01 / Engagement
Scope and responsibilities are confirmed
Your proposal and engagement letter identify the work Alpine will perform, the fee, the records needed, important responsibilities, and what is outside the engagement.
How it works
A straightforward way to see whether Alpine is the right fit.
Start with a short Fit Assessment. Johnny reviews it personally. If your situation appears to match Alpine's focus, the next step is a brief Fit Call. Documents are requested only when they are actually needed to scope the work accurately.
2–3 minute assessment
15–20 minute Fit Call
Fixed fee before work begins
Secure TaxDome workflow
The new-client path
Six clear steps from first contact to engagement.
The process is designed to gather enough information to scope the work without turning the first interaction into a tax organizer or a free planning session.
Complete the Fit Assessment
Share the basic facts about your household, rental activity, states, entities, records, and the reason you are looking for a CPA.
Johnny reviews it
Johnny personally checks whether the situation appears to fit Alpine's individual real estate investor focus and whether there are obvious scope concerns.
Have a short Fit Call
If it appears to be a potential fit, we use a 15–20 minute call to clarify what you need, the overall complexity, and the likely scope.
Provide documents if needed
Many straightforward situations do not require documents before the call. If more context is needed to quote accurately, Alpine requests only the limited items needed through TaxDome.
Receive one recommendation
You receive a fixed-fee proposal for the smallest complete engagement that solves the actual tax problem, with scope and exclusions clearly stated.
Engage and begin
Work begins after the engagement letter is signed and any required payment is completed. Onboarding and documents then move through TaxDome.
Documents only when useful
We do not require a tax-return upload from every prospect.
A clean W-2 household with one or two straightforward rentals may be easy to scope from the assessment and Fit Call alone. More complex situations may require a limited document review before Alpine can quote responsibly.
- A prior-year return when the existing filing structure matters
- A depreciation schedule when basis or depreciation history affects scope
- A K-1 when entity activity materially affects the individual return
- A cost-segregation study, sale document, or 1031 document when relevant to the requested work
A pre-engagement document review is for fit and scoping. It is not an error review, amended-return analysis, tax-planning engagement, or technical opinion unless separately engaged.
The Fit Call
A scope conversation, not a free tax-planning session.
The call is designed to confirm whether Alpine is a fit, understand the problem you are trying to solve, identify the appropriate scope, and explain the next step.
If your question itself requires substantive analysis before an answer can be given, Alpine may recommend a separately scoped technical project rather than trying to resolve it during the Fit Call.
Technical analysis begins after engagement
- Material-participation conclusions
- Cost-segregation or depreciation modeling
- Detailed tax projections
- Sale, conversion, or 1031 analysis
- Personalized implementation instructions
After you accept
Clear scope. Secure workflow. Work that matches what you hired us to do.
02 / TaxDome
Documents and communication stay organized
Organizers, uploads, messages, signatures, invoices, and payments are handled through the secure client portal rather than scattered across email.
03 / Delivery
The work follows the accepted scope
Tax preparation, planning, projections, documentation guidance, or technical-project work begins according to the engagement you accepted.
No surprise scope expansion
If a new issue appears that falls outside the agreed engagement, Alpine will explain the additional work and any additional fee before proceeding. Planning is not automatically added simply because you own rental property.
Start here
See whether Alpine is a fit for your tax situation.
The Fit Assessment takes about 2–3 minutes. Share the basic facts only—no Social Security numbers, tax documents, or technical calculations in the public form.
