When to Stop the AI Pass Mid-File and Finish by Hand

A Preparer is halfway through checking an AI-drafted entry list. The first few documents went fine. Then she reaches a stretch where checking the drafted rows is slower than keying them herself would be. Does she push on, or stop the AI pass mid-file and finish by hand? If nobody decided that in advance, she makes the call alone, and the file doesn't show where the drafted part ended.

The Firm can decide it in advance with a short set of stop rules, a stop line on the entry list and a one-page file note. In this workflow, the AI tool drafts, the Firm's preparer prepares, and the Reviewer signs off. The stop rules are the Firm's choices about its own checking. They aren't predictions about the tool. Whether the pass stops or runs to the end, the Reviewer signs off on every file, drafted rows and hand-keyed rows alike.

Stop rules belong to the Firm

A stop rule names something the Preparer can see in the file while she checks it, and what she does when she sees it. It sets the Firm's limit on how much checking a drafted stretch gets before a person takes over.

This is a narrower call than the other two the Firm makes about the AI pass. Whether a file gets an AI pass at all comes earlier, with something like a triage rubric for client files. Which tasks the Firm relies on the tool for comes earlier still, from its own known-answer tests on synthetic documents. A stop rule works inside one file, partway through, after both of those calls are made.

The Firm writes its rules down before the season, numbers them, and sets every limit. The Preparer applies them. She doesn't make up a new rule mid-file, though she can always stop on her own judgment and say why.

The stop-rule checklist

The Firm can start from this list, change the limits and drop any rule that doesn't fit its files. Each rule says when the Preparer stops the pass.

1. Rows that don't hold. Her checks find more drafted rows that don't match their cited page than the Firm's limit for one document.
2. A row with no page. She finds a drafted row she can't trace to any page in the folder.
3. A page she can't read. She reaches a page she can't read with confidence. Pages like that are meant to be caught before the pass, using the Firm's screen for unreadable source pages; one found mid-file stops the pass at that page.
4. A document outside the approved tasks. The folder holds a kind of document the Firm hasn't approved the drafting pass for.
5. The folder changed. New or corrected documents arrived after the pass ran.
6. Re-runs used up. She has re-run the instruction on the same document as many times as the Firm allows.
7. Time box spent. Checking one document has taken longer than the Firm's time box for it.
8. Her own call. She judges that checking the rest would take longer than keying it. She writes one line saying why.

Under the Firm's rules, when one fires she stops at that point: she finishes the row she's on and doesn't start the next drafted row. She doesn't re-run the pass on the pages that are left unless a Firm rule allows it and the file note says so.

Mark where the pass stopped

The Firm can mark the stop on the entry list itself, with one stop line. It sits right after the last drafted row the Preparer checked and kept. It reads "AI pass stopped here", then the document and page, the rule number, her initials and the date.

Rows above the line are drafted rows she checked the usual way. The rows she keys by hand go below it. Drafted rows that fall below the line aren't deleted, including any she checked and found didn't hold. Under this approach she strikes them and leaves them visible, so the Reviewer can see what was set aside without anyone guessing at it.

The line stays where she put it. If the Firm later lets the pass re-run on part of the file, that gets a second stop line and its own entry in the file note, not a moved first one.

Finish by hand so the Reviewer can see which rows are which

Below the line, every row she keys carries the Firm's hand-keyed mark and the page it came from, in the same page-reference column the drafted rows use. The Firm's origin marks for hand edits already cover drafted, edited and hand-keyed rows; the stop line adds where the switch happened.

The Firm can add one figure to the count line at the top of the list: the row number of the stop line. A Reviewer opening the file then sees, before any row, that the pass stopped and where. The file note says why.

The Reviewer decides how to read the file. Under this approach, the Reviewer reads the file note and the stop line first, then the hand-keyed rows, then the drafted rows above the line in the Firm's usual readback. The Reviewer signs off on the whole file, both sides of the line.

The file note template

The file note is one page, written by the Preparer with the file open, in the same sitting as the stop. The Firm can copy this table into its own file template and keep the fields in this order.

Under this template, a note with a blank field isn't finished, so she writes "None" where nothing applies.

A Doe example

The counts below are made up for illustration.

Jane Doe, a Preparer at Doe & Co. CPA, is checking the drafted entry list for Doe Holdings. The folder holds 9 documents. In this example, the Firm's limit under rule 1 is 3 rows that don't hold on one document.

Documents 1 to 5 give her 42 drafted rows. She checks each against its page and edits 2. Document 6 starts well: 6 rows on its first two pages hold. On page 3, 4 drafted rows don't match the page. That's over the limit of 3, so she stops.

She puts the stop line after row 48, the last row she checked and kept. The 19 drafted rows below it, from page 3 of document 6 through document 9, get struck. She keys those pages by hand, which gives her 21 rows, each with the hand-keyed mark and its page. The list now carries 69 live rows: 48 above the line and 21 below.

Her file note reads: rule 1; "4 rows on document 6, page 3, don't match the page"; stop line after row 48; 48 rows above the line, 2 edited; 19 struck; 21 keyed by hand; no open items; no re-run; Reviewer Pat Doe.

Pat reads the note, then the 21 hand-keyed rows and the 2 edited ones, each against its page, then reads back the rest. One hand-keyed row has a label that doesn't match its page, so Pat sends it back with a note. Jane fixes it, and Pat signs off on the file.

Where TracePrep fits

We've built a TracePrep plugin that drafts these steps in your Firm's workflow, while your preparer decides and your Reviewer signs off. Join the waitlist and we'll tell you when plugin access opens.

Get on the list for plugin access

This is general information, not tax or legal advice. In TracePrep's workflow, the plugin drafts, the Firm's preparer prepares, and the Firm's Reviewer signs off. Access to the plugin is by waitlist. Keep client data inside the systems your Firm has approved.