The way your best preparer does it, on every job

FigsFlow turns your firm's process into reusable workflow templates — the task list, who does which part, and due dates that count backward from the filing deadline instead of sitting in somebody's calendar. Apply one to a job and the whole schedule builds itself, including the parts where you have to chase the client.

Partner or firm owner, start with what a template actually contains in the tour below. Practice manager, go straight to what breaks when the deadline moves.

Book a demo Explore the tour

Built inside working firms, not a lab Microsoft 365 native — your data stays in your tenant Founding-customer program open now

Form 1120-S · standard v4 live

AnchorFiling deadline · March 15
Steps14 · 4 client-facing · 2 review gates
RolesPreparer · Reviewer · Signer
Budget6.5 hrs · rolls into capacity
In use38 live jobs · 12 still on v3

edit the template once — the next job picks it up, the 38 in flight don't move unless you say so

The process your firm already agreed on, in a form the software can actually run.

The product experience

One template, and the fourteen days it decides

A workflow template is not a checklist somebody printed. It is the task list, the roles, the budgeted hours, the client requests and the due-date math for one piece of work — held in one place, versioned, and applied to a job in a single step. Move through the tabs to look around.

app.figsflow.com/workflows Sample data

Every figure on this screen is illustrative sample data from a fictional firm. This is a read-only prototype.

24 templates across tax, bookkeeping and CAS, payroll and advisory — plus 18 in the starter library, built to be edited rather than used as they are.

Template library · sample firm
Template	Anchor	Steps	Budget	Live jobs	Version
Form 1120-S — standard	Filing deadline · Mar 15	14	6.5h	38	v4
Form 1040 — individual	Filing deadline · Apr 15	9	2.25h	214	v7
Form 1040 — extended	Extended deadline · Oct 15	11	2.75h	61	v3
Form 1065 — partnership	Filing deadline · Mar 15	16	8.0h	22	v2
Monthly close — CAS	Period end + 10 business days	12	4.0h	46 recurring	v9
Payroll — semi-monthly	Pay date − 3 business days	7	1.5h	18 recurring	v5
Sales tax — multi-state	Filing deadline · 20th	10	3.0h	27	v3
New client onboarding	Engagement letter signed	13	5.0h	6	v6

A template belongs to a service — which is what makes the right one get offered when the job is created.

Form 1120-S — standard · v4. No step holds a date. Every step holds an offset from the anchor.

Steps in the Form 1120-S template
#	Step	Role	Due	Type	Budget
01	Request prior-year return & trial balance	Preparer	Anchor − 45d	Client request	0.25h
02	Confirm shareholder list & basis schedule	Preparer	Anchor − 40d	Client request	0.5h
03	Chase outstanding documents	Preparer	Anchor − 32d	Automatic, recurring	—
04	Import trial balance	Preparer	Anchor − 28d	Internal	0.5h
05	Book adjusting entries	Preparer	Anchor − 24d	Internal	1.0h
06	Prepare return	Preparer	Anchor − 20d	Internal	2.0h
07	Multi-state allocation	Preparer	Anchor − 18d	Conditional · states ≥ 2	1.0h
08	Self-review against checklist	Preparer	Anchor − 16d	Internal	0.5h
09	Manager review	Reviewer	Anchor − 12d	Review gate	1.0h
10	Clear review points	Preparer	Anchor − 9d	Internal	0.5h
11	Send K-1 drafts to shareholders	Preparer	Anchor − 7d	Client-facing	0.25h
12	Partner sign-off	Signer	Anchor − 5d	Review gate	0.25h
13	E-file authorization (Form 8879-S)	Signer	Anchor − 3d	E-signature	—
14	File and archive to SharePoint	Preparer	Anchor − 1d	Internal	0.25h

14 steps · 6.5 budgeted hours · 4 client-facing · 2 review gates · 1 conditional

A template never names a person. It names a role, and the client record says who fills it — which is why the same template works for 214 clients.

One template, four clients, roles resolved per client
Role	Whitmore	Reed	Calder	Barrett
Preparer	Sofia	Sofia	Priya	James
Reviewer	Daniel	Aaron	Daniel	Aaron
Signer	Morgan	Morgan	Morgan	Unassigned

Precedence: client default → group default → firm default → unassigned pool, which escalates to the manager on day one.

