff on and off
Busy-season preparers and contract reviewers granted access through a group, scoped to their assigned clients, and removed in one step when the season ends.
Client document exchange
A per-client upload and collection point with named guest access and link expiry, instead of W-2s, K-1s and bank statements arriving as email attachments.
Retention when an engagement closes
Retention labels applied as part of closing a tax year or engagement, so the periods your firm has chosen start from a real event instead of from whenever a file was last opened.
A firm intranet for the season
Policies, engagement letter and workpaper templates, review checklists, the staff directory and a deadline calendar in one front door the whole firm actually opens.
Want the six pieces mapped onto how your practice runs today? A senior engineer will walk through it with you, at no cost.
Talk it through →How it works
How does a project run from first call to hypercare?
- 1
Map how a client year opens and closes
A free consultation covers how clients are identified today, which engagement types you run, who needs to see what, how documents reach you from clients, and what your retention schedule already says. We reply with a written scope, one fixed fee and a delivery date.
- 2
Build one service line and test the boundaries
We configure the structure, metadata, permissions and labels for one service line first — tax, audit or bookkeeping — then test access from staff, seasonal and client accounts before anyone relies on it.
- 3
Move content, train, and stay on
Agreed content moves in waves with client and year metadata applied on the way in, staff are trained on filing and closing, and 30 days of hypercare follow handover. Timing is agreed around your filing deadlines, not through them.
Why does a typical accounting firm file share stop working?
Because a folder path can only record one thing, and an accounting firm needs to ask several questions of the same file. Is this client’s return for this year finished? Which engagements does this partner own? Which documents belong to a year that has passed its retention period? A path such as Clients/Smith/Tax answers none of them.
The usual result is a shared drive or a set of OneDrive folders where each client is spelled two or three ways, the year sits at different levels for different staff, and the only reliable index is the memory of whoever has been at the firm longest. It holds together until busy season, when a dozen people are filing into it at once.
The fix is to make the client and the engagement things the platform understands. In SharePoint that means attributes — client ID, tax year, engagement type, entity type, responsible partner, status — held as columns and managed metadata rather than typed into folder names. Microsoft’s documentation on managed metadata and the term store (opens in new tab) covers the mechanism; the work is deciding which attributes your practice genuinely filters by. Our guide to SharePoint folders versus metadata explains the trade-off in more detail.
How does a CPA practice’s vocabulary map onto SharePoint?
Each term your firm already uses becomes a specific SharePoint object: a client becomes a site or library, a tax year becomes a metadata value, a closed engagement becomes a status that triggers retention. The table below is the translation we scope against. A sole practitioner and a forty-person firm with several service lines will take different rows.
| What the firm calls it | What it becomes in SharePoint | Why the folder version falls short |
|---|---|---|
| Client or household | A library or document set per client, tagged from a shared client term set | Three spellings of one client name means three partial answers to “show me everything for this client” |
| Tax year or period | A required column on every document, used for views and filters | A year folder buried at different depths by different staff cannot be filtered firm-wide |
| Engagement type | A choice or term column — individual return, business return, audit, review, bookkeeping, advisory | Folders force one hierarchy, so a client with three engagement types gets three inconsistent trees |
| Service line | A site per line (tax, assurance, client accounting) joined by a hub, each with its own owners | One giant drive gives every line the same permissions and the same mess |
| Source documents from clients | An upload area per client with guest access and expiring links | Email attachments scatter sensitive documents across personal mailboxes with no single record |
| Workpapers and deliverables | Content types with templates, so each document carries the right columns from creation | “Copy last year’s file” carries last year’s errors and last year’s name forward |
| Closed engagement | A status change that applies a retention label and makes the content read-only for most roles | Nothing about a folder changes when work is finished, so no retention clock ever starts |
Recognise your own client folders in the right-hand column? Tell us how they are laid out and we’ll send a written scope with one fixed price.
Scope my project →Who should be able to see which client files?
Staff should see the clients and service lines they work on, partners should see their own book, and a short list of files — payroll, HR, partner-only clients and employees’ own returns — should be visible to almost nobody. SharePoint enforces that with groups and permission boundaries set per site or library, not per folder.
The pattern that causes trouble is permissions granted to individuals, folder by folder, over several years. Nobody can then say who has access to what, and the person who leaves takes the knowledge with them. A role-based model — a group for each service line, a group for partners, a group for seasonal staff, and a deliberately small number of restricted libraries — is easier to explain, easier to audit and easier to change when someone joins or leaves.
