OpenPhone vs KrispCall for CPA Firms During Busy Season

A typical small CPA firm's inbound call volume during the individual filing rush can run several times its off-season baseline, driven by document requests, extension questions, and clients calling to check on refund status. Outside that window, the same firm might field a fraction of that volume, mostly bookkeeping clients and scheduled advisory calls. Sizing a phone system for the December baseline leaves the firm understaffed on lines in March; sizing it for March means paying for idle capacity from May through December.

OpenPhone's per-user pricing makes it straightforward to add seasonal preparers to the shared line for the months you actually need them, then remove those seats once the deadline passes, without renegotiating a contract or guessing at a usage tier in advance. Each temporary preparer gets visibility into the shared client thread from day one, which matters when a client has already called twice before that preparer even started.

Set up that access the same day a seasonal preparer starts, not the following week once someone gets around to it. A preparer who spends their first few days unable to see a client's prior calls ends up asking that client to repeat information the firm already has, which is exactly the impression a busy filer doesn't want during a rushed season.

KrispCall's usage-based model means a firm doesn't pay a flat per-seat rate for staff who are mostly emailing clients and only occasionally on the phone. For a firm where the busy season swing is sharp but brief, a few intense weeks around the deadline rather than a steady four-month ramp, that usage-based cost can end up lower than paying for extra seats the rest of the year would require.

Run the math for your own firm rather than assuming either model wins. A firm with steady year-round call volume across a stable headcount usually does better on OpenPhone's flat per-user rate; a firm with one sharp seasonal spike and otherwise low call volume may do better on KrispCall's usage-based pricing.

Removing seasonal preparers from the phone system should happen the same week they leave, not whenever someone remembers. Beyond removing seats, review which shared numbers were spun up specifically for the season, an extension hotline, a document-request line, and either retire them or fold their routing into a standing number so callers who dial an old season-specific line don't hit a dead end the following year.

After the deadline, work through this list:

1. Remove seasonal preparers from the phone system the same week they leave, not whenever someone remembers.
2. Review which shared numbers were created for the season, such as an extension hotline or a document-request line.
3. Retire each season-specific number or fold its routing into a standing number so callers do not hit a dead end.
4. Confirm off-season bookkeeping and advisory clients still reach a real person instead of a queue built for peak volume.

The median accountant or auditor earns $83,680 a year¹, and during the weeks before the deadline, every hour of a preparer's time is scarce in a way it isn't in July. A missed call during that window isn't just a minor inconvenience, it's a client who may call a competing firm instead, at exactly the moment new-client calls are hardest to win back once lost.

It's easy to build a phone setup entirely around the individual filing rush and forget that bookkeeping and advisory clients still call in July needing a real person to pick up. If your seasonal setup routes every call through a queue built for April's volume, an off-season caller can end up waiting on hold for a rush that isn't happening, which is its own way of looking less responsive than a much smaller firm.

Say a five-partner firm brings on six seasonal preparers from late January through mid-April, then drops back to its normal staff of nine for the rest of the year. On OpenPhone's per-user pricing, that firm pays for fifteen seats for roughly eleven weeks and nine seats the other forty-one, a cost that's easy to forecast and easy to explain to a partner asking why the phone bill jumped in February.

On KrispCall's usage-based model, the same firm's cost tracks actual call minutes rather than headcount, which can come out lower if the seasonal staff spend more time on paperwork than on the phone, or higher if clients call constantly during crunch weeks. Pull your own firm's numbers for a recent season before assuming which pattern you actually have.