A daily email briefing for a CPA firm is one short read per person, each morning, that says what today needs from them. It surfaces four things: deadlines, missing documents, notices and clients who are waiting. At firm scale it’s several briefings, one for each role. Together they cover the firm’s morning, so nobody has to read the whole inbox to find their part of it.
You probably already run a version of this in your head. You open the inbox at 7:15, scroll until you find the three things that matter, and hope the fourth isn’t on page two. That works for one person. It stops working when seven people do it separately and each one assumes somebody else saw the notice.
Point reads each person’s mail as it lands. By the time they sit down, their briefing is waiting, with what needs them at the top. This guide sets out what each role’s briefing should carry, written out for one firm’s Tuesday. It also covers when each one should arrive, where the lines come from, and what stays off the page.
What a daily email briefing for CPA firms carries
Search for “daily briefing” in accounting and you’ll find industry newsletters. Those are useful, and they’re a different thing. A firm’s briefing is built from the firm’s own mail and calendar. It tells you about your clients, not the profession.
Every role’s version answers the same four questions. The difference is whose work they’re asked about.
- What’s due. Anything with a date in the next few days: a filing, a signature, a reply a client is expecting by Thursday.
- What hasn’t arrived. Documents somebody asked for and hasn’t received. This is the line that’s hardest to produce, because it’s about mail that didn’t come.
- What came from a tax authority. Any IRS or state notice, usually as a client’s forward or a scan, with its response date.
- Who’s waiting. Clients who wrote and haven’t heard back, and colleagues waiting on you. Oldest first.
A good line names the client, the thing and the date in one breath. “Okafor: CP2000 forwarded Monday, reply due April 2” is a line. “You have 3 new messages from clients” isn’t. The first lets you act without opening anything. The second sends you back to the inbox.
The notice line deserves its date because the IRS sets it. The IRS initiates most contacts by regular mail, so what reaches your inbox is a client’s photo of a letter. For a CP2000, the IRS tells the taxpayer to “reply to the notice by the date listed”. That date is on the letter, and the briefing should carry it.
One firm’s Tuesday, four briefings
Here’s a seven-person firm on a Tuesday in early March. Dana and Ray are the partners. Priya manages the individual returns. Tom and Lena prepare them. Joe is the office manager and answers the front address. Each person’s briefing is built from their own mailbox and calendar.
Dana, partner, at 7:30
- 2 returns ready for your review: Halvorsen (Tom, since Friday), Brandt (Lena, since yesterday)
- Okafor: CP2000 forwarded Monday, reply due April 2. Priya has the account.
- Mehta Holdings asked Saturday whether to elect S corp status for 2026. No reply yet.
- Records request from Carol Beck’s new accountant, received yesterday. Professional clock is running.
- 10:00 call with the Lindqvists. Last ask: whether the rental sale changes their estimates.
- Engagement letter for Pine Street Dental, sent February 20, still unsigned.
Priya, manager, at 7:45
- Okafor CP2000, reply due April 2. Dana is aware.
- 11 returns due to clients by March 15. 4 are still waiting on documents.
- Missing: Fairbanks K-1, asked February 24. Cho brokerage 1099, asked February 28.
- Tom asked yesterday how to treat the Halvorsen home office. No reply yet.
- 2:00 team check-in.
Tom, preparer, at 8:00
- Arrived overnight: Kaur W-2s, Delgado 1098, Brennan childcare receipts
- Halvorsen is with Dana for review since Friday
- Mr. Cho wrote at 9:40 last night asking where his return is. It’s waiting on his brokerage 1099.
- Still missing on your engagements: Cho 1099-B, Fairbanks K-1
Joe, office manager, at 7:15
- 14 messages to the front address overnight. 9 are documents for preparers, 3 are scheduling, 2 are for a partner.
- Ms. Beck called and emailed about her records. Dana has the request.
- 3 appointment requests for next week
- Software renewal invoice due March 10
Notice how little overlaps. The Okafor notice appears twice, once as Dana’s awareness and once as Priya’s work, and each line says who holds it. Mr. Cho’s question reaches Tom, who knows the answer, and stays off Dana’s page. Dana’s page is short because the routing happened before the briefing was written.