Editing a template creates a version. Jobs already running stay on the version they started on until you choose to migrate them.

Version history · Form 1120-S template
Version	Changed	By	What changed	Jobs on it
v4 current	Aug 12, 2026	Morgan Grant	Added step 07 — multi-state allocation, conditional	38
v3	Feb 2, 2026	Morgan Grant	Moved manager review from −8d to −12d	12
v2	Nov 4, 2025	Aaron Shaw	Split “prepare and review” into two steps	0
v1	Jul 19, 2025	Aaron Shaw	Created from the starter library	0

Migration is a decision, not a side effect — you see how many jobs each option affects before you confirm.

A monthly close template does not get applied twelve times by a human. The schedule generates the next job when the period ends, carries unfinished items forward as flagged exceptions, and stops when the engagement does.

Recurring schedules
Template	Clients	Next generation	Status
Monthly close — CAS	46	Sep 1	3 clients paused
Payroll — semi-monthly	18	Aug 26	Running
Sales tax — multi-state	27	Sep 20	Running

No templates yet? Start from the 18 in the starter library, or build one from a job you have already finished.

This is the read-only tour. Editing a step, dragging the order, migrating live jobs and generating a recurring cycle all happen in the live product — we do those with your own service list on the call.

Due dates from the deadline

Steps carry offsets, not dates. Move the anchor and all fourteen move with it.

Roles, not names

One template serves every client because the client record decides who fills each role.

Client steps inside the flow

Document requests, K-1 drafts and e-signature are steps in the job, not a separate chase.

Versions you can see

Change the process once. Decide separately what happens to the jobs already running.

Take the guided product tour

The problem

The process exists. It lives in four people's heads and a spreadsheet nobody owns.

It is January. A Form 1120-S comes in for a client the firm has had for six years, and it goes to whoever has room. She does it the way she was shown, which is mostly the right way. She misses the basis schedule, because the person who taught her always asked for it verbally and it never made it onto the checklist.

Nobody catches it until manager review, eleven days before the deadline, and by then the client is on vacation. The return goes on extension. Not because the work was hard, and not because anyone was careless — because the firm's process for an 1120-S is a document from 2023, a partner's habits, and a tab in a spreadsheet called Tax_Season_Master_FINAL_v2.

The spreadsheet is not the problem. It is the symptom. The problem is that the firm's method and the firm's work are stored in two different places — so the method is only as good as whoever remembered to read it, and it silently stops being true the moment a deadline changes, a partner leaves, or somebody finds a better way and tells three people.

Every busy season, the same eleven decisions get made again from scratch. And the firm gets no better at any of them.

See where a template actually sits in the work

One process, four places it is storedTHE USUAL SETUP

The written procedureA Word document, last edited 2023

Read once

Nobody opens it during busy season

The senior's headHow it is actually done here

Unwritten

Leaves the building at 5:30, and permanently in June

The spreadsheet trackerDeadlines, one tab per service

Manual dates

Every date typed by hand, every year

The job in the systemTasks somebody created this time

Re-created each time

When the IRS moves a date or your review policy changes, you are not editing a template — you are hoping four things get updated, and finding out in March which one didn't.

Where it sits in the flow

The template is the bridge between what you sold and what gets done

A workflow template is not a standalone feature. It is what turns an agreed scope into a scheduled job — which is why it only works properly when the scope, the job, the timesheet and the client requests are already on one record.

