Article

Accounting and tax firms: get paid for your records

By TrustPast

Updated November 7, 2026

This page is for the owner of a small accounting or tax practice. You keep everything, because the rules made you keep it, and you have probably never asked whether any of it has a price. Much of it doesn’t, because it is your clients’ information and federal rules govern what a preparer does with it. But a practice that has run for fifteen years has also produced its own record of how the work gets done, and buyers license records like that to train AI models.

What a practice usually overlooks is the review. Not the return, and not the client’s books. The trail of a preparer’s draft, a reviewer’s notes, the preparer’s answers and the second round of notes. That is reasoning, written down under deadline, every season. Our page on what data buyers want from a trade business sets out the test buyers apply, with trades as the example. The same test, applied to a practice, starts with the line between your record and your clients’.

What follows about Polyshares is quoted from its own pages. What follows about a practice’s files is our own description. What the tax rules allow is a question for your counsel.

The records an accounting or tax firm keeps

Our examples, not a buyer’s list. These are the records a practice produces as it works, season after season.

The engagement letter and the fee history. What the firm agreed to do, for how much, and what changed. The first-year quote for a small business return. The second year, when the client added a rental property and the fee went up. The year the firm walked away from a client who wouldn’t send the documents in time. A practice that kept every engagement letter has a record of how professional work is scoped and repriced.

The organizer and the document request list. What the firm asked for, what came back, what was missing in March. The follow-up emails asking for the third time. The list of open items on each engagement and the date each closed. Read by year, it shows where the work actually stalls.

The review notes. This is the core. A preparer finishes a draft. A reviewer opens it and writes: “Why is the home office deduction here? Where is the depreciation schedule? This K-1 doesn’t tie.” The preparer answers each point. Some answers are “fixed.” Some are “client confirmed by phone, see note.” Some start an argument that a partner settles. Polyshares’ answer page on what data is worth says: “Ten years of one team working through hard problems in writing is a denser asset than a far larger archive of finished documents, because the finished documents carry conclusions with the reasoning removed.” The finished return is the conclusion. The review trail is the reasoning.

The adjusting entries and the bookkeeping corrections. For a firm that does monthly books, the record is the coding and the corrections. Polyshares’ QuickBooks guide says: “How a bookkeeper categorized thousands of real transactions, and later corrected them with journal entries, is useful signal.” Its Xero guide says: “Reconciliation decisions made by real bookkeepers over years are hard to find anywhere else.” Whose ledger that is decides whether it can count. More on that below.

The notice file. A letter from a tax authority, the research on what it meant, the response the firm drafted, and the outcome. Each is a small case: a problem raised, diagnosed and resolved, with a date on every step.

The workflow tracker. Who had which return, when it was due, which ones went on extension and why, how the queue looked on 10 April. A practice’s busy season, year by year, is a record of how a small team allocates scarce hours.

The CRM and the pipeline. Prospects, referrals, consultations, proposals, the clients who signed and the ones who didn’t. Our page on CRM records explains which parts of a CRM carry the work and which parts are only contact details. In a practice, the useful part is the stage history: consultation, proposal, signed, onboarded, renewed or lost.

The internal email. A partner explaining to a new hire how the firm handles a client who mixes personal and business expenses. Two managers working out a staffing plan for March. Our page on email archives covers how a mailbox is sized and what sits inside it. Internal threads are where a firm teaches itself, and they are often more about method than about any one client.

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What counts, in the buyer’s own words

Polyshares has no page about accounting firms. Here is what its pages say, applied.

On sectors, Polyshares’ home page lists “professional services” and “financial services” among the businesses with “real operating history” that qualify. A practice is one or both.

On what it pays for, Polyshares’ data licensing page says “The value is not in volume.” It continues: “Every business with real operating history has produced a second asset without meaning to. It is the record of how the work actually got done, accumulated year after year as a byproduct of running.” And: “Nobody can fabricate ten years of a company arguing with itself and getting to an answer.” A review-note trail is a firm arguing with itself, in writing, before every deadline.

On the systems it means, the same page names “email, CRM history, support tickets,” and “accounting and ERP exports,” among others. Its HubSpot guide describes what a CRM adds: “HubSpot ties each contact, company and deal to a timeline of emails, calls, meetings and notes.” And: “Deal stage changes, ticket status changes and lifecycle stages give labeled progressions that are hard to find elsewhere.”

On ledgers, its QuickBooks guide says “Across several years that is a clean record of how a small business actually earns and spends money,” and its Xero guide says that receivable and payable detail shows “the full payment story of each customer and supplier.” For a firm, the practice’s own books are its own. The ledgers it keeps for clients are another matter, and Polyshares draws the same line: its licence “does not cover what you hold on behalf of your own clients.”

What is never included

Client tax returns, client ledgers, client bank statements and client payroll belong outside the record, as our own advice, before any rule is consulted. They are your clients’ information, held because they hired you.

The Internal Revenue Service publishes a Section 7216 information center. It describes “rules and consent requirements relating to the disclosure or use of tax return information by tax return preparers,” and refers to “criminal and civil penalties under Internal Revenue Code sections 7216 and 6713.” We don’t interpret those rules, and nothing on this page says what they permit. If your firm prepares returns, ask counsel before you count, list or describe anything that came from a return.

