The stats
- Under 90 seconds from client document upload in Canopy to Juno reading the docs and Joe being ready to review (matches Juno's ~90-second average on Joe's returns)
- 90% of a new-client return prepped from an IRS transcript pulled through Canopy, before Joe ever had a prior-year return in hand
- Field-by-field review down to a handful of K-1 items rather than every value, based on Joe's accumulated confidence in what the AI catches consistently
- Document chasing (Joe's biggest historic pain) meaningfully reduced by the Canopy checklist auto-updating as clients upload
Tech stack
- Juno
- Canopy
- CCH Axcess
"Once I got the integration from Canopy, I'd upload the documents, it'd say synced, and when I hit the button to log into Juno, by the time the multi-factor came through, it was all done. It was probably less than 90 seconds." – Joe Manzelli, CPA, Manzelli Consulting
Doc chasing was the pain Joe wanted to solve
Joe has been in the tax profession for over 35 years, the last 15 running his own firm. His book is heavily small-business focused. Over that time, the workflow inside his firm has quietly modernized around him: cloud practice management, digital portals, e-signatures. What hasn't changed, until recently, is the part of the job every tax pro complains about first.
"The biggest issue is chasing down documents. Once I get them, boy oh boy, it's pretty awesome the way the integration works." – Joe Manzelli, CPA, Manzelli Consulting
That framing sets up what Joe wanted from the Juno + Canopy integration. The chase was one problem. Turning the chase-completion into an actual prepared return was the second problem, and it was the piece where his old workflow still had significant manual effort.
Client uploads to Canopy, docs sync to Juno, ready to review in under 90 seconds
Joe was already a Canopy customer for practice management and a Juno customer for the tax prep automation. When the integration entered beta, he wired the two together and ran real client returns through the connected workflow.
The everyday flow at his firm now looks like this. A client uploads documents to the Canopy portal. Joe's Canopy checklist (built from the actual expected forms for that return, not a generic organizer) auto-updates as documents come in. Once the client has uploaded, the documents sync to Juno. Joe opens Juno, and Juno has already read the docs.
"One of the things that's great with Canopy is creating checklists from the actual return. A lot of times, the organizers you get elsewhere are very generic. You can send them a checklist, and as they upload documents, it's checked off." – Joe Manzelli, CPA, Manzelli Consulting
That's the sync side. Joe's marquee stat is how fast that automated portion actually runs at his firm:
"It was probably less than 90 seconds." – Joe Manzelli, CPA, Manzelli Consulting
Joe is describing the automated portion: docs synced from Canopy to Juno, Juno has read them, and the data is ready for his review. Everything after that (validating the data, pushing to CCH Axcess, finishing the return) is where the preparer's attention goes. What the integration removed was the manual document handling and re-keying that used to sit in front of that work.
Joe built 90% of a new-client return from an IRS transcript
The single most useful workflow Joe surfaced on the webinar wasn't the fastest, it was the one that solves a specific pain most CPAs know well: a brand-new client with no prior-year return available.
"I got a new client. I didn't know what was on his return. I couldn't get his prior year's tax return. I did get power of attorney, pulled the transcript, pulled it in, and then Juno was able to read a lot of that information and help me out, get probably 90% of the return together." – Joe Manzelli, CPA, Manzelli Consulting
The workflow: Canopy handled the transcript pull with the power of attorney on file. The transcript flowed into Juno the same way any other document would. Juno read the data. Joe reviewed it and pushed it into CCH Axcess with ~90% of the return already populated. He filled in the remaining 10%.
That's a workflow that used to require Joe to manually re-key data from a transcript. It's now a document upload.
Both product teams listen, and it shows in the product
Joe called out something on the webinar that any firm owner who's shipped a product-feedback ticket into the void will recognize:
"We've given feedback to other software companies, and it goes on deaf ears. You guys, both sides, listen." – Joe Manzelli, CPA, Manzelli Consulting
That two-way loop is why the integration keeps getting better. Firm-level feedback moves both product roadmaps.
Joe now reviews a handful of K-1 fields, not every value
Once the workflow was stable, Joe stopped reviewing every field. He now focuses on the ones where the AI has historically been less consistent (specific K-1 items in particular) and moves quickly past the rest.
"There's certain things I don't even look at. There are other things, especially on the K-1, certain items I will go in and look at. Everything else, it's pulling in the numbers." – Joe Manzelli, CPA, Manzelli Consulting
That's the shift firms are paying for: human attention concentrated where it adds value.
Joe's next targets: estimate reminders, text delivery, binder push-back
Joe's already scoping the next set of workflows he wants to automate: estimate reminders (currently a manual per-client task in Canopy), text delivery for signature requests, and eventually pushing the finished Juno binder back into Canopy so a reviewer doesn't have to switch tools. All of that is roadmap-adjacent for the Juno + Canopy partnership.
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This case study draws from Joe Manzelli's appearance on the Juno + Canopy GA integration webinar (September 2026), co-hosted by Dave Haase, founder of Juno, and Carlin Johnson (Canopy). Quotes were lightly cleaned for readability while preserving Joe's framing and intent.
