Getting your firm set up
A conversation, an agreement, then a private workspace your administrator secures and staffs.
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Step 1: A conversation, then an agreement
You and Ricerca
Start with a walkthrough of the CPA Firm Portal on synthetic data. If it fits, we agree seats and terms with you in a firm agreement.
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Step 2: Your private workspace
Ricerca
We set up your firm’s workspace and send your administrator a secure invitation link. The link expires after 14 days and can be resent.
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Step 3: Your administrator secures the account
Your administrator
Accept the invitation, set a password and turn on two-factor sign-in with an authenticator app and backup codes. Microsoft 365 sign-in works once the account exists.
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Step 4: Your team, by role and seat
Your administrator
Invite partners, managers, staff, reviewers and CPA signers, never above your own role. Each pending invitation holds a seat; at the limit, a new invitation is refused until a seat frees up or your seats change.
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Step 5: Signing defaults and review rules
Your firm
Your signing CPA records a professional designation and PTIN once, stored masked. You can require a written basis for flag dispositions, member by member.
A study, phase by phase
Your client supplies the facts. Your team makes every judgment and every signature.
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Phase 1: Engage
Your client
Confirms the company profile and e-signs your engagement letter, which records the §7216 consent. The portal opens; there is no retainer step.
Your team
Invites the client contact. The study, your engagement letter and the invitation go out in your firm’s name, in one step.
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Phase 2: Collect the data
Your client
Connects payroll, GL and engineering systems, or uploads exports.
Your team
Sees what is still outstanding, requests documents, and can help inside the client’s portal through an audit-logged support session.
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Phase 3: Qualify
Your client
Answers the technical questionnaires. The original answers are kept as the contemporaneous record.
Your team
Records the four-part-test determinations per business component, and approves or rejects each candidate cost from the ledger.
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Phase 4: Compute and draft
Your client
Supplies prior-year returns for the base period, if your team does not already hold them.
Your team
Sets the positions the engine computes, including the §280C(c) posture, and directs each AI-drafted narrative, redraft by redraft.
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Phase 5: Review and sign off
Your client
E-signs the representation letter and the penalties-of-perjury declaration.
Your team
Dispositions every flag and clears the readiness checks, then records engagement quality review, partner positions and CPA approval. Your signing CPA e-signs the preparer attestation.
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Phase 6: Issue and file
Your client
Downloads what you issue: the study report, the filing packet and the pro-forma forms.
Your team
Generates as final, finalizes and locks, and issues. Keeps the binder and the workbook. Signs and files the return.
Pace is set by how fast your client’s data lands, not by a calendar.
What your client receives, and what stays with you
Your client downloads only what your signer issues. The working file never leaves your firm.
Issued to your client
- The study report
- Final only; a preliminary draft can never be issued.
- The filing packet
- Every figure keyed to its form line, with elections and deadlines, the state data sheet and a preparer-to-complete checklist. A missing fact reads “Not determined”, never invented.
- Pro-forma Forms 6765, 3800 and 8974
- With a controlled-group statement where one applies.
Each document carries your firm’s name, not ours. Issued versions can be withdrawn, and every version stays on the record.
Stays with your firm
- The audit-defense workpaper binder
- Methodology memo, calculation detail, QRE schedules, four-part-test records per project, employee support, every source document, development evidence, review results and the full audit trail.
- The Excel calculation workbook
- The arithmetic behind every figure.
- The audit-ready export bundle
- The latest binder and every latest final issued deliverable, in one file.
- The sign-off register
- The pre-final audit conclusion, engagement quality review, partner positions and CPA approval.
Your firm signs and files
Ricerca does not sign or file returns, and does not hold itself out as your client’s preparer.
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Section G, as data
Business-component information comes out of the study as data for the return.
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State credits beside the federal credit
State credit rows are computed with the federal credit, for the states in the engine’s rules.
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The payroll tax offset, where it applies
Where a qualified small business elects the offset under §41(h), the package includes a pro-forma Form 8974, filed with the employer’s payroll tax return. The election itself is made on a timely filed original return, which is your firm’s filing.
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Locked once final
A finalized study locks, so the numbers you filed cannot drift. Next year, roll it forward.
If a study your firm issued is examined
The file you need is already yours.
The study, the audit-defense workpaper binder and the sign-off register are your firm’s work product and your defense file. Every figure traces back to its source, and the record shows who reviewed and signed what.
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 belongs to Ricerca’s own direct engagements and does not apply to studies your firm runs on the platform. If you would rather Ricerca ran a client’s R&D study, with Audit Protection, you can introduce the client.
The boundary. Your firm signs and files the return. Ricerca does not sign or file returns, and does not represent anyone before the IRS.
See the CPA Firm Portal with us
Tell us about your firm and your clients. We will walk you through the portal on synthetic data and answer your questions.
- 01 We typically reply within one business day.
- 02 A walkthrough of the CPA Firm Portal on synthetic data.
- 03 If it fits, we agree seats and terms in a firm agreement.