01The scope is agreed
The engagement letter says what the firm is doing this year. That service decides which template applies.
Engagement letters
02You are hereThe template is applied
One action. Task list, roles resolved from the client record, budgeted hours, and fourteen due dates counted back from the deadline.
03The job runs
Tasks appear in the right person's queue on the right day. A step that slips is visible as a slipped step, not a job that is vaguely behind.
Jobs and deadlines
04The client's part is a step
Document requests, K-1 drafts and the 8879-S sit in the same sequence. A late client marks the job blocked, not late.
Forms and requests
05February is visible in November
Budgeted hours per step, times every job the template will create, is a capacity forecast nobody had to build.
Team and capacity

What feeds a template

Your service catalog — a template belongs to a service, so the right one is offered when the job is created
The starter library — 18 templates for common US filings and CAS cycles, built to be edited
A job you already finished — FigsFlow reads its tasks and drafts a template from real work
Federal and state deadline data — the anchors, including business-day and holiday handling

What a template feeds

The job — tasks, sub-tasks, roles, due dates and budget, created in one action
Capacity — budgeted hours land in the right person's week before the work starts
The client portal — client-facing steps become visible requests with their own due dates
The firm dashboard — every job of a type has the same shape, so “stuck at review” becomes a number

Follow the record forward: how a scheduled job becomes a billed one

What a template actually does

Four things that stop being somebody's job

Due-date math

Dates that come from the deadline, not from a calendar invite

Every step holds an offset — thirty-two days before the anchor, ten business days after period end — and never a date. When the job is created, the anchor supplies the date and the whole chain lands at once.

This is the part that pays for itself in a single extension. A client goes on extension in March; you change one field on the job and all eleven remaining steps move to the October chain, weekends and federal holidays skipped. Nobody re-types a schedule, and nobody discovers in September that the tracker still says April.

Roles, not names

One template, two hundred clients, no duplicated versions

Templates assign a preparer, a reviewer and a signer — roles, resolved from the client record when the job is created. Change who reviews a client's work and the next job picks it up. There is no “1040 template — Sofia's clients.”

Where a client has no default, the role resolves to the unassigned pool and escalates to the manager on day one rather than sitting quietly with nobody's name on it. Review gates are their own step type: work cannot be marked complete past a gate that has not been cleared.

Same template · four clients
Role	Whitmore	Reed	Calder	Barrett
Preparer	Sofia	Sofia	Priya	James
Reviewer	Daniel	Aaron	Daniel	Aaron
Signer	Morgan	Morgan	Morgan	Unassigned

The client's steps

The chasing is part of the process, or it is nobody's job

Four of the fourteen steps in an 1120-S template are things the client has to do. In most firms those steps live outside the workflow entirely — in an inbox, in a “have you had a chance” email, in the head of whoever feels responsible.

In a FigsFlow template they are steps: a document request with its own due date, a K-1 draft to review, an 8879-S to sign. A late client step marks the job blocked by the client rather than late — which decides whether an extension is your fault or theirs, and whether the fee conversation in April is a difficult one.

01 · DocumentsDue Jan 29Returned
02 · Basis scheduleDue Feb 3Chasing
11 · K-1 draftsDue Mar 8Not started
13 · Form 8879-SDue Mar 12Not started

Job status: Blocked by client — not “late”.

Versioning

Improve the process without breaking the season

The moment a template is genuinely used, editing it becomes a risk: thirty-eight jobs are already running on it, and half are past the step you want to change. Most tools handle this by either freezing the template or silently rewriting live work. Both are wrong.

FigsFlow versions the template. Editing creates a new version, which applies to every job created from that point. Jobs already running stay where they are, and you decide — explicitly — whether to migrate them. The improvement a senior found in February gets into the template in February.

Added07 · Multi-state allocation (conditional)
Unchanged13 of 14 steps
RemovedNone

38 jobs on v3 · migrating all would add step 07 to 12 jobs · 0 would lose a completed step

What changes

The same eleven decisions, made once

Nothing here is a saving we can promise you. Below are the things a template makes structurally true — and one worked example using a firm's own numbers rather than ours.

6anchor date typesfiling, extended, period end, pay date, letter signed, fixed
1action to schedule a jobtask list, roles, dates and budget together
18starter templatesUS filings and CAS cycles, built to be edited
0dates typed by handoffsets resolve from the anchor

A worked example — your numbers, not ours. A firm filing 214 individual returns, where setting up each job by hand takes four minutes: 14.3 hours of setup per season, before anyone starts a return. Change the 214 or the four minutes and the arithmetic changes with it — which is the point. We are showing you the calculation, not a claim.

214 returns × 4 min setup = 14.3 hrs 214 returns multiplied by 4 minutes of setup equals 14.3 hours.

