Household model
One owner with multiple legal entities, a personal return, and real estate holdings is modeled as one connected operating unit. The system thinks the way the firm already thinks.
Product foundation
Strata
A local-first operations dashboard for boutique specialty accounting firms. Replaces the spreadsheet stack with one connected operating system, with approval-gated agents doing the boring parts.
What it is
Six things Strata does that your spreadsheets can't.
Replaces the stack
Bookkeeping cycles, tax workflow, exception tracking, prospect pipeline, household notes, and the scratch tabs that hold the firm's memory. One operational surface.
Approval-gated agents
Agents recommend, draft, and triage. Every output lands in an approval queue. Nothing reaches a client record without a human pushing go.
Local-first by default
Deployment on the firm's own hardware. Two SQLite databases, one real and one synthetic, accessed by encrypted tunnel. No SaaS data egress.
Audit-ready by design
Every action logged, every recommendation traceable. Source evidence stays separated from working tables. Inferred facts are labeled. Nothing is fabricated.
Built for your firm
Strata is not a SaaS subscription. It is delivered through an engagement, customized to your roles, review cadences, and the specialty you serve.
The tour
What is inside Strata, page by page.
Eight surfaces, each replacing a piece of the spreadsheet stack. The live demo runs against synthetic data so you can click through every page yourself.
01
Landing page
Command
The firm in real time. Pending approvals, what is due today, what is due this week, active blockers, households with a low health score. Below that: active households, agent runs approved, firm pulse, and recent activity that expands inline to a full audit log entry.
Replaces The Monday standup. The "what is going on?" Slack message.
02
The core model
Households
Households are first-class. Entities, personal returns, and real estate holdings sit underneath. Each household has six tabs: Overview, Entities, Work, Notes, Documents, Activity. Click any field, edit inline, tab to the next. Auto-saves. No save button.
Replaces The Master Client List. Merged-header sections in a spreadsheet that has accreted over years.
03
Cycle tracker
Bookkeeping
Households down the left, monthly stages across the top: 5th payroll, 15th, 20th payroll, end of month, financials sent. Color-coded so the firm reads at a glance. Click any cell for the structured editor: status, date, blocker reason, owner. Spreadsheet view available for anyone who still wants the flat layout.
Replaces The Bookkeeping spreadsheet. Free-text exception columns with no structure.
04
Workflow grid
Tax Prep
Same shape as Bookkeeping but for annual returns. Nine workflow stages, sortable priority tiers, an amber border on extended rows. Dedicated surfaces for PTE payments, salary schedules, state and property filings, and IRS authorizations. Each gets its own first-class view.
Replaces Scattered spreadsheet columns. Tribal knowledge about which tab tracks what.
05
Where you think
Insights
ROI view at the top: hours saved, value returned to the firm, what the agent fleet has cost in API tokens. Below: specialty distribution, geographic spread, engagement mix, growth pipeline. World clock cards filter the household list to that timezone in one click.
Replaces Quarterly slide decks built from manual exports.
06
AI in production
Intake Agent
Two modes. Mode 1 runs before a discovery call: research pass, specialty-aware question set, recommended pre-call assets. Mode 2 runs after the call: structures your conversation notes into a full client brief and materializes the household record on approval.
Replaces Generic intake forms. Senior partners holding specialty knowledge in their heads.
07
Human in the loop
Approval Queue
Every agent output lands here before it does anything. Review the metadata strip, the rendered brief, the source evidence. Approve and the record materializes. Flag and the agent gets feedback for next time. Calibration over weeks, not a single trust fall.
Replaces Trusting AI blindly. Or refusing to use it at all.
08
Access architecture
Roles and Modes
Four roles: admin, owner, staff, support. Support users see relationships and operations and never see a dollar figure. Fees and bank fields are stripped at the API layer, not just hidden in the UI. Three modes: client (production), demo (synthetic data for prospect walkthroughs), and debug (developer-only). Every mode switch is audit-logged.
Replaces Spreadsheet permissions. Hoping the wrong person does not open the wrong tab.
Open the live demo Synthetic firm. Click anything. Nothing is real.
