Tax Season Chaos? This Scheduling System Fixes It with Brenda Cannon

Kenny Harper interviews Brenda Cannon about reducing tax-season chaos by scheduling tax prep and controlling workload instead of accepting documents anytime. Cannon explains how her firm previously promised 2–3 week turnarounds without knowing capacity, leading to bottlenecks like 105 clients submitting documents on March 15, and how the pandemic highlighted the lack of workload control. Inspired by a podcast, she implemented a scheduling system using Calendly, Make, and Airtable, then co-developed the SchedulEase software to better track client scheduling, automate reminders, and support flexible calendars by preparer or client type. She emphasizes proactive client communication about extensions, using tax projections when needed, improving efficiency, reducing status checks and errors, and using scheduling for capacity planning, client fit, and better work-life balance. 00:00 Why Scheduling Matters 01:12 Meet Brenda Cannon 03:26 From Chaos to Control 05:11 Building SchedulEase 06:34 Client Buy In 08:42 Rolling It Out 15:22 Handling Extensions 15:48 Community and Setup 22:28 Capacity and Team 24:51 Lessons and Wrap Up