A new hire is productive on day one

The template is the training. They see the steps, the order, the review gates and the deadline math on their first job rather than learning it over two seasons.

The deadline change is one field

Extensions, IRS date shifts and a client's changed period end move the whole chain instead of thirteen calendar entries.

Review points stop being a surprise

A review gate is a step with a date and an owner, so waiting on the manager is visible three days in, not on the 14th.

Capacity is a by-product, not a project

Budgeted hours per step, times the jobs the template will create, is next February's workload — available in November.

Improvements survive the person who found them

A better way of doing something becomes v5 of the template rather than a habit two people picked up.

“Where is my return” has one answer

Because every job of a given type has the same shape, anyone in the firm can answer the question from the same place.

Where this is different

Everyone has checklists. Almost nobody has the deadline math.

Every practice tool on the market lets you save a task list and re-use it. That is table stakes, and it is not what makes templates work. The difference shows up in four places: where the dates come from, whether the client's steps are inside the workflow, what happens when you improve the template mid-season, and whether budgeted hours reach a capacity view. Judge accounting workflow software on those four, not on whether it has templates.

You are the preparer, the reviewer and the signer. The template is not about delegation — it is about not re-deciding the sequence in March when you are tired.

The first size where two people do the same service differently and nobody has noticed. One template forces the conversation about which way is right, which is worth more than the template.

Review capacity is the bottleneck, and review gates are the only part of the process nobody can see. This is the size where gate dates start deciding your season.

Several offices, several house styles, one filing standard. Versioning and migration scope stop being conveniences and start being governance.

A spreadsheet and a shared drive

What most firms are actually running

Gap: every date, every year

Free, readable by everyone, and never broken in a way you can't fix yourself. What it cannot do is arithmetic that survives an extension, or tell you a job has been sitting at review since Tuesday. Dates are typed, so dates are wrong.

A generic project management tool

Asana, Monday, ClickUp and the rest

Gap: the deadline, and the client

Genuinely good software with real templating and recurrence. But the anchors are project start dates, not filing deadlines, so the offset logic gets rebuilt with automations — and your clients are not going to log into your project tool.

A practice suite with checklists

Where the jobs already live

Gap: versioning, and the client steps

Templates exist and dates often work. The usual limits are what happens after: editing mid-season either rewrites live jobs or is blocked entirely, and the client's part of the process still runs over email.

FigsFlow

Built by accountants — templates, and the job they create

Gap: nil on these four

Offsets against six anchor types with business-day handling. Client-facing steps in the same sequence, visible in the portal. Versioned templates with an explicit migration decision. Budgeted hours that reach capacity without a second entry.

The four tests
The test	Spreadsheet	Generic PM tool	Practice suite	FigsFlow
Dates from a filing deadline	Typed by hand	Rebuilt with automations	Usually yes	Six anchors, business days
Client steps inside the workflow	No	No	Partly	Yes, in the portal
Edit mid-season safely	Not applicable	Overwrites	Blocked or overwrites	Versioned, you choose
Budget reaches capacity	No	Separate system	Sometimes	Same record

And where we are narrower, on purpose. There is no free-form flowchart canvas — steps are a sequence with conditions, not a diagram with branches and loops, and if you want to model a process as a graph this is not that product. Cross-template dependencies (“don't start the 1120 until the bookkeeping close is done”) are not in this release; you can sequence them by anchor, but the system won't enforce it. And the starter library is a starting point, not a compliance product — the eighteen templates are built to be edited by your firm, and we would rather you did than trusted ours.

Who uses it, and how

The first template a firm builds is different every time

Templates get switched on at the point where the same work is being done more than about twenty times a year, or by more than one person. Which template a firm should build first depends almost entirely on its size — and the wrong first template is the reason most rollouts stall.

Same choice as the comparison above — pick once, both sections follow

Start withYour highest-volume return, usually the 1040.

WhyAt your volume the win is not delegation, it is not re-deciding. Fourteen minutes of thinking about sequence, ×214, is most of a week you did not know you were spending.

Skip for nowRoles and review gates. You are all three roles, and modeling that as three steps adds ceremony without adding safety.