Where the firm’s licences include it, Microsoft Purview can add a second layer. Sensitivity labels (opens in new tab) can mark and protect documents that contain client financial or identity information, and data loss prevention policies can detect patterns such as US Social Security numbers in content being shared outside the firm. We check which of these your current plan includes during scoping rather than assuming it.
How should client documents be exchanged without email attachments?
Through a sharing boundary per client: an upload area that only that client and your assigned staff can reach, with guest sign-in under the client’s own identity, links that expire, and an audit record of every access. Documents arrive in the right library with the right year attached, instead of in somebody’s inbox.
SharePoint sets external sharing at the organization level and then per site, so the firm can keep most of the tenant closed while client exchange areas allow named guests. Microsoft’s external sharing overview (opens in new tab) explains the levels. Practical decisions we settle with you: whether clients upload into one shared space or a dedicated library, how long guest access lasts after a season, and what the client sees when they sign in.
A plain caveat: a configured SharePoint exchange area is not a branded client portal with e-signature, payment and organizer workflows built in. Firms that need those features out of the box may still choose a dedicated portal product; SharePoint wins where the firm wants one governed place for documents without adding another subscription. If you currently exchange files through Citrix ShareFile, our ShareFile to SharePoint migration services cover rebuilding those client folders before the content moves.
What happens to an engagement when the season closes?
Closing becomes a configured step rather than a filing habit. When an engagement or tax year is marked complete, a retention label is applied, the content drops to read-only for most staff, and the retention period your firm has chosen starts from that point. Nothing is deleted early, and nothing is kept indefinitely by accident.
Microsoft’s documentation on retention policies and labels (opens in new tab) covers the distinction that matters: a policy applies broadly to a location, while a label attaches to the content and travels with it. Most practices need both — a baseline across client sites, and labels for the categories their schedule treats differently, such as permanent files versus a single year’s workpapers.
A necessary line: this is configuration work, not professional or legal advice. We do not set your retention periods or interpret the rules that apply to your firm. Your firm decides what its schedule says, with its own advisers where needed; we build the tenant so those decisions are enforced, and we document what was configured so a partner can review it.
Does an accounting firm need an intranet as well?
Often, yes, and it is a separate piece from the client file structure. Client files are organized around clients; an intranet is organized around the firm — policies, templates, review checklists, the staff directory, training and the deadline calendar. Keeping the two apart means client permissions never have to bend to make internal content easier to find.
In a CPA practice the intranet earns its keep during busy season: one page with the current deadline calendar, the approved engagement letter and organizer templates, the review checklist each preparer should follow, and the contact for each service line. Built on SharePoint communication sites, it sits in the same tenant as the client files and the same search. Law firms run a similar firm-facing build, which our intranet front door for law firms describes.
How is this different from the law firm version of the build?
Law firms organize around matters and conflict walls; accounting firms organize around clients, tax years and a hard annual deadline cycle. The engineering standards are the same, but the structure, the permission model and the closing event differ, which is why each profession gets its own scope rather than a renamed template.
A law firm build centres on matter metadata, ethical walls and legal hold, which is the work our SharePoint consultant for law firms engagement covers. An accounting build centres on the client-and-year structure, seasonal access, client document collection and engagement-close retention. Both are specialised versions of our wider SharePoint intranet and document management consulting, which covers intranets, governance and migration across any industry.
What does the engagement cover?
Three shapes cover most requests from accounting firms. Every fee is fixed and put in writing after your free consultation; the table shows scope and typical timeline rather than a price, because an honest number depends on your client count, service lines, current file location and licence position.
| Engagement | What is configured | Typical timeline | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Client file structure | Client-first architecture, client term set, year and engagement-type columns, views, content types for core workpapers, and owner documentation for one service line | About 2 weeks | Fixed fee — scoped after your free consultation |
| Structure with permissions and retention | The above plus the role-based permission model, seasonal staff groups, per-client exchange areas with guest access, and retention labels tied to engagement close | 2–3 weeks | Fixed fee — scoped after your free consultation |
| Firm-wide rollout with intranet | All service lines, migration of agreed content off the file server with client and year metadata applied in flight, a firm intranet front door, staff training and admin runbooks | 3–4 weeks | Fixed fee — scoped after your free consultation |
If client files still live on a server share, the order of work matters, and our file server to SharePoint migration playbook explains why the structure is designed before anything moves. Most firms prefer the cutover to fall outside the weeks immediately before a filing deadline, and we plan the schedule around that.
