AI Chatbot for Accountants and Bookkeepers: Intake Without Tax Advice

In the second week of February a visitor on your website types: "I got a 1099-K from my online shop. Do I owe tax on it, and what do you charge?" Half of that message is about your firm, and a chatbot can answer it from your fee page at 11 p.m. The other half applies tax rules to one person's facts, which no chatbot should do in your firm's name.

This guide is for CPA firms, enrolled agents, bookkeepers and seasonal tax preparers who want the first half answered at any hour and the second half routed to a person. It covers the filing-season calendar, what the bot may and must not answer, the rules worth reading, intake, the portal boundary, instructions, booking and cost. The law firm chatbot guide applies the same pattern to attorneys and covers AI disclosure laws, so this page does not repeat them.

PepoChat is our product; its behaviour below was checked in its code and documentation on 22 October 2026, and every IRS, Treasury and FTC source was read the same day. This is general information, not legal, tax or compliance advice: your professional rules and your own advisers govern.

When does tax season start, and when do client questions peak?

The IRS opened the 2026 filing season on 26 January 2026 and, as of 22 October 2026, has not announced the 2027 opening date; it usually announces the date in early January, two to three weeks ahead.

The 2026 date came in release IR-2026-02 on 8 January 2026, and the 2025 start, 27 January 2025, was announced on 10 January 2025. Individual returns are due on the 15th day of the fourth month after the tax year ends, which was Wednesday 15 April 2026 for 2025 returns. In its opening-day release the IRS expected about 164 million individual returns and said more than half of taxpayers use a tax professional.

Professional work arrives late. The IRS's weekly filing season statistics show that tax professionals had e-filed 12.7 million returns by 13 February 2026, 34.1 million by 13 March and 72.8 million by 17 April. So 53% of the professional e-filings up to 17 April arrived in the final five weeks.

Employers had until 2 February 2026 to hand out 2025 Forms W-2, according to IRS Publication 509, so few clients can send a full set of documents before February.

What may an accounting firm's chatbot answer, and what must it never answer?

An accounting firm's chatbot may answer anything your published pages already say about the firm, and must never apply tax rules to a visitor's own facts, quote an unpublished fee, or ask for documents and identifiers in the chat.

An AI support agent is a chatbot that answers from your own knowledge base, takes set actions such as booking a meeting, and hands the conversation to a person when it cannot help.

For a right-hand question, the reply declines in one sentence and offers the next step: "I can't advise on your own taxes in this chat, but one of our preparers can. Would you like to book a consultation, or leave your email so we can follow up?" In PepoChat, anything listed under Never do this is declined briefly, with an offer of what the agent can help with instead.

Which IRS and professional rules apply to a firm's chatbot?

Treasury Circular 230, the rules for practice before the IRS, does not mention chatbots, but its sections on written advice, advertising and published fees describe what a firm's website chatbot does, and federal data-security rules cover what it stores.

The IRS Office of Professional Responsibility says Circular 230 "governs practice before the IRS by setting forth mandatory rules of conduct", mainly for attorneys, CPAs and enrolled agents; the current edition is Rev. 6-2014. Four sections touch a chatbot:

• Section 10.37, written advice. It covers written advice "(including by means of electronic communication)" and requires the practitioner to "reasonably consider all relevant facts and circumstances" and "relate applicable law and authorities to facts". A reply to a two-line chat message can do neither, which is the practical case for keeping the bot off the visitor's own situation.
• Section 10.30(a), advertising. It bars a "misleading or deceptive statement or claim" in "any form of public communication", and enrolled agents describing their designation "may not utilize the term 'certified' or imply an employer/employee relationship with the Internal Revenue Service". "Enrolled to practice before the Internal Revenue Service" is one of its acceptable descriptions.
• Section 10.30(b) and (c), fees. A practitioner may charge no more than published rates "for at least 30 calendar days after the last date on which the schedule of fees was published", and must keep a copy of direct mail and e-commerce communications of fee information "for a period of at least 36 months". Whether a chat reply counts is a question for your adviser; the cautious setup keeps one dated fee page as the bot's only fee source.
• Section 10.36, procedures. Whoever oversees a firm's tax practice must take reasonable steps to ensure the firm has adequate compliance procedures. Name the person who owns the bot's instructions and reads its transcripts.

The IRS's August 2026 Security Summit release, IR-2026-92, says "Federal law requires tax and accounting professionals to create and maintain a Written Information Security Plan", because the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act treats them as financial institutions; Publication 5708 is the IRS's template. The FTC's Safeguards Rule guidance lists tax preparation firms among covered businesses, expects you to choose and monitor service providers that can keep data safe, and since May 2024 requires notice to the FTC within 30 days of discovering a breach of unencrypted information about 500 or more consumers.

CPAs also answer to their state board of accountancy, and AICPA members to the Statements on Standards for Tax Services, "the enforceable tax practice standards for members of the AICPA".

