One case, one record
Every engagement in RESO lives in a single case workspace. Instead of scattering the client story across a CRM, transcripts on a server, financials in email, and strategy in someone’s head, the workspace holds all of it in one place — and every report you generate reads from that same record. The result is that any operator can open the case and see exactly where it stands, what is missing, and what was delivered.
The seven tabs
- Profile — taxpayer and spouse details, contact information, and case setup. This is also where party-level snapshots like transcript coverage surface.
- Questionnaires — the structured intake hub: Initial Intake, Statement of Current Circumstance, Statement of Future Objectives, and the Financial 433-A intake, plus the FORMS by RESO launcher.
- Reports — the deliverable center: Discovery Report, Taxpayer Summary, Strategy Report, and Work Verification. Transcript upload and parsing live here too, under the Discovery Report flow.
- Resolution — the implementation tracker: program work plans seeded from playbooks, attested steps with evidence, transcript confirmation, and the resolution deadlines for the case. See Running the practice.
- Billing — case-level billing, the Scope of Work, and commercial close packaging.
- Documents — transcripts, notices, returns, agreements, signed addendums, and anything uploaded or pushed back from FORMS by RESO.
- Activity — the case timeline. Intake saves, document arrivals, report generations, and billing events are logged with actor and timestamp.
The CaseRail and the five phases
The CaseRail ribbon across the top of the case projects progress onto five commercial phases: Qualification, Discovery, Strategy, Implementation, and Work Verification. Each phase rolls up one or more internal stages — ten in total — and shows an advisory status: Not started, In progress, Needs review, or Complete. Discovery, Strategy, and Implementation are the paid phases; the ribbon makes it visible when a case is being worked ahead of its commercial footing.
Stage gates: what they are
Underneath the ribbon, a stage-gate engine evaluates what each stage still needs — concrete blockers like “qualification record missing,” “financial income missing,” or “narrative statement required.” The same blockers drive three things at once:
- Phase status on the ribbon — a phase shows Needs review when one of its stages is blocked.
- Questionnaire status badges — Complete, In progress, or Not started are derived from gate blockers, not a separate checklist.
- Report generation — the strategy and report flows check the same gates, so a Strategy Report cannot quietly generate without the financial intake and narratives it depends on.
Because one engine drives all three, the workspace never disagrees with itself. If the ribbon says the Strategy phase needs review, the Questionnaires tab will show you which intake section to finish, and the report flow will name the same blocker.
Hard gates vs. advisory hints
Not everything blocks. A small set of gates are hard — Discovery authorization before transcript work, narratives and financial intake before a Strategy Report. Most guidance is advisory: sufficiency hints flag a thin narrative or a missing urgency deadline because those produce weaker write-ups, but they never stop you. The intent is rigor without bureaucracy — the gates protect the deliverables, not the navigation.
Working on desktop and mobile
The workspace is built for desktop work. On mobile you can review case status, read existing documents, and capture uploads, but report generation and transcript upload work best on a desktop browser — the workspace tells you so when it detects a small screen.
Where to go next
Start with the Questionnaires doc to see how intake feeds everything downstream, then the transcripts doc for how IRS evidence enters the case. If you want to watch the whole flow before touching a live case, the demo walks a complete synthetic matter through every tab.