Bartlett, Pringle, and Wolf, LLP

Founded in 1948, Bartlett, Pringle, and Wolf, LLP (BPW) is the leading accounting and consulting firm on the Central Coast of California, providing premium services to both businesses and individuals. Though best known in its native California, the Santa Barbara-based firm serves clients across 39 US states, as well as internationally. #300 on the IPA rankings and one of Accounting Today’s Top Regional Leaders, BPW’s team of 85 professionals pride themselves on offering clients the best of both worlds as only a Regional firm can—personalized, local service with the knowledge and expertise of a national firm.

Since the firm was first established, BPW has understood that people are the core of their business. The firm’s dedication to their team has led to them being recognized with both the California Best Workplaces Employee Choice by Best Companies Group and the Central Coast Best Places to Work by Pacific Coast Business Times. Naturally, when they began considering how to incorporate AI into the firm’s workflows, the impact of this technology on their team, community partners, and clients was top of mind. 

With Blue J, they’ve found an AI-powered tax research solution that not only empowers their team to do their best work, but also ensures that clients continue to receive the high-quality service and superior performance they’ve come to expect from BPW. 

Early AI Uncertainties

BPW’s journey to adopting AI began as a small strategic initiative. Within the firm, a few forward-thinking managers, partners, and juniors had started experimenting with tools like ChatGPT and CoPilot. Among them was Jacob Sheffield, who has been at BPW for 20 years, serving both as a Tax Partner and the firm’s head of IT. However, concerns about answer accuracy and source authority meant BPW didn’t feel confident enough to formally integrate AI into the firm’s tax research processes. 

BPW knew that senior leaders had the experience necessary to discern accurate answers when using AI, but juniors would have a harder time making these judgment calls. Still, as more and more juniors were coming out of school well-versed in generative AI, not having an AI solution available at the firm was quickly becoming a detractor for recruitment—especially in accounting’s tight talent market. 

As Sheffield explained, “Juniors are accustomed to having access to generative AI. They’ve already used these tools during school and want to be able to do the same in their employment. The trouble comes from making sure we have the right tool and the right training in place.”

Introducing Blue J

Through trusted contacts at other accounting firms, BPW first heard about Blue J. Immediately, Blue J stood out from the general-purpose generative AI tools BPW had tried. The solution’s conversational interface had the same look and feel, but unlike those other options, Blue J was designed specifically to deliver tax answers. With its curated database of trusted tax resources—including exclusive news and commentary from Tax Notes—Blue J put BPW’s concerns about answer accuracy and source authority to rest. 

So, with a pilot project of 10 users, Bartlett, Pringle, and Wolf, LLP started using Blue J for tax research. Given Blue J’s intuitive user experience, the BPW team was hopeful that onboarding would require minimal training. With most team members generating their first answer within 5 minutes of logging in for the first time, onboarding went even faster than anticipated. 

As BPW continued this pilot project, they also began training team members on answer verification. Because Blue J’s sources are accessible directly through the application, BPW could easily integrate answer verification into their research processes. 

Over the course of a year, that initial group of 10 users expanded to 25 users, 80% of whom are currently active weekly. As for those earlier qualms about giving juniors access to AI, tax professionals across all levels of seniority at BPW use Blue J—from partners and supervisors to managers and staff.

Personal Client Service, Powered by AI

Today, BPW’s 25 users ask an average of 707 questions a month. And by trusting Blue J with their tax questions, BPW saves time on their tax research. In fact, Jacob Sheffield estimates that each team member saves 2 hours per week from leveraging Blue J’s accelerated research capabilities. But research isn’t the only area BPW streamlined by adopting Blue J. 

Client communications have undergone a transformative shift since BPW made the move to Blue J. Turning tax research into clear, comprehensive client communications was previously a major hurdle for BPW’s tax professionals. Now, their team uses Blue J’s automated drafting to translate in-depth tax answers to client-ready emails in minutes. 

“I’m a numbers guy, not a writer,” said Sheffield. “But with Blue J I can draft an email I’m confident sending to a client in seconds. It used to be a multi-step process with multiple reviews. Now I can take an editor’s lens instead of being the writer.”

Incorporating automated drafting also led to several major improvements in client experience:

• Faster responses to client questions, replying in days instead of weeks
• More thorough answers that proactively address client questions
• Focused editing elevates client communications into a competitive differentiator

One example of the caliber of communications BPW now provides stood out to Sheffield. When a client asked whether a shareholder would be subject to Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT) on a capital gain resulting from the sale of goodwill, BPW used Blue J to produce a short, plain-language client email with detailed calculations on a sample $5M capital gain, taking into account the context that the capital gain recognized by the S corporation and reported on the K-1. BPW’s team then prepared an internal memo citing the relevant sources—all in a fraction of the time it would’ve previously taken.

Not only do clients appreciate the clarity, thoroughness, and speed of BPW's communications, but they’re also engaging more deeply in return. Because BPW has more time to consider different angles and scenarios, clients are asking better follow-up questions—to foster deeper advisory conversations.

A Forward-Looking Firm

When it comes to BPW’s junior staff, Blue J has proven to be impactful for far more than just accelerating their research and drafting work. It’s also reshaping the trajectory of their careers within the firm. 

To onboard junior staff effectively, BPW led lunch-and-learn sessions that encouraged them to challenge Blue J, to ask questions from different angles, to consider relevant context, to play out different scenarios, and to think critically about the responses they received. In short, these sessions helped them develop the discernment senior staff used when verifying tax answers. 

“It became a teaching moment,” said Sheffield. “It wasn’t just about understanding how to use Blue J effectively, but how to think like a tax professional.”

Rather than spending their early years at the firm manually poring over the research materials requested by their managers, juniors can make meaningful contributions to the team right from the start. This accelerated learning and development has become invaluable to the firm’s recruitment efforts. 

Sheffield added, “We want critical thinkers at Bartlett, Pringle, and Wolf, LLP. By giving junior staff the opportunity to step into a more strategic, consultative role early on, we’re able to attract the kind of people who really have that drive for analytical and critical thinking—it’s a great filter.”

When interviewing potential candidates, BPW is always sure to mention Blue J’s leading-edge generative AI technology, something that resonates particularly with fresh grads who have already spent years leveraging AI in school. 

“It’s important that people have the best tools to do their job efficiently and perform at a high level. Having the latest and greatest from Blue J sets us apart from other firms they might be considering,” Sheffield explains. 

When competition for talent is tight, having a tax research solution that juniors are excited to use puts BPW at a distinct advantage. By empowering all levels of staff to do their best work both today and tomorrow, Bartlett, Pringle, and Wolf, LLP can continue delivering their signature high-quality service and superior performance for years to come.