Got a letter. Got a call.Get a partner.
IRS exam. State assessment. VC quality-of-earnings. Angel diligence. Lender review. External financial audit. If you've been notified — by anyone — a senior partner is on the phone with you inside 24 hours. Privileged. Fixed scope. No retainer to talk.
Pick a window. A partner calls you back.
We respond inside 24 hours, weekends included. Choose the window that works — we'll confirm by email within minutes and dial you at the start of it.
- Partner on the line, not a junior.
- Privileged. No retainer to talk.
If it's an audit, we've defended it.
IRS exam
Notices, correspondence audits, field exams, appeals. We've sat across the table from revenue agents on revenue recognition, transfer pricing, R&D credit, and §174 capitalization disputes.
State & multi-state
Nexus exposure, sales tax assessments, franchise tax, payroll, residency audits. State auditors play differently than the IRS — we know which arguments land.
VC / Series due diligence
Big-4 quality of earnings, ARR bridges, cohort analysis, deferred revenue restatement risk. We prep the data room so the diligence call is short.
Angel & seed diligence
Cap table cleanup, 409A defense, founder expense hygiene, revenue recognition for early contracts. The questions are smaller but the answers still need to be right.
Lender & bank review
Covenant compliance, borrowing base audits, MAC clause exposure, restated financials. We negotiate with the bank's risk team in their language.
External financial audit
PCAOB and AICPA audits — supporting your auditor of record, defending positions, drafting technical accounting memos before the partner asks.
What happens when you email us.
- Hour 1–24A partner reads the notice or DD list and calls you back. Privileged. No bill yet.
- Hour 24–48We give you a written engagement scope, fixed fee or hard cap, and a list of what we need from you.
- Hour 48–72Document pull begins. We become the point of contact for the auditor, agent, or diligence team — you stop responding directly.
The document checklist we'd ask for on the first call.
One PDF, organized by audit type — IRS exam, state & multi-state, VC / Series diligence, angel & seed, lender review, external financial audit. Bring this to the first conversation and we skip the back-and-forth.
3 pages · no email gate · updated for 2026
- The basics — notice, returns, financials, cap table
- IRS exam — IDR support, GL, §174 / R&D workpapers
- State & multi-state — nexus, sales by state, payroll
- VC / Series diligence — QofE pack, ARR bridge, cohorts
- Angel & seed — SAFEs, IP assignments, founder expense
- Lender review — borrowing base, covenants, A/R aging
- External financial audit — PBC list, memos, prior SUM
- How to send it — channel, format, privilege notes
Send us the notice. We take it from here.
Tell us what you got, who sent it, and the deadline. A partner reviews every submission personally and calls or emails back in the window you choose. Privileged. No retainer to talk.
- Don't paraphrase — describe the notice as it's written.
- Flag the deadline. We work weekends if it's days away.
Questions people ask before they hire us.
Is the first call actually privileged?
Yes — with caveats worth understanding. Accountant-client privilege under IRC §7525 covers federal tax advice (not criminal matters, not state proceedings, not promoter activity). When the matter is litigation-bound or criminal-adjacent, we work under a Kovel arrangement: your attorney engages us, and attorney-client privilege extends to our analysis.
Practically: don't send sensitive documents over unsecured channels before we talk. The first call sets the privilege posture for everything that follows.
What actually happens in the first 72 hours?
Hour 1–24: A partner reads the notice or diligence request and calls you back. We tell you what — if anything — to respond to immediately to preserve rights or deadlines. No bill yet.
Hour 24–48: You get a written engagement letter with fixed fee or hard cap, defined scope, and a short document request list. We file a Power of Attorney (Form 2848 for IRS) or signed authorization so we can speak to the auditor on your behalf.
Hour 48–72: Document pull begins. We become the single point of contact for the auditor, agent, or diligence team. You stop responding directly, and we start controlling pace, format, and framing of every disclosure.
How does fixed-scope pricing actually work?
After the first call we write a one-page scope: what's included, what's excluded, what triggers a change order. Most engagements are quoted as either a fixed fee (clearly bounded matters — notice response, single-issue exam, QofE prep) or a hard cap with hourly drawdown (open-ended matters — multi-year field exam, appeals).
If the scope materially changes — the IRS expands the exam, the VC opens a new diligence track, a new tax year gets pulled in — we stop and rescope in writing before any new work. You never get a surprise invoice.
What's excluded from the fixed scope?
Litigation and Tax Court filings, appeals beyond the first level, criminal referrals, and work for parties other than you (e.g., responding to subpoenas about a co-founder). Third-party fees — outside counsel, valuation specialists, e-discovery vendors — are passed through at cost with your approval.
Do I need to fire my existing CPA or law firm?
No. We routinely co-counsel. Your tax attorney keeps the privilege umbrella; your CPA keeps the books. We come in as the audit-defense or diligence-response specialist and hand the file back when the matter closes.
What if my deadline is tomorrow?
Email audit@jiesen.ai with "URGENT" in the subject and the notice attached. We triage same-day, often within a few hours. If a statutory deadline is genuinely at risk, the partner call moves to the front of the queue and we'll usually file a hold or extension request to buy real working time.
Don't reply to the auditor yet.
The first response sets the entire posture of the engagement. Send us the notice or the diligence request first — we'll tell you what to say, and what not to.