Year two starts where year one finished.
Rebuilding a Study from scratch every year is not diligence, it is lost time. Prior-year facts clone forward and TracePrep shows you what changed, so the second year is a review of differences rather than a repeat of the interview.
The annual rebuild is the wrong default
Most of what a Study establishes about a shareholder-employee holds from one year to the next: the duties, how the role breaks down, the business context around it. Starting over annually spends your time re-establishing facts that did not move, and it quietly introduces drift. Two preparers, two years, two slightly different pictures of the same client. The examiner only ever sees the one in front of them. Neither the lost time nor the drift is necessary.
Prior-year facts clone forward
Opening next year’s Study starts from the last one. The prior year’s established facts come forward as your starting position, still tied to the evidence that supported them. Your Preparer confirms, updates, or replaces each one. Nothing is assumed to still be true. Each fact is presented as the prior answer and waits to be confirmed, which is a very different thing from a blank form and a very different thing from an assumption.
Change analysis is the year-two work product
What matters in year two is what moved. TracePrep surfaces the differences between this year’s Study and last year’s: which facts changed, which figures moved, and which evidence was refreshed. The Reviewer reads a set of changes with their stated reasons instead of re-reading a whole Study from the top. Year two costs a fraction of year one because the work is genuinely smaller, not because a step was skipped. Every figure still carries its five source attributes, every adjustment still carries its rationale, and the Reviewer still approves before anything is delivered. The change analysis narrows what has to be read. It does not narrow what can be inspected.
Why this matters
For the Reviewer
You review differences, with last year’s approved position beside each one. The question shifts from whether an entire Study holds to whether this change is justified, and that is a question you can answer in the time you actually have.
For the Firm
The same client looks like the same client year over year, whoever prepared the file. The year-over-year record becomes part of what the Firm holds, and recurring work stops costing what first-time work costs.
Questions
What carries forward from one year to the next?
How is the second year different for the Reviewer?
Does carrying facts forward weaken the Study?
See how the first year is built.
Six steps from intake to the workpapers your Firm keeps. Year two runs the same path, shorter.