Larson Gross Advisors

With over 200 team members and five offices across Washington State, Larson Gross Advisors is an accounting firm on the rise. Currently ranked #163 on the IPA 200, the last few years have ushered in significant growth for Larson Gross Advisors. During that time, Blue J has been right there with the firm—helping them to grow and growing with their tax practice.

While a lot has changed since the firm’s founding in 1949, their team’s commitment to fostering genuine relationships with clients remains as strong as ever. Today, Blue J’s generative AI solution for tax research is empowering Larson Gross to deepen those relationships. 

By redirecting time saved using Blue J into more meaningful strategic advisory work, the firm is creating value both for themselves and their clients—to truly take Larson Gross Advisors to the next level. To explore how Larson Gross is scaling their tax practice and transitioning into higher-value client work, we spoke with Tanya Silves, Partner and Tax Practice Leader at Larson Gross Advisors.

Legacy Tool Troubles

Before moving to Blue J, Larson Gross Advisors faced a problem familiar to many accounting firms. Their legacy tax research tool simply wasn’t working for them. 

To start, it was difficult to use. In order to properly leverage the software, they were holding biannual training sessions on the skills necessary to navigate it. As time went on, the role these sessions played in reducing internal productivity was becoming more and more evident. 

But beyond an overall sub-par user experience, their legacy research tool also had a more fundamental issue: younger staff weren’t using it. Instead, these team members would often opt to ask peers their tax questions, get others who were more comfortable with the tool to perform tax research for them, or even at times use a search engine to research basic issues. 

Critically, these usability and adoption issues meant Larson Gross Advisors weren’t getting the most out of what they were spending on the tool’s (costly) subscription. 

Making the Move to Blue J

When the firm began looking for alternatives, they knew that they wanted something that their team would actually use, that wouldn’t require endless training sessions, and that would let them get back to doing what they do best—delivering exceptional service to clients. That’s where Blue J came in.

Right from first use, their team recognized a significant improvement. Not only could Blue J deliver clear, concise, and verifiable answers in seconds, but the conversational interface was also easy for people to learn. During an initial trial period, Tanya Silves saw firsthand just how quickly the team was able to leverage Blue J’s accelerated research and drafting capabilities.  

When describing the difference in adoption between Blue J and their legacy tool, Silves remarked, “With Blue J, we’re confident that we are utilizing the products we are paying for now, and it is improving our employee and client experience.” 

Scaling With Blue J

Once they’d decided to make the leap to Blue J, Larson Gross began the onboarding process. While their previous adoption problems might have made them wary, the success of their trial period continued during onboarding. Ultimately, the process proved to be even easier than they’d hoped. 

“Low drama.” That was the first term that came to mind when Tanya Silves reflected on the onboarding process. “It was as simple as a short meeting to quickly train, and then we got people back to work, where they immediately started using the tool. The follow-up prompt training your team provided was particularly useful, since generative AI is such a new way to perform research. Now, people use it consistently and a lot of our team leave it up on their screen all throughout the day. We are not only leveraging it to research but also to craft responses to client questions, perform calculations, and present tables and examples that allow us to work with clients and ensure they understand.”

But their team didn’t stop at that initial round of onboarding. From January 2024 to March 2025, the number of Larson Gross users on the Blue J platform has grown significantly. Initially starting with 25 licenses, that number jumped to 50 after just 3 months. Today, 75 of Larson Gross’s team members are using Blue J. Along the way, adoption has remained strong, as 63% of Larson Gross users generate their first answers within a day of signing up, typically only 2 minutes after logging in for the first time.

Becoming a Strategic Partner

With 71% of users active weekly and each asking an average of 3.5 questions a day, Larson Gross’s usage has grown right alongside the rest of the firm. Aside from being easy to use, Blue J brought another clear benefit to Larson Gross’ team: it saved time. In fact, Silves conservatively estimates that each team member using Blue J saves 2 hours per week on average. 

Larson Gross’ clients have also felt the impact of what their team has been able to do with Blue J’s accelerated research and automated drafting capabilities. Silves recalls how a team member who wasn’t an expert in state tax was able to research and draft an in-depth memo—including examples—on Washington State capital gains tax in just 15 minutes, when this task would normally have taken hours. Rather than requiring internal experts to perform the research, prepare examples, and draft the memo, Blue J could take care of the heavy lifting and the expert team could simply provide their review. 

Silves went on to explain how much of a difference automated drafting in particular makes to the way Larson Gross delivers value, “Clients love it! They appreciate being able to take their time reviewing information that is written, that they can refer back to and ask questions on later, along with examples that help increase comprehension. The faster response times allow them to make better decisions sooner, giving them peace of mind and helping them to take advantage of time-sensitive opportunities.”

By delivering greater value in less time, Larson Gross Advisors have undergone a distinct shift in the way clients view them. Moving beyond compliance and number-crunching, they’re becoming a true strategic partner in their clients' decision-making processes. Working as deeply integrated advisors, Larson Gross are redirecting their efforts toward conducting complex research tasks, helping clients think through key decisions, weigh their options in different scenarios and tax treatments, and understand the broader impact of their choices.

Or, as Silves put it, “We’re there to do life with them.”

This shift in perspective is also changing the way Larson Gross conducts its own business, as the firm is currently in the process of adopting a value-based billing model, to reflect the increased efficiency and value they’ve achieved with the help of Blue J. This model also sets the stage for further growth, as Larson Gross Advisors positions itself to remain competitive and continues to strengthen the firm’s client relationships. 

Growing Forward

Having jumped from #196 to #163 on the IPA top 200 since adopting Blue J in 2024, Larson Gross Advisors has no plans of slowing down. But of all the growth indicators at Larson Gross, it’s the change at the individual level that has impacted Tanya Silves the most. 

“The biggest growth I’ve seen is in our people and their ability to learn and adapt to change,” she reflects. “They have agency over how they show up and the knowledge they can provide to clients – it’s more widespread now and has built confidence in our people to serve clients from a place of ‘Let me find out!’ vs. ‘I’m not sure, let me research for hours until I’m comfortable…’.”

With Blue J’s AI-powered tax research solution and a team empowered to provide exceptional service to clients, there’s no doubt that Larson Gross is set to scale even further.