How should an accounting chatbot run client intake?

A firm's chatbot should collect only what a person needs to call back and route the lead: the type of client, the service wanted, the state, the software used and contact details, never income figures, account numbers or tax documents.

In PepoChat, lead capture always collects an email and can add name, phone and company, asked in a form before the first message, when the agent needs a follow-up, or right before a handoff. The follow-up timing suits most firms, because simple questions get answered without a form. The optional consent text, up to 300 characters, appears only under the pre-chat form; with the other timings, put the same warning in the greeting, which opens every conversation. This one is 227 characters:

By sharing your details you agree that Maple Street Tax may contact you about your enquiry. This chat is not tax advice. Please don't type Social Security numbers or send tax documents here; we'll send you a secure portal link.

A new contact can trigger an email to the team (Starter and Growth), a Slack card or a signed webhook for Zapier, Make or n8n; there is no native connection to tax or practice-management software. One caution: the IRS's August 2026 phishing warning, IR-2026-85, describes "new client" scams in which senders pose as prospective clients to get practitioners to open malicious links or files. Treat a chat lead like an email lead: never follow a link a stranger pastes, and send your own portal invitation once a person has qualified the lead.

How do you turn document checklists into chatbot answers?

Document checklists become reliable chatbot answers when each client type has its own short, dated checklist in the knowledge base, and edge cases are written as Q&A pairs in the words clients use.

Write one checklist per client type: employees with Forms W-2, the self-employed and contractors, landlords, partnerships and S corporations, and new bookkeeping clients. Put the answer first, date it ("for 2026 returns, filed in 2027"), keep the items as text rather than a scanned image, and end every checklist the same way: upload through the portal, never by chat or email.

In PepoChat you can publish each checklist as a Help Center article. Visitors read it on the widget's Help tab, and published articles are mirrored into the knowledge base automatically. The Free plan holds 50 articles and paid plans 300.

Edge cases belong in Q&A pairs, a question stored with its answer so that retrieval matches the way visitors phrase it. Write the firm's process, not tax rules:

• "A corrected 1099 arrived after I uploaded everything. What do I do?" Upload it to the portal and message your preparer.
• "Do you need last year's return?" New clients upload it with their documents.

Q&A pairs do not count as knowledge sources; a workspace holds 100 on Free and 1,000 on a paid plan.

Then decide about your tax-tips blog. PepoChat's base rules make the agent answer only from what it retrieves, never from general knowledge, so an article on home-office deductions becomes answer material when a visitor asks about their own home office. Either exclude the blog from the website crawl with an exclude path such as /blog, or keep it and add a Never do this line that stops the agent from applying articles to anyone's situation.

How should the chatbot handle portal questions and confidential documents?

The chatbot should explain how your secure client portal works and send every document, identifier and account question there, and it should never ask for Social Security numbers, bank details, passwords or photos of tax forms.

Visitors will try anyway. As of October 2026, PepoChat's chat box has an attach button for up to three images per message (PNG, JPG, WebP or GIF, 5 MB each), and there is no setting to switch it off. Attached images are read by the AI model, shown to your team in the inbox and deleted a week after upload. Typed text stays with the conversation: escalation emails quote the last three messages, the inbox's CSV export holds full transcripts, and there is no button to delete a single conversation.

Four settings shrink the exposure:

1. Say it before they type. Put the "no documents, no Social Security numbers" line in the greeting, and fill in Privacy policy link, which shows "By chatting, you agree to our privacy policy" above the message box.
2. Make the refusal a rule. A Never do this line makes the agent decline identifiers and point to the portal.
3. Set data retention. The Team page's setting deletes resolved conversations, transcripts and images included, 30, 90, 180 or 365 days after they started; it is off by default. Weigh it against the 36-month question in section 10.30(c).
4. Lock the widget to your site. The allowed-domains list stops a chat from starting on any page that is not yours.

Treat the chatbot as one more system in your written security plan. PepoChat's privacy notes say messages go to its servers and replies come from OpenAI models under standard API terms. PepoChat does not claim SOC 2, ISO 27001, a hosting region or a signed data processing agreement template, and says to ask rather than assume. The disclosure and privacy notice templates give wording for your own privacy policy.

Finally, do not wire return-status lookups into the chat. Anyone can type a client's name or email, and PepoChat's email verification does not gate integration lookups, so status belongs behind the portal's login. The guide to chatbot permissions explains which actions a support bot should never get.

What instructions should an accounting firm give its chatbot?

Give the chatbot a short persona under "How to sound and behave", up to 4,000 characters in PepoChat, and hard refusals under "Never do this", up to 2,000, then test both with the questions clients actually ask.