What surprises solosThe client-facing steps. Chasing is the single largest unbilled time cost in a solo practice, and it is the part a template takes over completely.

Start withThe service where two people do it differently. You already know which one.

WhyThis is the size where process divergence becomes real and invisible at the same time. One template forces the conversation about which way is right, which is worth more than the template.

Turn on earlyReview gates. With three to ten people, review is where jobs go quiet.

What surprises small firmsHow much of the disagreement is about order, not content.

Start withThe service with the worst review backlog, not the highest volume.

WhyAt this size the bottleneck has moved from preparation to review, and template dates are the only mechanism that puts a date on a review step at all.

Turn on earlyBudgeted hours per step. This is the size where capacity planning stops being optional and starts being the reason people leave.

What surprises growing firmsThe gate report. Average days at manager review is usually well above what the partners guessed.

Start withThe filing standard that has to be identical across offices.

WhyAt forty-plus people, templates are a governance instrument. Version history is who changed the firm's method and when, which matters for peer review and for defending a position later.

Turn on earlyMigration scope. When a template changes mid-season across several hundred live jobs, who moves and who doesn't is a decision that needs an owner.

What surprises multi-partner firmsHow many near-identical templates exist once everyone has migrated. Consolidating them is usually the second project.

A template never becomes mandatory. A job created from one can still have a step added, removed or reassigned — the template is the default, not a lock. Firms that enforce templates rigidly end up with staff creating jobs outside the system, which is a worse outcome than an edited task list.

Works with your stack

What a template can reach, and what it can't

Templates touch three things outside FigsFlow: your calendar, your document store, and the deadline data the dates are built on. Everything else here is what is not connected — because a firm finding that out in February is a much worse experience than reading it now.

Live today

Shipping

Microsoft 365

Steps with a date can write to Outlook calendars, review gates can raise a Teams notification for the reviewer, and the documents a step produces are filed to your SharePoint under the client's folder structure. Sign-in is the identity your firm already administers.

Outlook calendarTeams notificationsSharePoint filingEntra ID SSO

Your SharePoint tenant

A template can specify where a step's output goes — folder path, naming convention, and which client folder — so archiving is a step's behavior rather than someone's habit. Files never leave your tenant.

Folder path per stepNaming conventionYour tenant only

Federal and state deadline data

The anchor dates behind the offsets: federal filing and extended deadlines, federal holidays for business-day handling, and state deadlines where they differ. Maintained by FigsFlow, not by your admin.

Federal deadlinesFederal holidaysState variations

The client portal and forms

Client-facing steps become portal requests with the step's own due date, and the chase cadence runs from the step. A returned document completes the step and releases the next one.

Portal requestsAutomatic chaseE-signature steps

Not yet

And we would rather say so

US tax preparation software

No integration with Drake, Lacerte, ProConnect, UltraTax or the rest. A template schedules and tracks the work around the return; it does not know the return's status inside your tax software, and a step is marked complete by a person.

Not in this release

Two-way calendar editing

Step dates write to Outlook. Moving the event in Outlook does not move the step — the job is the source of truth, deliberately, because a dragged calendar entry is not a decision about a deadline.

One-way by design

Cross-template dependencies

A template cannot wait on another template's job. “Don't start the 1120 until the close is done” has to be handled with anchors and a human, for now.

Phase 2 — no committed date

Visual flowchart builder

Templates are an ordered list with conditions, not a canvas. There is no branching diagram, and there won't be one in this release.

Not planned for this version

Why the list is short. A workflow integration that half works costs a firm more than one that does not exist, because somebody still checks both systems — and in a template, a half-working integration means a date that is wrong rather than a field that is empty. See every integration FigsFlow supports today

What we can actually show you

We are early, and we would rather you knew what that means

Built inside working firms

The starter templates and the anchor logic came out of firms doing this work — a US practice filing 1040s, 1120-S and multi-state sales tax, and a UK practice running month-end close. The 1120-S sequence on this page is a real firm's sequence with the names removed.

Founding-customer program

Firms joining now get their first three templates built with a practice specialist from their existing checklists, and direct access to the team shipping the module. In exchange we ask for honest feedback and permission to fix things quickly.