What a partner’s morning briefing should carry covers the partner’s list on its own. The rest of this guide is about how the four versions fit together.
What changes from role to role
The same four lines carry different weight depending on who reads them.
| Role | Leads with | The line that matters most | What stays off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Partner | Staff waiting on you, decisions with a date | Work blocked on your review | Documents arriving for other people’s engagements |
| Manager | Deadlines across the team’s returns | Documents still missing, by client | Vendor mail and firm admin |
| Preparer | What arrived overnight for your clients | Client questions you can answer today | Notices and records requests you don’t hold |
| Office manager | Volume and where it went | Anything for a partner that came to the front address | Return-level detail |
Two things are worth deciding as a firm, once.
Whose name goes on a shared line. When a notice touches two people, one of them holds it and the other is aware. Write it that way on both pages. Two people “aware” of the same notice is how a response date passes.
What a colleague waiting on you looks like. A preparer blocked on your review is a client deadline one step removed. On a partner’s page, that line belongs near the top, next to clients waiting. It’s easy to leave internal mail off a briefing because it doesn’t feel like client work. It is client work, just later.
When each briefing arrives
Each briefing should land before the first thing it’s meant to change. For most people, that’s before their first meeting or their first hour of focused work.
| Role | Arrives | Why then |
|---|---|---|
| Office manager | 7:15 | The front address needs routing before anyone else starts |
| Partner | 7:30 | Before the first client call, with time to answer one thing first |
| Manager | 7:45 | After overnight documents have been routed, before assigning the day |
| Preparer | 8:00 | At the start of focused work, so the first hour goes to the right return |
The office manager goes first for a reason. If Joe routes the front address at 7:15, the documents he forwards are already in Tom’s mailbox by 8:00. Order the times so each briefing can count what the earlier one moved.
Season changes the answer. From late January through April, most firms move each time earlier and add a second read after lunch. In the summer, a partner may be fine with one read at 8:30 and none on Fridays. Set it for the season you’re in, and look at it again when the season turns. What time your briefing should arrive covers placing the hour in more detail.
Where the lines come from
A briefing can only report what someone wrote down. Each of the four lines has a source, and at a firm, that source is often in somebody else’s hands.
- Deadlines come from dates in client mail, from your calendar, and from tasks with due dates.
- Missing documents come from a record of what was asked for. If Priya asked for the Fairbanks K-1 by phone, no briefing can know it’s late.
- Notices come from the forwarded scan. They only carry a date if the date was read off the letter when it arrived.
- Waiting clients come from your own sent mail. A client who wrote to the front address and was answered by Joe isn’t waiting on you.
The missing-documents line is the one firms most often lose. Ask by email, and keep the ask in the same thread the documents will come back to. Then the request and its answer live in one place, and the gap between them is visible. Chasing missing documents covers keeping that list without a spreadsheet.
The records request has its own clock. The AICPA’s records requests interpretation says:
Where a member is required to return or provide records to the client, the member should comply with the client’s request as soon as practicable but, absent extenuating circumstances, no later than 45 days after the request is made.
So a records request belongs on a partner’s page from the day it arrives until the day it’s done. How soon a CPA must return client records covers the rule and its Circular 230 counterpart.
A firm-wide page, and why it’s usually two things
Partners often want one more page: the whole firm’s morning, every waiting client, every missing document, across everyone’s mail.
That’s a reasonable thing to want. In practice it’s usually two separate needs.
The first is knowing nothing is stuck. A short daily check-in covers that well. Each person reads their top three lines aloud. Ten minutes in front of the briefings tells a partner more than a forty-line page would, because each line arrives with the person who holds it.
The second is a standing view of every engagement’s status. That’s the job of practice management software, where work is tracked by client and by person. If your firm runs mainly from a shared address, a tool built around shared email fits that job better. A Karbon product designer describes Karbon’s Shared Triage as a surface where “ownership, visibility and next actions could be managed together” (checked October 4, 2026). Many firms run both: the practice system for the engagement board, and a personal briefing for each person’s own mail.