Personal data is the next line. Polyshares’ data handling page says “Names, emails, phone numbers, account numbers, and addresses are removed or replaced by a specialist PII partner before Polyshares or any buyer sees the record.” Social security numbers, bank details and payment records are not how the work was done. Polyshares’ QuickBooks guide says “Bank login details and payroll records are never needed,” and its Xero guide says “Bank feed connections and payroll data can stay in Xero.” Our page on what is never included covers the general lines.

Client-owned work is the third. A practice often works under engagement terms that say who owns the workpapers and what may be done with them. Polyshares’ legal answer page says client material held under an agreement that assigns ownership to the client “cannot be licensed regardless of value, and only the contracts separate the two.” Our page on client-owned work and NDAs explains how to read those terms, and our page on health, payment and other regulated data covers records that carry their own rules.

A practical control exists in the tools. Polyshares’ HubSpot guide says “You choose which objects and properties go into each export, so fields like contact phone numbers or payment records can be left out of the files entirely.” A firm can scope the practice’s own pipeline and leave the rest behind.

How de-identification works

Polyshares publishes the order of events.

Nothing is sent to apply. Its data handling page: “Nothing moves before an offer.” The intake is “the counts-only step.” A practice can count its engagements, its mailboxes and its CRM records from reports.

The PII partner works first. Polyshares says identifying fields are removed or replaced before it or any buyer sees the record, and that “Roles, timestamps, and the work itself are kept.” A review note keeps the reviewer’s role, the question, the answer and the date. It loses the client.

Polyshares reads a sample. “The review is scoped to what would actually be licensed.” If identifying detail is still in it, the record “goes back for another pass before pricing continues.”

Then the limits on use. Under “What we do not do,” Polyshares lists “No resale outside the license,” “No contacting your customers or staff,” and “No marketplace listing of your name.” It says buyers see listings that carry “a code instead of your name.”

One caution, our own. De-identification is about identity. It does not settle whether a preparer may use or disclose tax return information at all. That question is counsel’s, and it comes first. Our page on how de-identification works explains the general process.

What decides the price

Polyshares sets the number after it has read the record.

Its home page puts deal size at “$100K to $2M, and above for large records” (indicative, not an offer). Its data licensing page says deals run “Typically $100K to $2M, paid by us to the company” (indicative, not an offer).

Its case studies list four deals, each a perpetual exclusive licence, anonymised before delivery. No accounting firm is among them. The professional services deal is a global marketing agency at $110,000 (indicative, not an offer). Polyshares describes how each one went: “We review the record and come back with an offer within one to two weeks.”

What raises it, from Polyshares’ answer page on value: “Length of continuous operating history,” “Visible disagreement and correction,” “A specialized domain,” and “clean rights.” A practice can be strong on the first two. Twenty seasons of review notes is long and full of correction. Clean rights are the hard part, because so much of what a practice touches is a client’s.

What caps it, from the same page: “A short operating history is one, below which the record is too thin to be interesting at any price.” Material governed by a client agreement “belongs to the client regardless of value.” And “Personal information woven through the record in a way that cannot be cleanly stripped” caps it too. Review notes that quote a client’s income line by line may sit in that last group, and the buyer decides.

The years are usually there. The IRS says “Generally, you must keep your records that support an item of income, deduction or credit shown on your tax return until the period of limitations for that tax return runs out,” and lists periods from three years to indefinitely. That is about tax records, not about licensing. But it means most practices kept far more than they think, in old software and archived mailboxes.

Our page on what decides the price goes through the general factors. How many seasons of review trail does your firm still have?

Which programme fits

Polyshares’ programme on this site is for US companies with fewer than 30 people. Most sole practitioners, small CPA firms and seasonal tax offices are inside that line. Our page on the programme for 29 or fewer people has the detail.

The estimate asks for headcount, everyone included: partners, staff accountants, seasonal preparers, admin. It names the programme that fits. If the practice is larger, or outside the US, it says so.

Polyshares adds that “The length and texture of the record matter more than headcount or revenue.” Headcount picks the programme. The record sets the price.

Imaging and diagnostics centers share the same split between regulated client information and the center’s own operating trail; see imaging and diagnostics centers. Design and web agencies also scope, reprice and review work for clients who own the output; see design and web agencies. Construction companies carry the same history of estimates, changes and corrections, without the confidentiality rules; see construction companies.

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Questions and answers

Can a tax practice license client returns?

Treat client returns as out, and ask counsel. The IRS publishes rules and consent requirements on the disclosure or use of tax return information by tax return preparers, and Polyshares says its licence does not cover what you hold on behalf of your own clients.

Then what is left that a buyer would want?

This is our own description: the firm’s own working record, such as review-note threads, engagement and fee history, workflow trackers and internal email about how work was done. Polyshares says the value is in reasoning that was captured while the work happened.

Does Polyshares see client names or account numbers?

Polyshares says names, emails, phone numbers, account numbers and addresses are removed or replaced by a specialist PII partner before Polyshares or any buyer sees the record.

Do we have to export our ledgers or our CRM to apply?

No. Polyshares says intake asks for record counts, not files or exports, and nothing leaves your systems until it has made an offer and you have accepted it.

What has Polyshares paid?

Polyshares publishes four deals, the one in professional services a global marketing agency at $110,000 (indicative, not an offer). It says typical deals run $100K to $2M and above (indicative, not an offer), and that it reads the record before it prices it.

Is there a fee?

No. Polyshares says there is no fee and no commission. Polyshares pays TrustPast a referral fee; you pay us nothing.