The workflow shift
What a CPA's day looks like, before and after.
One workflow of seven measured. Apply the same shape to tax tracking, document chase, intake, handoff, communications, and prospect tracking.
A monthly bookkeeping cycle, today.
- 1
Open the bookkeeping spreadsheet.
Scroll to find the household row.
- 2
Eyeball five stage columns.
Read the prior CPA's shorthand.
- 3
Cross-reference the document portal and email.
For the document the client owes.
- 4
Type a free-text exception note.
"wtg on Q4 P&L from Sarah re payroll"
- 5
Slack a teammate.
To ask who owns the next handoff.
- 6
Update the cell manually.
Hope no one is editing the same row.
- 7
Repeat eleven times per CPA.
Status across the firm is a meeting, not a query.
Time per cycle~5 hrs / CPA / wk
Same household, same cycle, on the grid.
- 1
Open Bookkeeping.
Filter to this month, this CPA. The grid loads colored cells.
- 2
Color tells you everything.
Sage = done, amber = in progress, brick = blocked, taupe = N/A.
- 3
Click the blocked cell.
Editor pops: structured blocker reason, owner, due date.
- 4
Household drawer expands inline.
Tax returns, IRS filings, payroll, recent notes, all in one view.
- 5
Bulk action bar sets status across rows.
Shift-click for ranges, multi-select for batch updates.
- 6
The owner sees the firm in real time.
On the Command page. No status meeting.
- 7
Exception Triage agent classifies the blocker.
Recommends the next action; CPA approves.
Time per cycle~2 hrs / CPA / wk
What it returns
Hours back to the firm, by workflow, by version.
Per CPA, per week. v1 is the dashboard alone. v3 adds the agent fleet shipping over the following 6 to 12 months. Estimates use midpoint assumptions: full team adoption, agents 70% usable as-is.
Workflow v1 hrs v3 hrs
Bookkeeping cycle status Grid view, color coding, inline edit +3.0 +4.0
Document chase Structured requests, agent follow-up +1.0 +3.0
Tax workflow status Tier-sortable, stage columns, per-return detail +1.5 +2.25
Bookkeeping exception work Structured exceptions, triage agent +0.5 +2.0
Communication overhead Comms log, email integration +0.5 +1.5
Client intake Mode 1 research, Mode 2 brief, materialize on approve +1.0 +1.5
Handoff and coverage Backup CPA structured, handoff agent +0.5 +1.25
Roughly 2,250 hours a year. The equivalent of one full-time CPA, recovered without hiring.
Roughly 4,250 hours a year. Two full-time CPAs, recovered. Capacity to roughly double the household count without proportional hiring.
Assumptions: 5 CPAs, 45 worked hrs/wk, ~11 engagements per CPA, agents 60 to 80% usable as-is, full team adoption. Months 1 to 3 are net-negative during ramp; savings turn positive by month 4.
Architecture
How a Strata engagement runs.
A clean, four-stage build. Each stage produces a working artifact your firm can use.
-
Workflow audit
We map your current process. Where the spreadsheets live, where the handoffs break, what people quietly maintain that nobody named.
-
Operating spec
A short, opinionated document. Households, entities, bookkeeping cycles, tax workflows, exception tracking, prospect pipeline. The system on paper before it gets built.
-
Build and deploy
Strata configured to your firm. Local-first deployment on your hardware. Agents tuned to your review cadences. Approval gates wired to your roles.
-
Run together
Ongoing support as your AI enablement lead. New agents added as needs surface. The system grows with the firm, not against it.
How to get it
This is not a subscription.
Strata is delivered through an engagement with Olivia Keiter AI Consulting. It is a system built for your firm, not a tenant on someone else's cloud. You own the deployment.
Contact Olivia- You own the deployment, not a vendor
- Client data stays in the building
- Configured to your roles and review cadences
- Audit logging on by default
Demo
Click around. The login is open.
The live demo runs in client mode against synthetic data. Walk every page. Run the Intake Agent end to end. See what an approval queue feels like.
https://ai-consulting-strata.netlify.app