An accounting firm's connection has to survive its busiest weeks, not its average ones. Cloud tax and accounting software, client document uploads, scanning, remote and seasonal staff, video meetings and phones all peak together between January and the filing deadlines. Plan for that peak with a dependable primary circuit, a backup on a different network, and every network change finished well before January. The security obligations for client data apply all year.
Most accounting firms do not need an enormous circuit. They need one that does not fail at the wrong time, an upload that does not choke when the scanners are busy, and a setup that can absorb a few extra people for four months. This guide covers each of those, plus the federal security rules that tax preparers in particular should know about.
What runs on the connection
- Cloud tax and accounting software, often the firm's main workspace, sometimes through a hosted remote desktop.
- Client document intake through a portal, plus scanning of paper documents to cloud storage.
- E-filing to tax authorities, with hard deadlines.
- Remote access for staff and partners working from home, especially in the evenings during season.
- Video meetings with clients and other advisers.
- Phones, which get very busy in the weeks before each deadline.
- Offsite backups of anything still held on office machines or a local server.
Plan network work around the tax calendar
For calendar-year filers, the main federal deadlines fall on March 15 for partnerships and S corporations, April 15 for individuals and C corporations, and September 15 and October 15 for extended business and individual returns. Dates move for weekends, holidays and disaster relief, but the shape of the year does not. Schedule network work to match it:
| Period | Workload | Network work |
|---|---|---|
| May to August | Lighter | The window for new circuits, cutovers, firewall replacements, office moves and phone system changes |
| September to October | Extension deadlines | Avoid changes in the weeks around September 15 and October 15 |
| November to December | Planning for season | Test failover to the backup line, set up seasonal staff accounts and equipment, check licences and remote access |
| January to April | Peak | Change freeze. Monitor, and fix only what breaks |
Installs take time: typically 2–4 weeks in a building where a carrier is already lit, 60–90 days if construction is needed, and number porting 2–4 weeks. If a firm decides in February that it needs a new circuit, the realistic answer is often to order it and cut over in May.
Sizing for the season
Cloud tax software uses little bandwidth per person. What adds up is everything else happening at once: scanned documents going up to storage, client uploads, video meetings, phones and backups. Two points matter most:
- Upload. Scanning and offsite backup both push data out of the building. A plan with a small upload, which many cable services have, is the most common bottleneck we see in professional offices.
- Peak headcount. Seasonal preparers and reviewers add users, devices and Wi-Fi load for four months. Size for the season, not the summer.
Uptime and the backup line
An outage in July is an inconvenience. An outage on deadline day is a crisis. Firms that live in cloud software should treat a second connection as part of the setup, not an extra:
- A primary circuit chosen for consistency. Larger firms often choose dedicated internet access with an SLA; smaller ones do well on good shared fiber.
- A backup from a different network, ideally entering the building on a different path, with automatic failover on the firewall.
- Phones that fail over to mobile apps if the office connection drops.
- A test of the failover every year in November, not for the first time in April.
Our guide to whether your business needs backup internet covers the design choices. Some cloud tax platforms and banks also allow access only from known addresses, which makes static IP addresses on both lines worth planning; see static IPs and BGP.
The security rules preparers should know
General information, not legal advice. Confirm your firm's obligations with counsel or your professional body.
- The FTC Safeguards Rule. Under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, tax preparers are treated as financial institutions for this rule. It requires a written information security program, a qualified person responsible for it, risk assessments, access controls, encryption of customer information, multi-factor authentication, staff training, oversight of service providers and an incident response plan. Since 2024, certain breaches affecting 500 or more people must also be reported to the FTC.
- IRS guidance. The IRS reminds tax professionals that a written information security plan is required, and publishes guidance including Publication 4557, Safeguarding Taxpayer Data, and a sample plan in Publication 5708.
- State rules and professional standards. State breach-notification laws and professional confidentiality rules add their own requirements.
Several of these land directly on the network:
- A business firewall with current firmware and a named person, or provider, responsible for it.
- Multi-factor authentication on email, remote access and every cloud platform holding client data.
- Guest Wi-Fi kept entirely separate from staff systems.
- Encrypted remote access for staff working from home, with no remote desktop ports open to the internet.
- Logs kept long enough to investigate an incident.
Our cybersecurity page covers managed firewalls and protection for that side of the setup.
Client documents: portals over email
Many firms still receive tax documents as email attachments, which spreads client information across inboxes, phones and backups that nobody tracks. A client portal from your tax or practice management software usually handles intake better: clients upload into a known place, files are encrypted in transit, staff do not have to download attachments to their desktops, and the firm can see what has arrived and what is still missing.
A portal changes the network picture in two small ways. Uploads go to the vendor's servers rather than through your office connection, so they barely touch your bandwidth. Downloads to the office do, when staff open large files, which is one more reason to size for the season. And when clients bring paper, the scanner becomes the intake point, which is where the upload numbers in the example below come from.
Whichever method you use, write down how long client documents are kept, where they live and who can see them, and follow that rule consistently. Your written security plan should describe it.
Seasonal and remote staff
- Issue firm-managed laptops where possible, rather than letting seasonal staff use personal machines for client data.
- Create accounts with a planned end date, and disable them on that date.
- Set minimums for home connections, and require multi-factor authentication for every remote sign-in.
- Give seasonal staff a phone extension on the hosted system rather than sharing a line.
During season, calls pile up faster than staff can return them. A hosted phone system with queues and voicemail to email helps, and some firms add an answering layer for evening calls so clients get a callback time instead of a full mailbox.
A worked example
Hypothetical: the firm, file sizes and volumes are invented to show the arithmetic. Check your own scanner and backup reports.
A firm of 16 staff adds 6 seasonal preparers from January to April. It runs on a coax plan with a 20 Mbps upload. During season it scans about 1,500 pages of client documents a day into cloud storage, averaging about 2 MB per scanned document of several pages, roughly 3 GB a day, and runs a nightly offsite backup of about 50 GB from a local file server.
- Daily scanning: 3 GB is about 24,000 megabits. At 20 Mbps that is 20 minutes of a fully saturated upload, spread across the working day and colliding with video meetings and calls.
- Nightly backup: 50 GB is about 400,000 megabits. At 20 Mbps that is more than 5.5 hours in theory, often longer in practice, and it can still be running when staff arrive. At 300 Mbps it is about 22 minutes.
The decision follows from the numbers. The firm orders 300 Mbps symmetrical fiber in May, keeps the coax line as a backup on a different network, cuts over in June, adds static IPs for the platforms that allow-list the office, and tests failover in November. The upgrade happens during the quiet months, not in the middle of season.
Questions to ask your provider
- What upload speed will we have, in writing?
- Can the install and cutover be scheduled for our quiet months, and what is the lead time at this address?
- Can the backup come from a different network, entering the building on a different path?
- How many static IPs are included on each line?
- Does the firewall support multi-factor authentication for remote access and keep logs we can review?
- What is the repair commitment if the primary fails during tax season?
- How do phones behave if the office internet drops?
Get it priced before season
Our industry playbook for legal and accounting firms starts from SLA-backed dedicated internet with static IPs, private cloud connections that keep client files off the public internet, and hosted voice with compliant call recording. We qualify your address across several Tier 1 carriers and bring back the best offer. Carriers pay FiberX, so there is no markup, our lowest-price promise applies, and if your current deal already wins we will tell you. Quotes are free with no obligation, you usually hear back the same day, and Phil Morales is your one point of contact. Send us your address and current bill, call 478-758-8091 or text (347) 870-0965.