What stays off the page
A briefing is read on phones, in cars and at kitchen tables. It should carry names, dates and the ask, and leave out the details that make a client identifiable to a stranger.
- No Social Security numbers, account numbers or EINs
- No balances or refund amounts
- No attachment contents beyond the document’s name
- No forwarding a briefing to a group, even inside the firm
This is part of a wider duty. IRS.gov says plainly that “Federal Trade Commission regulations require professional tax preparers to create and enact security plans to protect client data.” The FTC Safeguards Rule at 16 CFR 314.4(c)(3) asks firms to:
Protect by encryption all customer information held or transmitted by you both in transit over external networks and at rest.
A briefing emailed to a personal address is information in transit. A briefing that opens inside the mail client you already secure isn’t a new copy to protect. Is it safe to let AI read client email covers the confidentiality side in full.
The version somebody writes by hand
Plenty of firms run a briefing without software. Usually the office manager writes it.
It works like this. At 7:00, Joe opens the front address, a shared tracker of documents requested, and the partners’ calendars. By 7:30 he sends each person three to six lines. It’s slow, and it depends on one person being in early every day. It also only sees what reaches the front address and the tracker. Mail sent straight to a partner stays invisible to it.
It’s still worth trying for two weeks before buying anything. You’ll learn which lines each person actually reads. That’s the most useful thing to know when you set up any tool afterward.
How Point writes each person’s morning
Point reads each person’s mailbox as the mail lands. Every thread is sorted and summarized when it arrives, so the briefing is assembled from work already done. It’s waiting at the hour each person picks.
- What needs you sits at the top, already counted.
- Today’s schedule comes from your own Gmail or Microsoft 365 calendar.
- An ask buried in a client’s paragraph became a task with its date when the message landed. So it’s on the page even if nothing new arrived about it.
- Work you handed to someone is tracked on the side of your list that’s owed to you. A missing document can show up as missing.
Each person sets their own briefing time, and their own list of what’s worth interrupting them before it. What’s worth an interruption covers writing that list as a firm.
Point works from each person’s own mailbox. Dana’s briefing doesn’t read Priya’s mail. If Priya uses Point too, hers leads with her own work. That’s how the four pages above stay short.
Replies are drafted in your voice and wait for you by default. You choose, for each kind of work, whether Point suggests, prepares or handles it. The dial covers each setting. The briefing is yours to keep or switch off. Your Gmail address, history and contacts stay where they are.
Everything Point does lists the rest. To see your own Tuesday written out at 7:30, join the beta.
Common questions
What goes in a CPA firm’s daily email briefing?
Every role’s version answers four questions. What’s due soon? What was asked for and hasn’t arrived? Which tax notices came in, and when are they due? Who is waiting on a reply? A partner’s version leads with work waiting on their review. A preparer’s leads with documents that arrived overnight.
Should partners and staff get the same briefing?
No. Each person should get a briefing built from their own mail and work. A partner’s page carries reviews, decisions and anything with a professional clock. A preparer’s carries documents and client questions on their own engagements. Where an item touches two people, one holds it and the other is aware, and both pages say so.
What time should a CPA firm’s morning briefing arrive?
Before the first thing it’s meant to change. A common order is the office manager first, around 7:15, then partners, managers and preparers. That way each briefing reflects mail the earlier reader already routed. Move the times earlier during tax season and consider a second read after lunch.
Is a morning inbox summary the same as a daily briefing?
A morning inbox summary describes the mail that arrived. A daily briefing describes the day: what’s due, what hasn’t arrived, and who’s waiting, including things no new email mentioned. The second is more useful at a firm, because the line that matters most is often a document that didn’t come.
Can a partner see the whole firm’s morning in one briefing?
A personal briefing covers your own mailbox and calendar. For a whole-firm view, most firms use a short daily check-in where each person reads their top lines, or practice management software that tracks every engagement by person.
Should a briefing include client tax details?
Keep it to names, dates and the ask. Leave out Social Security numbers, account numbers, balances and attachment contents. The FTC Safeguards Rule requires firms to encrypt customer information in transit, so a briefing emailed to a personal address is a copy the firm has to protect.