Summer 2026 Update
As famous crooner Sam Cooke once belted, "A Change is Gonna Come", and change is certainly on the horizon at The Mattox Group.
This has been a year of disruption, and new opportunities.
With the new tax legislation kicking of the year, changes in staffing and operations at IRS, and the significant early-tax season departure of my former assistant Vanessa, followed by the transition to Judy, the start to 2026 was rocky. As if that wasn't enough to shake up our routines, we unexpectedly lost my little sister on March 27th to a pulmonary embolism.
We're still feeling the impacts of that loss, and navigating a world that is darker for her absence. Summer has brought extensions, travel with family, sports camps for the kids, and now, another significant disruption. Judy, who has been so diligent and sound in helping me navigate this new reality, has announced her imminent departure.
Please join me in thanking Judy for her significant efforts supporting me, our firm, and our TMG clients.
Judy received an offer she just couldn't refuse, and while I'm incredibly excited for her personally, her professional absence will be felt.
So where does that leave TMG?
If you haven't had to hire lately, congratulations. Having just gone through this process less than 6 months ago, and only a year ago prior to that, I can attest to what many of our clients have long been experiencing since COVID kicked off; the labor market is challenging these days.
That being the case, and recognizing that this role, while vital for our firm and our clients, isn't the most financially rewarding opportunity here on the California Central Coast, aka one the most expensive places to live in the country, we're adopting a new strategy.
Those who've been with me for a while are aware I'm always mindful of advancements in technology, with the proviso these solutions should be effective, secure, and deliver exceptional outcomes. We're now moving forward in three areas with significant investments in technology, implementing solutions I've sought for 20 years, heretofore unavailable, unworkable, or financially unsuitable.
Firstly, we've adopted a new 24/7 virtual receptionist. Partnering with Smith.AI, a company with over a decade of experience supporting the legal profession, we have deployed their hybrid virtual receptionist program. TMG phones are now answered 24/7/365, first by an AI assistant, with a transition to a live human operator as circumstances dictate. For clients, the AI will ask if you are an existing client, and once affirmed, you'll be automatically transferred to a live human. You may also always request a human and will be immediately transferred.
The goal is to ensure we are always accessible, and that complete messages are sent to us timely so that we may respond fully and promptly when we're in the office. Note, for the moment, we're only accepting messages, rather than transfers into the office, as we work through the process and ensure the ability to transfer directly to TMG during business hours works seamlessly. In bound calls transferred into the office will resume when my new assistant is onboarded and their office hours are established. We now have call recording, transcriptions, and summaries automatically attached to your client account in our CRM, ensuring we never miss a call again, and will always have a complete record of your account updated and accessible to all team members.
Secondly, we're moving forward with what many of our colleagues have already adopted, a remote client services administrative assistant. I have examined a variety of offerings, driven by the following principles: 1. The service should be US based. 2. Utilize a service and not a recruiter or outsourced staffing firm, ensuring continuity and minimizing churn. 3. Ensure a dedicated point of contact for our clients, rather than a randomly assigned and ever-changing remote team member. I'm pleased to announce we're partnering with Belay, a proven domestic firm with a solid track record in the financial services workforce. We'll be onboarding my new assistant within the next 10 business days, and I'll introduce them to our clients then.
This team member will look, act, and for all intents and purposes be a fully-fledged member of Team Mattox. The only differences, they won't be physically in the office (which isn't a first for this role - oh the COVID era) and should they move on to another opportunity, Belay will have responsibility for continuity of care and a new placement onboarded in 2-3 business days. The goals here are minimizing disruption, recruiting tax and accounting focused talent, and ensuring the back-end training programs are top notch and up-to-date with the advancements happening daily in AI.
Thirdly, we're deploying a new practice management system, with a fully integrated client-portal. Called TaxDome, this system will replace six items in our current tech stack, and ensure all team members have access and visibility to all client related matters simultaneously and in real-time. Most important to me, and fulfilling a long-time goal, our clients will now have transparent visibility inside their own portal as to the real-time status of their tax returns and accounting projects.
