Year-round tax planning for business owners

The year is still open. Your options are too.

Your tax return records what already happened. OpenYear finds the tax strategies that fit your business, helps you put them in place before the deadline, and keeps the proof organized for your accountant.

Works alongside your accountant. It doesn't replace them.

Harbor & Pine Design, Inc.S corporation · 2026
  • Accountable plan$2,130/yrReady for your accountant
  • Renting your home for business meetings$1,440/yrDocumentation missing
  • Reasonable compensationNo figure yetProfessional review needed
  • Hiring your children$1,180/yrOpportunity identified
Estimated, once completed$4,750 a year
A fictional business. See the full report and its arithmetic →

Why year-round

Tax planning shouldn't start after the year has closed.

Your return records decisions already made. The strategies worth the most need action — and records — during the year.

  • Adopting an accountable plan and reimbursing through it
  • Keeping mileage and home-office records as you go
  • Setting an S corporation salary you can defend
  • Hiring family members properly, through payroll
  • Holding and documenting business meetings at home
  • Timing equipment purchases and a retirement plan

How it works

From a possible saving to a finished, documented strategy.

  1. Find the opportunities

    Connect your books and answer a few questions. OpenYear shows which strategies may fit, and why.

    • An estimate, with its assumptions
    • What makes you eligible
    • The deadlines that apply
    • The records it will need
  2. Put them in place

    Choose what to pursue and get the steps, not another article: what to create, approve, pay, record, or take to your accountant.

  3. Keep the proof

    Evidence is gathered as you go. At year end your accountant gets what was done, when, how each amount was calculated, the documents behind it, and what still needs their review.

Recommended isn't done. A strategy without its paperwork shows as unfinished — not as money saved.

  1. Opportunity identified

    The facts suggest it's worth a look. Nothing is assumed yet.

  2. Professional review needed

    A judgment call — a salary, an eligibility question — waits for your accountant.

  3. Documentation missing

    The action happened, but the paperwork that proves it isn't attached.

  4. Ready for your accountant

    Done and documented, with the arithmetic your accountant needs.

Reads your books from QuickBooks Online or VisiBooks and never changes them. Xero is coming.

Built to say no

A strategy that doesn't fit gets a no, with the arithmetic.

Rules decide who qualifies. Arithmetic decides whether it's worth it. You and your accountant make the judgment calls. AI reads your documents and explains the result — it never decides the verdict.

  • No estimate without the factsNothing gets a dollar figure until the facts it depends on are confirmed, and the arithmetic is always shown.
  • No backdated paperworkRecords assembled after the fact are labeled that way — never presented as if they were written at the time.
  • Recommendations aren't paid forThey don't change based on compensation, and any partner compensation is disclosed alongside the strategy.
S corporation election
Two-building rental partnership · three owners
Not recommended
Estimated net effect
−$2,700 / year
  • Self-employment tax saved$0
  • Payroll to pay a reasonable salary−$1,200
  • A second return to prepare−$1,500
  • Net, each year−$2,700
Why: the partners earn rental income, and rental income isn't self-employment income — so the election's main saving is zero, by rule, before anything else is counted.
rule s_election/1 · facts confirmed from a filed 2025 Form 1065
A real verdict, anonymized. Sometimes the correct recommendation is no.

What it looks for

The strategies that need action during the year.

The S corporation election check runs today. These arrive with the first cohort, built with its owners.

First cohort

Accountable plan

Reimburse yourself, tax-free, for business costs you already pay personally — with the records to back it.

First cohort

Home office and mileage

The business share of your home and your car, calculated the same way every month and written down at the time.

First cohort

Reasonable compensation

Your salary against your distributions, with comparable pay gathered for your accountant's review.

First cohort

Hiring your family

When employing a spouse or child actually helps, what payroll it takes, and the timesheets that prove the work.

First cohort

Renting your home for meetings

Up to fourteen days a year, at a market rate you can document, for meetings that really happened.

First cohort

Retirement plan

Whether a plan fits your payroll and profit, and which deadlines apply to setting one up.

Eligibility varies. OpenYear shows the requirements and the assumptions before it shows an estimate.

With your accountant

Your accountant stays in charge. They just get a better record.

One shared record of the planning decisions made during the year — instead of a reconstruction in March.

Tax preparationOpenYear
Begins after the year endsWorks while the year is open
Records what already happenedPlans what happens next
Rebuilds the paperwork at tax timeCollects it as you go
Usually one meeting a yearA running record all year

Questions

What people ask first.

Does OpenYear replace my CPA or tax preparer?

No. It finds and tracks planning opportunities during the year and keeps the evidence behind them. Your accountant stays responsible for professional advice and for your return — OpenYear gives them an organized record to work from.

Does it guarantee tax savings?

No. Every estimate depends on your facts, your eligibility, whether the strategy is actually carried out, and the law as it applies to you. That's why each one shows its assumptions and its status, and why nothing counts as saved until it's done and documented.

What will it need from me?

Your books, connected so OpenYear can read them — it never changes them — and answers about your business. Before OpenYear takes anyone's tax returns, the rules on handling return information have to be settled in writing, so it doesn't take them yet.

Can my accountant use the results?

Yes. That's the point. Each strategy carries what was done and when, how every amount was calculated, the documents that support it, and what still needs a professional's judgment.

Who is it for?

Owner-operated businesses. The first cohort is S corporations, where the most common strategies need action during the year and records to back them.

Early access

Join the first owner cohort.

We're inviting a small number of owner-operated S corporations to test OpenYear. Cohort members will receive the first OpenYear opportunity reviews and help shape the workflows we build next.

OpenYear was created by Robert O'Neill, a business owner who wanted tax planning to happen while decisions could still be changed — not months later, when the return was being prepared. It's being tested on his own operating businesses first.

Just your email and these two answers — never a tax document. We aren't taking those yet. By applying you agree to the terms and privacy policy.