What we don't have yet

No published customer outcome numbers for this module, no case studies, and no independent review corpus for workflow templates specifically. When we have them they will appear here with the firm named and the number sourced. Anything on this page you can't verify in a demo, ask us to show you live.

Availability

Included, not an add-on

Workflow templates are part of the FigsFlow platform, not a separately priced module. If your plan includes jobs, it includes templates — unlimited templates, unlimited versions, and the starter library.

In every plan with jobs: Unlimited templates and versions · the 18-template starter library · all six anchor types · roles and review gates · recurring schedules
Depends on your modules: Client-facing steps need the client portal · e-signature steps need e-signature · budgeted hours reach capacity planning if you have team and capacity
Setup: Your first three templates are built with a practice specialist during onboarding, from the checklists you already use.

See plans and pricing

Next in the platform

Templates only pay off when the job, the client and the clock are on one record

Jobs, tasks and deadlines

What a template creates. Every job's tasks, sub-tasks and deadlines in one place.

Team and capacity

Where budgeted hours land. Next February's workload, visible in November.

Forms and requests

How the client-facing steps actually reach the client.

E-signature and approvals

The Form 8879-S step, inside the workflow rather than beside it.

Time and billing

Budget versus actual, per step, without a second time entry.

Firm dashboard

Because every job of a type has the same shape, “stuck at review” becomes a number.

Questions firms ask

The things that decide whether a template survives busy season

What is a workflow template in accounting software?

A saved definition of one piece of recurring work: its task list and sub-tasks, who does each part by role, budgeted hours, which steps the client has to complete, and how each step's due date is calculated from a deadline. Applying it to a job creates the whole schedule in one action, rather than someone re-creating a task list per client.

How do templates handle extensions?

The steps hold offsets, not dates. Change the job's anchor from the March 15 filing deadline to the September 15 extended deadline and every remaining step recalculates, skipping weekends and federal holidays. Completed steps stay completed.

What happens to jobs already running when I edit a template?

Editing creates a new version. Jobs created after the edit use it; jobs already running stay on the version they started on until you choose to migrate them. You see how many jobs each option affects before you confirm.

Can one template work for clients that aren't identical?

Up to a point, and that point is conditional steps. A step can be set to appear only when a condition is met — a multi-state allocation step that appears for clients operating in two or more states, for example. Beyond that, build a second template. Two clear templates beat one template with fifteen conditions.

Does a template lock the job?

No. A job created from a template can have steps added, removed, reassigned or re-dated. The template is the default, not a constraint. Firms that enforce templates rigidly end up with work being tracked outside the system.

Do templates work for month-end close and other recurring work?

Yes, and recurring work is where they pay back fastest. A close template anchors on period end plus a number of business days, generates the next job when the period closes, and carries unfinished items forward as flagged exceptions rather than silently dropping them.

Can the client see their steps?

The client-facing steps appear in the client portal with the step's own due date, and the chase runs from the step. The client does not see your internal steps, your budgeted hours or your review gates.

Do I have to build templates from scratch?

No. There are 18 starter templates for common US filings and CAS cycles, and FigsFlow can draft a template from a job you have already completed by reading its tasks. During onboarding a practice specialist builds your first three from your existing checklists.

Does this integrate with my tax preparation software?

Not in this release. There is no integration with Drake, Lacerte, ProConnect or UltraTax. Templates schedule and track the work around the return; a preparation step is marked complete by a person, not by your tax software.

How long does it take to get the first template running?

The first one is built during onboarding with a specialist, from checklists you already have. The realistic constraint is not the software — it is agreeing internally on the sequence, which is usually the more valuable half of the exercise.

Where to start

Bring the checklist you actually use

Not the written procedure — the spreadsheet tab or the Word document your team really works from, however scruffy. In thirty minutes we will turn one of them into a working template with real anchor dates, and you will see immediately whether the sequence you have been running is the sequence you thought you had.

Book a demo See jobs and deadlines

30-minute session · your own checklist · no credit card

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From proposals to pricing, streamline every step with automation designed particularly for accountants, bookkeepers and tax advisers.