PepoChat adds your text after its base rules, which still make the agent search your knowledge base first, never invent an answer and offer a person; the agent instructions docs explain what instructions can change. This example uses 881 and 662 characters:

How to sound and behave
You are the AI assistant for Maple Street Tax & Bookkeeping, not a CPA or an enrolled agent. Say so in your first reply.
Answer questions about the firm: services, the published fee schedule, document checklists, the dates on our deadlines page, how the client portal works, turnaround times and booking.
Be brief and plain, and ask one question at a time.
When someone describes their own tax situation, do not comment on it. Say a preparer will review it, then offer a consultation or ask for their email.
For new clients, ask whether they are an individual or a business, which state they file in, what they need (a tax return, bookkeeping, payroll, help with an IRS letter or planning) and which accounting software they use. Ask for categories only, never amounts.
If someone mentions an IRS letter with a deadline, a levy or a lien, hand the conversation to the team at once.

Never do this
Never give tax advice or say whether a deduction, credit, filing status or extension applies to someone.
Never estimate a refund, a tax bill, a penalty or the fee for a specific return.
Never quote a fee that is not on our fees page.
Never ask for or accept Social Security numbers, ITINs, bank or card details, passwords, IRS PINs or photos of tax documents. Point to the client portal instead.
Never give the status of a client's return. Returning clients use the portal or ask their preparer.
Never apply our blog articles to a visitor's own situation.
Never say or imply that you are a person, a CPA or an enrolled agent, or that the firm is "IRS certified".

Then try to break it in Test the agent: test chats are free, but bookings run for real.

The last question goes stale every January: the agent knows only what your pages say, so update the deadlines page the day the IRS announces its date, then click Sync website pages, because website sources otherwise refresh weekly.

Can the chatbot book consultations and cover after hours?

Yes. PepoChat's chatbot books consultations from a connected PepoSmart calendar, offers slots in the visitor's own time zone, and outside your hours collects an email address so a preparer can reply.

You switch on up to 12 meeting types and write a "when to offer this" note for each, such as "Bookkeeping discovery call: businesses asking about monthly or catch-up bookkeeping". Paid event types are never offered by the agent, so a paid consultation is booked by your staff or replaced by a free introductory call. The appointment booking guide covers time zones and round-robin hosts.

For after hours, the Team availability card has three modes. "No one answers live chat, we follow up by email" fits most firms in season: the agent keeps answering, never promises a person, asks once for an email address and hands the conversation to the team inbox. The away message holds 300 characters; this one uses 175:

Our preparers reply by email within two business days from February to April. Please don't send documents or Social Security numbers here; we'll send you a secure upload link.

Replies typed in the team inbox are not emailed to the visitor, so answer with the alert's Reply by email button. The offline message examples include more email-first wording.

What does an AI chatbot for an accounting firm cost?

PepoChat costs $0 on Free (200 AI replies a month), $49 a month on Starter (2,000 replies, three members) and $149 a month on Growth (10,000 replies, ten members), and paid plans bill extra replies at $10 per 1,000.

Prices from PepoChat's pricing page and billing documentation, checked 22 October 2026.

Every feature is on every plan, booking and lead capture included, except new-lead emails to the team, which need Starter or Growth. A worked example: 25 conversations a day in the peak, at four AI replies each, is 100 replies a day or about 3,000 in a 30-day month. On Starter that is $49 plus 1,000 extra replies at $10, so $59 in all. On replies alone Starter always costs less than Growth; Growth pays off through seats (10 included, extra seats $15 a month) and removing the branding.

To run the chatbot only in tax season, take Starter monthly from mid-January and cancel in April: three or four charges of $49. A cancelled subscription runs to the end of the paid period and then returns to Free with the knowledge base, conversations and settings kept, so check Free's limits of one member and five knowledge sources first. Paid overage has no spend cap, and on Free, once the 200 replies are used, new conversations go to the team inbox with a friendly message.

What should the chatbot do outside tax season?

Outside tax season the same chatbot can qualify bookkeeping and payroll leads, book tax-planning reviews and answer the questions each deadline triggers, from extensions to estimated payments.

• Bookkeeping leads. Monthly packages, catch-up work and software setup are year-round questions; the intake fields above, plus a rough monthly transaction count, are enough for a discovery call.
• Planning reviews. Switch on a planning-review meeting type in the autumn and off again in January.
• Deadline content. Keep one dated deadlines page and let the bot quote it. Form 1040-ES for 2026, for example, lists 15 January 2027 for the fourth estimated tax payment, and says that payment is not needed if the 2026 return is filed by 1 February 2027 with the entire balance paid. Reminders themselves go out from your email or practice software.

What to do next

• Before January, write or update four pages: the fee schedule, one checklist per client type, a dated deadlines page and the portal guide.
• Paste the instructions above, set lead capture, the consent text, data retention and allowed domains, then run the six test questions.
• Create a free PepoChat workspace: booking, lead capture and agent instructions are all on the free plan, so you can test them before the IRS announces the 2027 date, then move up on the pricing page when the season's volume arrives.