Audit Season Capacity Planning for Small CA Firms (with a Worked Example)

Short answer: Compare two numbers before the season starts: the hours your engagements need (from last year's actual time, split by role) and the hours your people can actually give (weekly capacity minus leave, study, training and admin, minus a buffer). If demand is higher, fix it in August, not October: start earlier, move non-deadline work out of the season, decline late intake or add help. Then watch utilisation and budget hours every week.

Last updated 14 October 2026. Every number in the worked example is an illustration, not data or a benchmark. Where we mention MyPract, every claim comes from our facts page.

Small firms rarely run out of skill in audit season. They run out of hours in a particular role at a particular time: the partner who has to review forty files in the last ten days, the senior who is the only one who knows three clients, the article assistants on exam leave in the busiest week. Capacity planning is about seeing those collisions a month early.

How do you estimate hours per engagement?

Use your own recorded time. Industry averages don't know your clients.

1. Start from last year's actual hours for each engagement, split by role: article assistant, senior, manager, partner.
2. Adjust for what changed: turnover growth, a new branch or business line, a change of accountant at the client, a first-year audit.
3. Group the rest by size if you lack history. Put clients into three or four bands by complexity and estimate a range for each band.
4. Record time this year against each engagement, so next year's estimate is real. Budget hours on the engagement let you compare as you go.

Keep review hours separate. Preparation can be spread across a team; review and sign-off usually can't, and that's where small firms jam.

How much capacity does each person really have?

Not their office hours. Work out planned hours per person per week:

What's left is plannable capacity. Then hold back a buffer for late books, rework and illness. As a starting point, try somewhere between 10 and 20 percent, then adjust it to what your last two seasons justify. That range is a suggestion, not a benchmark.

How should you plan article assistants' work?

Article assistants are trainees, so planning them is partly a training decision:

• Pair each with a senior for every engagement, so review is built in.
• Give them whole clause groups or whole sections, not scattered tasks, so they learn the work end to end.
• Plan exam and study leave first, before allocating engagements. A plan that assumes everyone is in the office in the exam month will fail.
• Count rework honestly. If an assistant's files take two review rounds, the reviewer's hours go into the plan too.

For roles and access, see our guide to the best practice management software for small CA firms.

Don't forget the signing limit

Capacity isn't only hours. ICAI's Chartered Accountants (Limit on Number of Tax Audits) Guidelines, 2025 limit each member to 60 tax audits per financial year from 1 April 2026, counted by signing date, applied per partner in a firm and aggregated across firms and individual practice. Audits under clauses (c), (d) and (e) of section 44AB for presumptive cases under sections 44AE, 44ADA and 44AD don't count.^[1] Allocate signing partners at intake and keep a running count, so the last ten audits don't all land on one partner who is already at the limit. Our tax audit season workflow covers the dates.

A worked example: a nine-person firm

The firm below is invented to show the method. The hours, percentages and client numbers are illustrations, not data.

Supply. Ten season weeks. Weekly planned hours after deductions:

Ten weeks gives 2,720 hours. Holding back a 15% buffer leaves about 2,310 plannable hours.

Demand, from last year's recorded time (illustrative):

Gap. 2,560 needed against about 2,310 plannable: roughly 250 hours short, around 11% over. On paper the buffer covers it, but then nothing can go wrong all season.

By role, the picture is sharper. Suppose each tax audit needs 3 partner hours and each statutory audit 12: that's 120 + 72 = 192 partner hours, against 450 planned partner hours over the season. Fine. But if 30 of the 40 tax audits can't be reviewed until books arrive in late September, those 90 partner hours fall into three weeks, about 30 a week from two partners who have 45 between them for everything. That's the real bottleneck, and the fix is moving books earlier, not hiring.

Actions the firm might take:

• Ask the 10 clients with the latest books last year for a committed date in August.
• Move non-urgent advisory work and internal projects out of the ten weeks.
• Split signing between partners now, checking both stay inside the ICAI limit.
• Decline or defer late intake that would need more than the buffer.

How do you spot overload early?

Review four signals every week of the season:

Utilisation (billable hours ÷ available hours) is the main gauge. In season it should rise, but a person far above capacity for weeks is a warning, not an achievement. Track it against each person's weekly capacity, not a firm-wide average that hides one overloaded senior. Our guide to tracking billable hours defines utilisation and realisation.

Where does MyPract fit?

MyPract gives you the inputs for this, not an automatic plan. In Team settings you set weekly capacity and bill rates per person. Each engagement carries budget hours and a fee; tasks carry an assignee, due date and planned and actual hours, with list, Kanban, calendar and My Work views. Staff record time with a weekly timesheet or a timer, and managers approve it. Reports show utilisation against each person's weekly capacity, engagement burndown against budget hours and overdue tasks, each exportable to CSV for your own capacity sheet.

Its limits: MyPract does not track attendance or leave, so reduce capacity or plan leave outside it. It doesn't build the capacity forecast for you, doesn't count tax audits against the ICAI limit and doesn't track UDINs. Compare options in our roundup of practice management software for CA firms, see pricing, and once the season's done, invoice from approved timesheets.

How we checked

The planning method is a standard capacity approach; the worked example is invented and its numbers are illustrations, not benchmarks or survey data. We checked the tax audit limit in ICAI's FAQs on the tax audit ceiling and the Chartered Accountants (Limit on Number of Tax Audits) Guidelines, 2025, on 14 October 2026. MyPract features come from our facts page. No prices or exchange rates are used in this guide.

Frequently asked questions

How do you estimate the hours for a tax audit?

From your own history. Take last year's recorded hours for each client, split by role, and adjust for known changes such as higher turnover, a new branch or a messy set of books. If you didn't record time last year, group clients into sizes and estimate a range for each, then check it against this year's actuals.

How much of an article assistant's time should you plan as available?

Less than their office hours. Deduct study and exam leave, training, and time spent learning on the job. Pick a planning percentage from your own records, and plan exam leave by name and date rather than as a general allowance.

How big a buffer should a small firm keep in audit season?

Enough to absorb late books, rework and illness without missing the due date. Hold back a share of capacity, say somewhere between 10 and 20 percent as a starting point, then adjust it to what your past seasons justify.

What is a sign of overload during audit season?

The same person recording more hours than their capacity two weeks running, engagements burning through their budget hours before they're half done, a growing queue of work waiting for review, and overdue tasks clustering on one reviewer.

Does MyPract plan capacity for you?

It gives you the inputs, not a plan. You set weekly capacity per person, record time against engagements with budget hours, and read utilisation, engagement burndown and overdue-task reports. It doesn't track attendance or leave, so allow for leave yourself.

Plan your next season on MyPract

Weekly capacity per person, budget hours per engagement, and utilisation and burndown reports from approved time. Three months free, no card, and the trial never converts automatically.

Sources

[1] ICAI UDIN Directorate, "FAQs on Ceiling for UDIN Generation under Tax Audit", with the Chartered Accountants (Limit on Number of Tax Audits) Guidelines, 2025 (Gazette notification of 25 July 2025) as Annexure I (checked 14 October 2026).