Which accounting firms is this a good fit for?
Small and mid-sized US accounting and CPA firms that already pay for Microsoft 365 and still keep client files on a server share, in personal OneDrive folders or across email. It fits best when the firm has agreed how clients are identified, because structure built on an undecided naming convention has to be rebuilt later.
The usual triggers are a server refresh quote, a busy season where nobody could find the current version of a return, a new partner asking who can see payroll files, or a client asking how their documents are protected. It is a weaker fit for a firm that wants an all-in-one practice management suite to replace everything; that is a software purchase, and SharePoint would sit alongside it rather than instead of it. Firms that also run consulting or advisory engagements alongside the audit and tax work can see the shared engagement-workspace and proposal-library pattern in our guide to SharePoint for professional services firms. We work with firms in all US states remotely from our Orange County, CA base.
Fair and square
Our promises, in plain English
One fixed price, approved before work begins
Every project gets a written proposal with one fixed price for a defined scope, and you approve it before any work starts. No hourly meter and no retainer. If the scope changes, the price changes in writing first.
You own everything, in your tenant
Reports, apps, flows, sites and documentation are built in your Microsoft tenant, under your accounts. There is no proprietary layer and no ongoing license owed to us, so nothing breaks if you never hire us again.
30 days of hypercare, included
For 30 days after handover we fix defects in what we delivered, answer your team’s questions and make small adjustments that keep it working as scoped, at no extra cost.
The engineer who scopes it builds it
A senior, US-based engineer works with you from the first call to the handover. There is no junior bench and no offshore handoff.
Straight answers. The free consultation ends with either a fixed-fee proposal or an honest recommendation that we are not the right fit.
Talk to an engineer, not a sales rep. Microsoft Made Easy is a Lightray Solutions brand, founded by Edward Pinela and headquartered in Orange County, California. Senior engineers across the Microsoft stack deliver fixed-fee projects for companies in every US state, remotely. About us
FAQ
Questions accounting firms ask before scoping
By client first, with the year and engagement type held as metadata rather than as folder names. One client then has one home, every return or engagement for that client is filterable by year, and closing out a season becomes a status change instead of a folder reshuffle that somebody has to remember.
For most firms, yes. Each client can get a sharing boundary of their own, with named guest access, link expiry and an audit trail, so documents are uploaded and collected in one place instead of being sent as attachments. Clients who need a branded portal experience may still prefer a dedicated portal product.
Seasonal preparers are added to a dedicated group that is granted access only to the client libraries they are assigned to work on. When the season ends, removing them from that group removes their access everywhere at once, so nobody has to hunt through individual folders to revoke permissions one by one.
No. Retention periods are a professional and regulatory decision your firm makes, with its own advisers where needed. What we do is configure Microsoft Purview retention labels so the periods your firm has chosen are actually applied and enforced, and document exactly what was configured so a partner can review it.
Usually, yes. Tax preparation and practice management applications keep doing what they do, and SharePoint becomes the governed home for the documents around them: source documents, workpapers, correspondence and deliverables. We map which system owns which record during scoping, so nothing is filed in two places or in neither.
No custom code. Everything is configuration of SharePoint, Purview and the Microsoft 365 tools your firm already licenses, so nothing depends on us to keep running. The sites, metadata, labels and documentation stay in your tenant, and every engagement includes 30 days of hypercare after handover.
Get your client files scoped before next busy season
A senior US-based engineer talks it through with you first, at no cost. If there is work worth doing, you get a written scope with one price, and you approve it before anything starts.
One fixed price, approved before work begins · 30 days of hypercare included
Tell us what you’re trying to fix — a report, an approval process, an intranet, a Copilot rollout. We scope it as a fixed-fee project, you approve, and a senior engineer delivers in 2–4 weeks.
- Fixed-fee scope agreed before any work starts
- Senior, US-based Microsoft engineers — no handoffs
- Typical 2–4 week delivery
- 30 days of post-delivery hypercare included
Related services
What accounting firms usually scope alongside this
SharePoint Consulting
The wider fixed-fee service: intranets, document management, migration and governance across any industry.
Power BI Dashboards
Once client work is structured, the reporting question follows: realization, WIP and engagement progress on one page.
Power Automate Consulting
The process half of the build: document request reminders, review routing and engagement-close steps running behind the structure.