Questions CPA firms ask us

The CPA Firm Portal for your whole team: your firm’s workspace, client intake in your firm’s name, the review workbench and sign-off register, the deliverables, roles and security, and read-only integrations. See the full list of what a subscription includes.

By seats. Prices are quoted after a walkthrough and set in your firm agreement, along with billing frequency and term. We do not publish prices, and there is no online checkout.

No. You set and collect your own fees. The engagement letter the platform issues in your name says your fees are set by your firm and agreed with the client directly, and the platform never charges your clients.

With a walkthrough of the CPA Firm Portal on synthetic data. If it fits, we agree seats and terms in a firm agreement, set up your firm’s workspace and send your administrator a secure invitation link. See how onboarding works.

The roles are firm admin, partner, manager, staff, reviewer and CPA signer. A CPA signer, partner or firm admin can finalize and issue, and the CPA signer e-signs the preparer attestation. No one can invite or promote above their own role. Sign in with Microsoft 365, or with a password; two-factor authentication is available to every user.

Each active member of your team, and each pending staff invitation. Clients never take a seat, and a deactivated member frees theirs.

No, and we would not want to. On a subscription your firm prepares, reviews, signs, issues and files; Ricerca provides the platform and does not sign or file returns. Your engagement letter, your fees and your firm’s name on every deliverable stay yours.

No. Studies in the portal are reviewed, approved and signed by your firm’s own people, and the platform records every sign-off. If you would rather Ricerca ran a client’s study, introduce the client: it becomes a direct engagement, and Ricerca’s own team runs the study.

Yes. Your team can open a short-lived support session in a client’s portal to help with data entry. It asks for your password again, it is recorded in the audit log, it can be revoked, and CPA approval cannot be recorded from inside one.

Yes, where the client qualifies. The study tests the qualified small business definition under §41(h), and where the election applies the package includes a pro-forma Form 8974, filed with the employer’s payroll tax return. The election itself has to be made on a timely filed original return, which is your firm’s filing. The rules are on our payroll tax offset page.

Clients whose people resolve technical problems for a living: software and SaaS, hardware and electronics, manufacturing, life sciences, aerospace, engineering and architecture practices, and food and beverage. The credit follows the work, not the industry code, and client agreements can decide it for services businesses. Our industry pages show what qualifies in each, and choosing an R&D credit partner for your CPA firm covers what to ask any provider.

Taxpayer-identifying data is redacted automatically before anything reaches an AI model. The confidentiality rules that govern tax-return information are implemented as a processing step, not as a paragraph in a policy binder. Production AI calls route exclusively through enterprise endpoints, never consumer chat products, and your client’s data is never used to train public or third-party models. Each firm’s studies are isolated from every other firm’s, and your audit log records who did what. The detail is on the CPA Firm Portal page and the security page.

What happens at exit is set in your firm agreement; while you are with us, your firm sets its own retention windows and legal holds.

No. Cost segregation studies are run by Ricerca’s own team today. Introduce the client and Ricerca prepares the study as a direct engagement; your client receives the report and an asset import workbook for your fixed-asset software, and your firm stays the preparer. See cost segregation for your clients.

The study, the audit-defense workpaper binder and the sign-off register are your firm’s work product and your defense file. Practice before the IRS is generally limited to the taxpayer itself and to federally authorized practitioners - attorneys, CPAs, enrolled agents, and others authorized under Circular 230. Ricerca does not represent anyone before the IRS. Audit Protection applies only to studies Ricerca runs for its own direct clients; for a client who wants it, introduce the client.