How to Automate KBKG

A cost segregation study has a long life after it is delivered

When a business buys or builds a property, the whole thing lands in the books as one number over one long recovery period. A cost segregation study takes that number apart: the carpet, the cabinetry, the site lighting, the parking lot, each its own asset with its own life.

KBKG is the firm that does that work. It is a tax specialty practice serving CPAs, businesses and real estate owners, and cost segregation is one line of it alongside the research and development tax credit, the 179D deduction, the 45L credit and fixed asset depreciation reviews.

The deliverable is a study: a list of components with values, classifications and placed in service dates against them. That list is not the end of anything. It has to become entries in a fixed asset ledger, a schedule the bookkeeper can follow, and a set of dates somebody has to hold on to for years.

The study lands as a document and then has to be typed in

Before it exists, somebody assembles it. The purchase price allocation, the settlement statement, the appraisal, the construction invoices: all of it sits with the client, the title company or the general contractor, and getting hold of it is a run of polite emails and a tracker.

Once it exists the work goes the other way. The depreciation schedule has to reach the fixed asset ledger, component by component, and then be reconciled, because a study saying one recovery period and a ledger saying another is a difference nobody sees until a return is being prepared. Renovation spending has to be checked against the components a study already identified, so the question of a partial disposition at least gets asked.

Every engagement also has its own housekeeping: a scope and a fee that become an engagement letter, a status a preparer keeps asking about, and deadlines that move for nobody.

KBKG

Ledger and study kept in step Component detail from a finished study compared against the fixed asset ledger, with every difference in life or amount listed as a variance.

Documents chased without the chasing Open engagements checked for what is still missing, and the request to the client drafted for a partner to read and send.

Dates that stop living in one head Placed in service dates and filing deadlines lifted into a register and onto a calendar, counted down instead of remembered.

KBKG's calculators answer the question they were built to answer

The firm publishes real software, not only reports, and for a client that fits the criteria it is the whole answer.

CostSegregation.com is self guided software for residential and commercial property under a stated depreciable basis, where a full engineering study is not proportionate. Dash.tax is research and development credit software for CPAs and startups, with a white label dashboard for firms that want their own name on it. Track750 tracks the 750 hour and material participation tests behind real estate professional status. A 481(a) Adjustment Calculator computes the adjustment for a Form 3115 method change, and a Partial Disposition Calculator produces PPI adjusted values for a disposed component. The paid tools sit behind the Solutions portal.

Each does its own job completely, and none of them can see your books.

The ledger is in accounting software. The closing packet is in a shared drive or a title company's portal. The documents a client still owes are in an inbox. The deadline is in a calendar. A calculator that produces an exact figure still hands it to somebody who retypes it somewhere else, and a retyped depreciation schedule is where a transposed digit survives for years.

A study that keeps checking itself against the books

A study does not change after it is delivered. Everything around it does, which is why the useful work is comparison, not calculation.

The component detail from a finished study compared line by line against the fixed asset ledger, with every mismatch in recovery period or amount listed as a variance. Placed in service dates lifted into a register, with depreciation start milestones put on a calendar rather than in one partner's head. Renovation spending watched against the components a study already retired, so partial disposition candidates get raised for a professional to consider.

The intake side is the same habit pointed backwards. A closing packet landing in a shared drive read for the address and the basis, so an engagement starts from the settlement statement. Open engagements checked for what is still missing, with the request to the client drafted and the gaps logged. A scope and fee turned into an engagement letter, queued for signature. The pipeline snapshotted each morning into a board showing what moved, what is blocked and what is due.

Everything in that is gathering, comparing and drafting. None of it is a decision. Posting entries, sending a letter, emailing a client and taking a position on a return belong to a qualified person.

The comparing is careful work, not clever work

Reading two schedules line by line is the task a person does worst at four in the afternoon.

WebRun is an agent that works a real Chrome browser, signed in as you. It opens the KBKG tools, the accounting system, the drive and the tracker, reads what each says, and writes the comparison where your team already looks.

It runs on your schedule in your own private environment, and you can watch a run and stop it. Nothing is posted, sent or signed on its own: anything that changes a record or reaches a client waits for the person whose name is on the work.

The workflows below are already built, and each one names what it signs into.