Dictate client memos, audit notes, tax planning letters, and email correspondence in seconds. Steno turns your voice into text inside any app on your Mac, so you can serve more clients without drowning in paperwork.
Accounting is a profession built on precision and documentation. Every engagement, every tax return, every audit requires written records: engagement letters, work paper notes, client correspondence, tax planning memos, management letters, and internal review comments. The average CPA spends 40 to 60 percent of their billable time on written documentation rather than on the analytical work that actually adds value to clients.
During tax season, the documentation burden becomes acute. Accountants handling 150 to 300 individual and business returns need to produce client organizer cover letters, filing instructions, planning recommendation letters, and follow-up correspondence for each engagement. That is hundreds of customized documents in addition to the returns themselves. The writing workload often becomes the bottleneck that limits how many clients a practice can serve during the busiest months of the year.
The irony is that most accountants can explain a complex tax situation verbally in two minutes but need 15 minutes to type the same explanation in an email or memo. The gap between verbal fluency and typing speed is where enormous amounts of time are wasted. Voice dictation closes this gap entirely.
When a client emails asking about their estimated tax payments or the impact of a business purchase, hold the hotkey and speak your explanation as you would on a phone call. Release and the response appears in your email client. A five-minute typed email becomes a 45-second dictation. Steno works in Outlook, Gmail, and any email application on your Mac.
As you review financial statements, dictate your observations, the procedures you performed, and your conclusions directly into your work paper documentation system. Speaking your findings as you analyze eliminates the separate documentation step that follows every review engagement. The instant transcription means no interruption to your analytical flow.
After analyzing a client's situation, dictate a comprehensive planning letter that explains the strategies you recommend, the projected savings, and the action items required. Speaking this analysis produces clearer, more client-friendly language than formal typed prose. Clients receive better communication, and you spend less time producing it.
When reviewing a colleague's work or documenting internal decisions, dictate your comments directly into the review file or practice management system. Steno works in any text field, so whether you use CCH, Thomson Reuters, Drake, or a web-based platform, your dictated comments appear exactly where you need them.
Consider the written documentation required for a typical individual tax engagement. Here is what the communication process looks like with typing versus voice dictation.
| Task | Typing | Voice with Steno |
|---|---|---|
| Organizer cover letter | 8 minutes | 2 minutes |
| Missing document request email | 5 minutes | 1 minute |
| Filing instructions letter | 10 minutes | 2.5 minutes |
| Tax planning summary | 15 minutes | 4 minutes |
| Total per client | ~38 minutes | ~9.5 minutes |
| Total for 200 clients (season) | ~127 hours | ~32 hours |
Nearly 95 hours saved over a single tax season. That is time you can redirect to serving additional clients, providing higher-value advisory services, or simply leaving the office before midnight during March and April. The time savings calculator can help you estimate the exact impact for your practice.
Professional dictation services designed for accounting firms are expensive and complex. Steno takes a simpler approach. It is a lightweight Mac app that sits in your menu bar and works in every application without integrations or plugins. Hold a key, speak, release, and your words appear. The setup takes 30 seconds.
Steno uses the macOS Accessibility API to insert text directly at your cursor, which means it does not interfere with your clipboard or require switching between applications. You can dictate a client memo, then immediately paste financial data you copied from a spreadsheet. Everything flows naturally without disruption.
Yes. Steno uses AI transcription trained on broad professional and financial text. It accurately recognizes terms like depreciation, amortization, accounts receivable, GAAP, IFRS, section 179, qualified business income deduction, and other standard accounting terminology without requiring any special setup.
Steno works in any application on your Mac where you can type text. It inserts text directly at your cursor using the macOS Accessibility API. This means it works with QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, tax preparation software, and any web-based or desktop application used in accounting practice.
Steno sends audio to a transcription API over encrypted connections for processing. No recordings or transcripts are stored on any server after transcription is complete. Audio is discarded immediately after processing. No client financial data, names, or account details are retained by Steno.
During tax season, accountants produce enormous volumes of client correspondence, filing notes, and planning memos. Speaking at 150 words per minute versus typing at 40 words per minute means documentation tasks take roughly a quarter of the time. For an accountant handling 200 returns, saving 10 minutes per client on written communication adds up to over 33 hours saved during the season.
Join thousands of professionals who have reclaimed hours from documentation. Steno is free to download for Mac.
Download Steno Free