Fundz for CPAs, Tax Advisors, and Financial Planners

A complete blueprint for CPAs, tax advisors, CFPs, and estate-planning specialists using Fundz to find clients at the moment of taxable events — acquisitions, IPOs, severance disclosures, equity acceleration triggers, and the 90-day windows where structuring decisions get made.

The job to be done

Tax and planning practices grow by being the first call after a taxable event. An acquisition closes — the founder needs structuring help in 60 days. An IPO prices — a dozen executives need 10b5-1 plans and gifting strategies. An 8-K discloses an equity acceleration trigger — severance and stock comp planning compress into weeks.

Fundz turns those events into a daily inbox. The right CPA or planner who shows up within the first 30 days of the event, with specific knowledge of what changed, becomes the trusted advisor for the next decade.

Who this playbook is for

• CPAs and tax advisors — compliance-anchored practices that grow through tax-event-driven planning work. Acquisitions, IPOs, and severance disclosures are your primary triggers.
• Financial planners (CFPs) — broader life-planning scope. Use Fundz for tax-event triggers plus career-transition signals (new exec roles bring new comp structures requiring re-planning).
• Estate planners and trust attorneys — specialty around founder liquidity, foundation formation, generational transfer. Often co-advise with wealth managers, but the planning work is yours.

Quick start — first 30 minutes

Step 1: Configure notifications

Visit /account/email-notifications and verify Daily Email Alerts is on. The event types that matter most: SEC 8-K Filings, Acquisitions, Funding Rounds (large rounds with secondary), Executive Hires. The 8-K signal is especially valuable for this persona — severance and equity disclosure events are where compressed planning windows live.

Step 2: Save four Mandates

Pick four from the Mandate setups section based on your sub-variant. The 8-K item-type 5.02 Mandate is non-negotiable — it surfaces severance and separation events with disclosed equity acceleration that drive 60–90 days of compressed work.

Step 3: Build your Watchlist to 100–150 companies

Open /watchlist and add companies in your geography or specialty vertical at exit-readiness or public stage. Tax/planning cycles run long — a watched company today can produce engagement a year from now. Build for the long-tail trigger loop.

Step 4: Bookmark your high-leverage SEC filter

/sec-filings?item_type=5.02 — Filtered 8-K view for executive separation events. Fundz adds AI-generated red-flag analysis, surfacing severance details, equity acceleration triggers, and separation structures in plain English. This is the single highest-density wealth-and-tax-relevant signal source on the platform.

How Fundz fits your practice

Fundz is a signal-intelligence platform: real-time funding rounds, executive hires and departures, M&A, IPOs, contracts, and SEC filings, paired with verified investor profiles, an RIA database derived from Form ADV filings, and 200 mobile direct dials per month on the Strategic plan.

For tax and planning work, Fundz is your taxable-event radar. The SEC AI red-flag layer parses every 8-K and surfaces the planning-relevant disclosures (separation agreements with equity acceleration, restated 10b5-1 plans, foundation announcements) in plain English so you don't have to read every filing yourself.

Signals and what they mean for you

Acquisitions (founder liquidity)

Browse on /acquisitions. Founder taxable events are your highest-conversion trigger. Filter by deal size and geography matching your practice.

• CPA/tax advisor: $10–200M deals where founder retains identifiable equity. Reach out within 30 days post-close. Tax-residence specifics (NY/CA exit, FL/TX migration) are your differentiator.
• Financial planner: Slightly broader range. Same urgency window, but emphasize broader life-planning over pure tax structuring in your initial framing.
• Estate planner: $50M+ deals where multi-generational transfer becomes relevant. Coordinate with wealth managers in the first 60 days when family-trust setup decisions get framed.

SEC 8-K material events (compressed planning windows)

Browse on /sec-filings. Item types most relevant for tax and planning work:

• 5.02 (Departure/Appointment of Officers): bookmark this filter. Severance details, equity acceleration triggers, separation structures — the exact disclosures that compress a year of planning into 60 days.
• 1.01 / 2.01 (Material Agreements / Acquisition or Disposition): Merger announcements; first-look intelligence on liquidity events.
• 8.01 (Other Events): Catch-all including foundation announcements, large gifts, and compensation policy changes — high signal-density for estate planners.

IPOs (10b5-1 and concentration windows)

Browse on /fundings filtered to IPO-stage announcements. The first 90 days post-IPO are when 10b5-1 plans, charitable structuring, and concentration-management decisions get framed. Founders, CFOs, and pre-IPO RSU recipients all hit a planning inflection point at the same time.

Funding rounds with founder secondaries

Series C+ rounds often include founder secondaries — smaller liquidity events that still trigger planning needs. Filter on /fundings for rounds $50M+ in your geography.

Executive hires (new compensation structures)

Browse on /executives. Senior executives joining $50M+ revenue companies often bring concentrated stock comp packages requiring re-planning — tax projections for vesting schedules, residency considerations, gifting strategies. Especially relevant for tech, biotech, and financial services.

Daily workflow

7:30 AM ET — Morning brief

The Daily Brief surfaces 5–10 ICP-matched companies that triggered overnight. For each acquisition, IPO, or material 8-K in your geography or vertical, mentally tag as same-week outreach or add to Watchlist for monitoring.

9 AM ET — SEC AI scan

Open /sec-filings?item_type=5.02 and scan the past 24 hours of 5.02 filings. The AI red-flag analysis surfaces the planning-relevant details (equity acceleration mechanics, severance amounts, change-of-control triggers) so you can write outreach anchored on specifics, not generics.

