Cranston starts from the client’s return
Cranston opens the client’s prepared return, prior-year PDFs, and notes. It knows the filing status, the income mix, and the carryforwards before it suggests anything.
Cranston calculates every planning idea on the real return
Ask what an S corporation election, a Solo 401(k), or a move to Texas is worth for a client. Cranston copies the client’s return, makes the change, and calculates it in your tax software. You see the difference line by line before you say a word to the client.
Get started
Cranston starts from the client’s own return
Cranston calculates in your tax software
You send a plan the client can read
How Cranston builds a plan
Cranston takes the steps a planner takes with a spreadsheet and a free afternoon, while you finish the email to the client.
Cranston calculates each scenario
Cranston copies the return into a scenario, changes the inputs, and calculates the result in your Drake, Lacerte, UltraTax, or ProSeries program. Cranston never touches the client’s real return.
You send the client a plan
Cranston writes a side-by-side of every scenario, a workbook with the inputs it changed, and a one-page summary in plain English. You review the plan and decide what the client sees.
What Tax Planning covers
From the first “what if” to the plan you send the client.
Scenarios on the real return
Cranston builds every scenario from a copy of the client’s actual return, not a rough estimate. Change a box, calculate, and compare against the baseline.
Calculated in your tax software
Cranston runs the math in Drake, Lacerte, UltraTax, or ProSeries, on the same program and tax year you prepared the return in, and names the program next to every result.
Line-by-line comparison
Adjusted gross income, taxable income, total tax, effective rate, and refund or balance due for every scenario, with the difference from baseline and the inputs Cranston changed.
Playbooks for eleven client types
High-net-worth families, S corporation owners, retirees, real estate investors, the self-employed, equity compensation, selling a business, moving states, and more. For each one, Cranston knows the strategies, the traps, and what to check.
Deliverables your clients understand
Cranston writes a comparison table, an Excel workbook with one tab per scenario, and a Word summary for the client. For retirement plans, it runs a Monte Carlo check of whether the savings last.
Your return stays yours
Cranston never exports a scenario to your tax software, never files it, and never overwrites the client’s return. You plan beside the return, not on it.
Cranston runs the numbers. You advise the client.
Cranston calculates each scenario on a copy of the return. You choose what to recommend and what the client sees.
Cranston calculates
Reads the return
Cranston starts from the client’s prepared return, prior years, and notes.
Copies it into a scenario
Cranston changes the inputs on a copy, never on the real return.
Calculates in your software
Cranston calculates each scenario in Drake, Lacerte, UltraTax, or ProSeries.
Drafts the plan
Cranston writes the comparison, the workbook, and the client summary.
Your team advises
Picks the ideas
You choose which strategies to test for the client.
Checks the numbers
You compare each scenario with the baseline.
Makes the recommendation
You decide which moves fit the client.
Talks to the client
You walk the client through the plan.
Tax planning questions
A real calculation. Cranston copies the client’s return and calculates each scenario in your tax software, so the numbers match what the return would show. When Cranston can’t calculate in your software, it labels the answer as an estimate.
More from Cranston
Use each product on its own or together, on the same client data.
