Tax season gives a preparer four months to see a year’s worth of clients. Every appointment on the calendar has to happen, because there’s rarely room to reschedule one that doesn’t.
Belmont Services LLC, a family-owned tax preparation firm in Columbus, Ohio, sees more than 500 clients in that window, many of them Spanish-speaking. Owner Jorge Beltran built the business on personal attention, and a missed appointment cuts both ways: lost time for Belmont, and a client who may not get another slot before the filing deadline.
For years, Belmont fought no-shows the only way it could, by phone. It wasn’t enough. Then Jorge found Apptoto and switched to automated tax appointment reminders and messages, and no-shows fell from 38% to 6%.
Results
84%
No-show rate
38% → 6% improvement with automated reminders
500+
Clients per tax season
In a four-month window
7 years
Using Apptoto
“No going back”
About Belmont Services
Belmont Services LLC prepares taxes for individuals and families in Columbus, Ohio, in English and Spanish. It’s a family business, and the Beltrans treat customer care as the thing their success hinges on. That’s an easy value to hold in the off-season. It’s a hard one to keep when 500 clients need to be seen between January and mid-April.
The challenge: manual client calls and a 38% no-show rate
Before Apptoto, Belmont’s reminder system was the phone. Someone called each client a few days ahead. If the call went to voicemail or nobody picked up, they called again. It was the most anyone could do by hand, and the no-show rate still sat between 35% and 38%.
The cost was twofold. A missed appointment meant lost time and lost revenue that day. But during tax season Belmont’s calendar is full, so a client who missed often couldn’t be rebooked before the deadline. A no-show didn’t just cost an appointment. It could cost the client.
A third problem the phone couldn’t solve well: a large share of Belmont’s clients speak Spanish, and any reminder system had to reach them in their language.
Why Apptoto: bilingual reminders, Google Calendar, and seasonal billing
Jorge spent a year looking for something better. His list was specific. It had to work with the Google Calendar the business already ran on. It had to offer “pre-recorded messages in Spanish and English,” so a voice reminder could reach every client. And it had to bill in a way that made sense for a seasonal business: more messages in the four busy months, fewer and cheaper the rest of the year.
Apptoto met all three, and connecting it took little effort. Once Google Calendar and the address book were linked, Apptoto pulled client and appointment details automatically, and Jorge had reminders going out the same day.
English and Spanish
Voice, text, and email reminders in each client’s language, including pre-recorded calls.
Google Calendar
Appointments and contacts flow in automatically. No re-entry
Different sequences by client
New clients get introductory information added to their reminders.
Seasonal billing
Scale messages up in tax season and back down after
The setup: Two reminders—Two days out, then two hours out
Call, text, or email
In the client’s langauge. New clients get introductory details
Text or email
Final reminder sent to client before the appointment
Tax appointment
Client arrives prepared, documents in hand
The same two-step sequence runs across all of Belmont’s calendars, but not every client gets the same message. Rules match the message to the client. A first-time client gets a reminder with introductory details added, such as what documents or information to bring and where to park.
A returning client gets the shorter version. And every message goes out in the client’s language: Belmont keeps parallel English and Spanish sequences, including pre-recorded Spanish voice calls, and a language field on each contact decides which one fires. Setting that up today is faster than when Jorge did it, since Apptoto can now translate a message sequence with AI instead of writing each version by hand. Jorge set his up once, and it has carried the business through every tax season since.
The results: no-shows down to 6%, personal touch intact
The number is the headline: no-shows at Belmont are down from 38% to 6%, an 84% reduction. On 500 clients a season, that’s roughly 160 appointments a year that now happen, and 160 clients who get their return done on time.
Now fourteen years in, Jorge says there is no going back. Apptoto saves Belmont time and money. But the thing he points to is softer than that. The reminders “strengthen the business’s client relationships by providing a personal touch,” the same personal touch the Beltran family built the business on, now reaching every client without a bigger staff or an expensive system.
Questions tax preparers ask
Yes. Plans are priced by message credits, and you can change plans as your calendar changes. A seasonal practice like a tax preparation firm or accounting office can scale up for January through April, then drop to the minimum plan or pause the account entirely after the deadline. You’re never locked into peak-season volume year round. Unused credits don’t roll over, so size the plan to the month. If you hit your cap, you choose what happens: allow overages and keep sending, or turn overages off and messages pause until the next cycle. Belmont sends most of its reminders in the four months before the filing deadline and keeps costs low the rest of the year. See pricing for plan sizes.
One account can cover your entire firm. The base plan includes three calendars or users, and larger firms move up a plan based on how many calendars or people they need to connect. Logins and calendars are separate, so an admin who schedules for several partners can manage all of their calendars from one login, and each preparer’s Google, Outlook, or Microsoft 365 calendar syncs to the same account. See our pricing page for more details or chat with our support team.
Yes. Every message is a template you edit: add your office address, remove the confirm/decline prompt, and set different messages per appointment type, so an in-person visit says one thing and a phone or Zoom appointment says another. Reminders send from a dedicated local or toll-free number for your business, not a random one, and if you’d rather clients see the number they already know, you can host your firm’s existing number on Apptoto so every text and call comes from it.
Yes. Belmont connected Google Calendar and its address book and had reminders going out the same day, with no re-entering client details.
There are multiple places to get help! Apptoto has an extensive knowledge base, and offers live support by phone, chat, or email during business hours. If you need a more customized setup or would rather not do it yourself, Apptoto offers a white glove setup option where Apptoto configures your calendars, templates, and rules for you. Most single-office firms are sending reminders the same day they connect a calendar.