Midday — Watchlist scan

Five-minute pass through /watchlist for new triggers on monitored companies. Material 8-Ks often land midday after companies finish filing.

End of day — Research follow-ups

For prospects in active conversation, generate a Search Brief if you are on Strategic, or pull executive backgrounds from the Executives feed for client-prep work. Send polished prep materials by EOD so they hit the inbox first thing tomorrow.

Mandate setups by sub-variant

For CPAs and tax advisors

For financial planners (CFPs)

For estate planners and trust attorneys

Watchlist strategy

100–150 companies. Tax and planning cycles are long, but slightly shorter than pure wealth advisory because the planning windows are more compressed. Composition:

• 40–60 exit-ready companies in your geography (Series C+, public, $50M+ revenue private)
• 20–30 client-adjacent companies (clients' employers, board seats, related entities)
• 20–30 industry concentrations where stock comp is a recurring planning theme (tech, biotech, financial services)
• 10–20 high-profile companies with frequent material 8-K filings (track for compressed planning windows)

Notification configuration

Alerts to enable

• Daily Brief email: on.
• Event Summaries (daily) for SEC 8-K + Acquisitions + Executives: on. SEC 8-K specifically with item-type filter on 5.02 is your highest-density planning trigger.
• Saved Questions (AI-features users): save tax-event-specific questions like "Which of my Watchlist companies disclosed equity acceleration in an 8-K this week?" The AI answers weekday mornings.

Slack notifications

For practices with multiple partners or associates, connect Slack at /account/connectors. Recommended: Acquisitions=on, Funding=on (large rounds only). Real-time team awareness on material events helps when multiple partners need to coordinate outreach.

Outreach templates

CPA — post-acquisition (founder-direct)

Financial planner — post-IPO (executives)

Estate planner — material 8-K (severance event)

CPA — new senior executive (compensation re-planning)

Power-user tactics

SEC AI red-flag analysis

On any 8-K detail page, the AI summary surfaces material details (separation triggers, equity acceleration mechanics, comp policy changes) in plain English. Two minutes of reading per filing yields the angle for outreach — "saw your 8-K" is generic; "saw the equity acceleration on the change-of-control trigger" is specific.

Search Brief for client-prep work (Strategic)

On any company's Hiring Intel page or Deep Dive, generate a Search Brief for a one-page intelligence summary. Useful as: prep doc before a discovery call with a prospect's CFO, attachment to a partner-level introduction, internal memo for an associate working a new client.

RIA database for co-advisor mapping

/sec-filings/ria indexes RIAs by AUM and type. Useful for tax and planning practitioners who co-advise with wealth managers — map the wealth-advisor landscape in your geography to identify referral partners or position against existing relationships.

Family Offices feed

/family-offices is the family-office directory. Useful for estate planners building referral relationships into the family-office network — family offices are recurring sources of complex estate work.

What success looks like at week 4

• 100–150 companies on your Watchlist, actively monitored
• 3–4 Mandates running daily
• 5–10 same-week outreach notes per week, each anchored to a specific event
• 1–2 qualified introductory calls per week
• 1 net-new client conversation in active progress

Tax and planning sales cycles run shorter than pure wealth advisory (typical 60–120 days from first contact to engagement) because the planning windows are time-bound. The Day-1 indicator that the platform is working for you is the conversion rate from outreach to introductory call — healthy is 12–20% on event-anchored outreach.

Common mistakes

• Pursuing too late. Sixty days post-event the founder or executive has usually picked their tax advisor. Same-week outreach is the standard.
• Generic compliance pitch. "We help with tax planning" is invisible. Anchor every message on the specific event and the specific 60–90 day window.
• Skipping the SEC AI red-flag review. The 8-K AI analysis surfaces details that frame your outreach with specificity. Skipping leaves you generic.
• Watchlist too narrow. Below 75 companies and the long-tail trigger loop will not produce reliably.
• Treating IPOs and acquisitions as one signal type. They drive different planning conversations. IPO outreach focuses on 10b5-1 plans, RSU vesting, charitable structuring. Acquisition outreach focuses on entity structuring, gain deferral, residency. Tailor accordingly.
• Not coordinating with co-advisors. Wealth managers, estate attorneys, and CPAs often serve the same client. Use the RIA database to identify the existing wealth advisor before reaching out so your message complements rather than competes.

Troubleshooting

My Daily Brief has too many irrelevant signals

Tighten Mandate filters — especially the geography and deal-size ranges. If your practice is regional, narrow the location filter. If you focus on private-company founders, exclude IPO-only Mandates.

I'm not seeing 8-K filings in my feed

Verify SEC 8-K Filings is toggled on at /account/email-notifications. Save a Mandate filtered to item type 5.02 specifically so the highest-leverage filings appear in your Daily Brief.

The AI red-flag analysis seems to miss key details

The AI surfaces material disclosure language but does not interpret it for tax purposes. Always read the full filing for any prospect you are about to engage. The AI is the speed-read; it is not a substitute for filing review.

Founder contact info isn't on the Deep Dive

For private-company founders, contact verification depends on third-party data. Click "Suggest Contacts" on the Deep Dive to request additional verification. For public-company executives, the 8-K filing usually includes legal counsel and HR contacts that can serve as first-touch points.

Bonus: the Partner Program

CPAs and planners regularly co-advise alongside wealth managers, attorneys, and other professional services. The Fundz Partner Program is built for these referral relationships. Your referrals get the platform at a discount, you get rev-share on conversions. Email john@fundz.net to discuss terms.