TaxDome will go live to clients on September 1st, 2026. You'll receive email invitations for your new portal registration, along with a welcome video and message from me, and access to TaxDome client support for questions with navigating the new system. We investigated many options, TaxDome rose to the top for ease of use for our clients, robust integrations with our tax and accounting tools, and positive reputation in the field. We'll be winding down Liscio over the course of September and moving forward TaxDome will be our primary focal point of communication with all clients.
Lastly, for the moment, we're in the early stages of developing our own TMG AI Brain, internally referenced, firmly tongue in cheek, as "The Book of J". AI is here, it's rapidly advancing, for good or ill, and like WebMD and Google before, we're diligently working to stay abreast of these developments, utilize these tools where prudent and effective, and ensure we're delivering for you, our treasured clients, the value and competency you desire and deserve. Just as the internet revolution highlighted the value of asking good questions, the AI landscape is reinforcing that just asking a question won't cut the mustard, asking the "right" question, fully informed of the desired goals and objectives of our clients, and holistically aware of all the facts, circumstances, and ideologies driving each of our clients motivations is what will truly empower AI - and your Trusted Advisor - to deliver solutions that far surpass historical precedent and ability. In short, quality in success out.
Therefore, we embark on our own Brain AI, with the goal of providing swift, comprehensive responses to frequently requested questions, delivered with the authority of my perspective, understanding, and experience. The output, if I were in your shoes, knowing what I know about you, and with my 20+ years of professional experience and the full repository of knowledge available to me guiding me, what would I do, and what would I tell you to do if we were sitting eyeball to eyeball. The goal here isn't to replace our meetings, in fact, it may increase them. The primary driver of this project, just as with our YouTube channel, is to deliver helpful content to our clients that helps you make confident, competent, and productive decisions in your financial life, delivered on a timeline that isn't dependent upon my office hours.
The Book of J is in the early stages, so stay tuned as we learn more about these systems, how best to utilize them while safeguarding you, and as the AI landscape solidifies from an amalgamation of wild west pioneers to a more established and trusted platform, settle on a product for implementation that we can reasonably trust will deliver results for years into the future.
Thank you all for your patience this year as we've navigated these unprecedented disruptions in our operations. We have not delivered at the level I demand and you deserve, and I apologize unreservedly for failing to exceed expectations in every engagement. We will be better.
Below are a few helpful reminders on practice operations to ensure you're getting the most out of working with TMG.
Our public office hours are Monday through Thursday 10-am through 5pm. My assistant is always out of the office Friday through Sunday, and while I'm often working over that time frame, and outside public hours, I cannot guarantee a call back outside of our public office hours. Whenever possible, we do strive to get you a response within one business day.
In-person meetings remain available with me in our office at the Abrego Business Center in Monterey, CA. I love meeting clients in person, though due to scheduling conflicts with two kiddos, in-person meetings may not be as readily available as a Zoom call. Thus, if the matter is more pressing, please don't wait for an in-person slot, grab the first Zoom opening that is available. Seeing your face is important to me, getting you the information you need as swiftly as possible is always my first priority.
Please also remember, our office is closed to the public for all Federally observed holidays, with additional closures at year-end around the holiday season and during the first week of each January to ramp up for tax season. I value that my team members have lives outside of taxes and accounting, and providing them as much time to be a human and not simply an employee is a core value in our firm.
We have more great content in store this year, so look forward to new videos, client updates, and more as 2026 progresses and we prepare for the year-end-close.
If you’d like to catch up on topics we've already covered in past videos, check out our most recent videos here:
➡️Key Tips for Starting Your Successful Business
➡️ S-Corp Reasonable Compensation
If you have any questions or need assistance with the process, please don’t hesitate to reach out—we’re happy to help.
Very Respectfully,
-J
J. Alan Fagan, EA, RSSA®
NTPI Fellow
