Ketel Thorstenson

For 90 years, KT has built its reputation as a trusted provider of tax, accounting, and advisory services to businesses and individuals across the Midwest. Today, the firm has more than 150 professionals in four offices across South Dakota and Wyoming. KT serves clients in diverse industries with a wide variety of business needs, while also helping their individual clients with tax planning and preparation, and estate planning.

At the center of that work is a mission to inspire excellence by building meaningful relationships through progressive thinking, collaboration, and passion. KT has long focused on creating an environment where both its people and clients can thrive, which means giving its team the support they need to deliver high-value guidance in an increasingly complex tax landscape.

As the firm looked toward the future, Kevin Sickels, CPA, Partner and Technical Tax Director at KT, saw an opportunity to modernize the firm’s approach to tax research with AI. With this mission in mind, he began searching for a solution that was fast and easy to use, without compromising accuracy. That’s where Blue J came in.‍

Traditional Tax Research Was Holding the Firm Back

Before adopting Blue J, doing tax research at KT meant the team had to rely heavily on traditional research solutions. While those tools had the information the firm needed, finding the right answer often required significant time, experience, and manual digging. As a result, only a few team members used the traditional tax research platforms KT was paying for.

“We had Checkpoint licenses for all our staff and maybe 10-12% of them were using it,” says Sickels. 

That low adoption created workflow bottlenecks across the firm. Junior staff members struggled to independently research technical questions, which meant work regularly escalated to senior team members, pulling them away from client service and advisory work. 

At the same time, even straightforward tax research tasks were becoming time-consuming.

“In Checkpoint, even something simple like, ‘What are the rules on Section 179?’ could take 15-20 minutes to get to the right spot,” Sickels explains. 

Over time, those inefficiencies added up, leading to slowdowns in workflows and client responses across the board. In keeping with its mission, KT set out to find a solution that would enable its people to efficiently deliver high-value guidance and allow their clients to thrive. ‍

Finding the Right AI-Powered Tax Research Solution

Sickels and a manager on his team began evaluating AI-powered tax research solutions that could help end the research constraints they were facing. Together, they explored several tools on the market, looking closely at how well each one could fit into the day-to-day realities of a busy tax practice.

The firm was not simply looking for a faster tool. They wanted a solution that could help junior staff answer questions more independently, accelerate tax research across the organization, and deliver answers the team could trust.

“We evaluated solutions based on three key pillars which were ease of use, speed of response, and accuracy of response,” says Sickels. “Blue J was far above the other products.”

Those three pillars became critical to the firm’s vision for how research should work moving forward. If everyone on the team could quickly find dependable, source-backed answers, they would have more time to focus on providing high-quality strategic advice and foster client relationships.

Giving the Team Time Back

As Blue J became embedded into day-to-day workflows, KT quickly began to see its impact across the firm.

“Things that were taking 15-20 minutes to research before are now taking 2-3 minutes in Blue J, and the responses are accurate and detailed,” says Sickels.

As the firm reduced the amount of time spent researching, especially for senior staff, it also began to rethink how it prices and delivers research-driven client work.

“We’ve put a different research code in our practice management,” says Sickels. “We’re billing research out at a higher rate.”

Beyond the time savings Blue J provides, the tool’s ease of use makes research more accessible across the firm—changing KT’s entire operation. Instead of junior professionals routinely escalating technical questions to senior staff, they are now empowered to find reliable answers on their own.

“I get a lot less questions from my team and see Blue J responses show up in about 90% of the work that comes across my desk,” Sickels says.

Having more independent and better-equipped junior staff means that senior professionals are able to spend more time focused on client advisory, tax planning, and strategic guidance. At the same time, it also means that junior staff are gaining the subject matter expertise and confidence they need to grow into senior roles.

Creating Value Beyond Efficiency

For KT, the impact of Blue J’s AI-powered tax research solution extends beyond getting faster answers and accelerating the development of junior staff.

The firm was also impressed with Blue J’s pace of innovation and collaborative approach to customer feedback.

“One thing that I’ve liked is that Blue J has been very responsive,” Sickels says. “When I have needed or wanted something, their team comes back and says, ‘Let’s talk about it. Let’s see if we can do that.’”

For KT, that responsiveness reinforced that Blue J is not just another research tool. It is a partner committed to helping the firm evolve its service model for the future.

Looking Ahead

As AI continues to reshape tax and accounting, KT sees the technology playing an increasingly important role in helping professionals work smarter, respond faster, and deliver more value to clients. 

For the firm, its goal has always been to create more space for the people-first work that defines its mission: building meaningful relationships through progressive thinking, collaboration, and passion. 

Today, Blue J is helping KT achieve its 90-year-old mission and positioning them to deliver it for years to come.