BNA | US tax, CPA and bookkeeping firm, South Carolina and Colorado
Before Vinyl, every new-client proposal at BNA, a US tax, CPA and bookkeeping firm running on Karbon, needed a CPA to turn the prospect call into a fixed-price agreement in Ignition. The firm had trialled Fathom and Google Gemini without committing to either. Nearly 12 months after choosing Vinyl, operations lead Whitney McLaughlin drafts each Ignition proposal from the meeting notes herself, and the CPA reviews and approves it.
At-a-glance stats
Firm: BNA, a US tax, CPA and bookkeeping firm with its team in South Carolina and remote operations in Colorado
Team size: 44
Previous tools: Fathom, Google Gemini and at least one other AI notetaker on trial, with transcripts pasted into ChatGPT
Practice management and proposals: Karbon and Ignition, on Google Workspace
Time on Vinyl: nearly 12 months, used firm-wide
Who drafts fixed price agreements: a CPA after the prospect call → the operations lead in Vinyl + Ignition, with CPA approval
Tools open to draft one proposal: 3 windows → 1 workspace
Before: what life looked like pre-change
Context
BNA is a tax, CPA and bookkeeping firm with separate tax and bookkeeping departments. Most of the team works from South Carolina, and Whitney McLaughlin works remotely from Colorado. The firm runs on Google Workspace, Karbon and Ignition.
Whitney joined BNA in July 2025 on the operations side. She sits in on every new-client prospect call alongside a CPA from the firm's pricing committee, then builds the fixed-price agreement (FPA) that follows. Her background is bookkeeping; tax was new territory.
Old workflow and tools
Two or three AI notetakers ran side by side, including Fathom and Google Gemini, while Jason (the Partner) collected the team's feedback on which to keep.
Whitney copied transcripts into ChatGPT to write email recaps and to check she had caught every service a prospect mentioned.
After each prospect call, the CPA from the meeting went into Ignition and built the FPA.
Where things broke
No notetaker earned a firm-wide yes. Some handled parts of the job well, but none of the summaries convinced the team.
One task, three windows. A single proposal meant moving between the notetaker, ChatGPT and Ignition.
Proposals queued behind CPA time. Knowing which return type and services belonged on an FPA took tax knowledge Whitney was still building, so the work sat with the CPA.
Attention split in the call. Typing notes in a second window pulled focus from the prospect.
"I would find myself with another window open and typing while I'm trying to keep concentration in a conversation… I'm focusing on one thing, but my brain is trying to do two different things." (Whitney McLaughlin, Operations & Onboarding Coordinator, BNA)
The trigger
Vinyl wasn't on Jason's trial list. That changed at a breakfast session during a conference in Las Vegas], where the Vinyl team presented. Whitney arrived a few minutes after Jason, who had already heard enough.
"He had already decided when I walked in the door." (Whitney)
During: how BNA made the change
What they looked for
BNA wanted good tools, and fewer of them.
Non-negotiables
Meeting summaries sent straight to the client timeline in Karbon
Summaries good enough to use without rewriting
One tool covering more of the job, so the stack had fewer overlapping pieces
Why Vinyl over Fathom and Gemini
Integration settled it. Vinyl already synced meeting notes into Karbon when BNA first looked, so summaries could land on the client timeline without anyone copying them across.
"We really liked that [Vinyl] spoke with Karbon and were able to send those meeting summaries directly to the timelines… That was really a key factor for us. That was a decider." (Whitney)
Summary quality counted too. Whitney had found the AI output in the Fathom and other notetakers she trialled uneven, which is why she was pasting transcripts into ChatGPT. Vinyl's summaries have been consistently strong for her. When Vinyl later added Ignition, the other half of BNA's client workflow came under the same roof.
Implementation
BNA rolled Vinyl out across the firm. Bernie Ackerman (Partner) became its loudest internal advocate. He values being able to look across several meetings with the same client and spot services the firm could provide. At a recent all-company meeting, he told everyone to install the Vinyl mobile app so no conversation goes uncaptured.
The new playbook
The call. Whitney and a CPA from the pricing committee meet the prospect, with Vinyl capturing the conversation.
The client contact. If the prospect isn't in Ignition yet, Whitney asks Vinyl to create them. Vinyl recognises who was on the call and suggests that person as the primary contact, with their email address, for her to confirm.
The draft proposal. She asks Vinyl which services were discussed. It lists them, matches them to service items from BNA's own Ignition library and drafts the proposal. She can adjust pricing in the same chat.
The check in Ignition. Whitney reviews the draft in Ignition. BNA's tax and bookkeeping departments have some similarly named service items, so she moves any that belong to the other department.
The approval. She posts a note in Karbon with the meeting recording, summary notes from Ask Vinyl and a link to the Ignition proposal, and asks the tax accountant to approve it within three days.
The cover email. Before the proposal goes out, she drafts the follow-up email in Vinyl so it picks up anything the prospect raised on the call.
After: results and proof
What changed (before → after)
Area | Before | With Vinyl |
Who drafts the FPA | The CPA from the prospect call | The operations lead, with the CPA approving |
Tools open to draft one proposal | 3: notetaker, ChatGPT and Ignition | 1 workspace, with final checks in Ignition |
Ignition client contact | Created by hand | Created from the call, contact details suggested |
Notes during calls | Typed in a second window | Captured by Vinyl while the team listens |
Proposal cover email | Rebuilt from memory, often a week after the call | Drafted in Vinyl from what was said |
Recapping six months of weekly client calls | Hours of reading transcripts | One session in Studio |
Based on BNA's workflow as described in the interview.
Day-to-day impact
Whitney stays in the conversation. With Vinyl capturing the call, she no longer splits her attention between the prospect and a notes window.
"Having the notetaker in there for me is like, I can be really present in every conversation… I kind of get to turn all that part of my brain off and really just focus on the actual content." (Whitney)
The CPA checks the proposal instead of writing it. Vinyl supplies the service knowledge Whitney was still learning, so she can produce the first draft herself. She is clear that it still needs a human eye, and she never sends an FPA straight from the draft.
"Now I can build that FPA and just give it to the tax accountant for their approval rather than requiring their knowledge base to be able to build it." (Whitney)
Follow-ups catch what the prospect said. A week can pass between the call and the proposal. Whitney no longer relies on memory or sticky notes to recall what a prospect raised.
"No longer is a customer gonna say, 'I brought this up to Whitney in the meeting and she didn't even mention it once she followed up with me.'" (Whitney)
Months of meetings in one pass. Whitney needed to recap six months of roughly weekly calls with one client. In Studio she selected every one of those meetings and had Vinyl help draft two dashboards and the emails summarising them.
"I really was able to summarise such a large amount of information that would have taken me hours, hours of reviewing transcripts… and probably not being so thorough." (Whitney)
Nobody is stuck when a colleague is out. Everyone at BNA can see the firm's meetings, in the same way Karbon keeps client email on a shared timeline instead of in one person's inbox.
"There's also no not being able to reply to a customer because somebody's out sick or somebody's on vacation." (Whitney)
Business impact
CPA time moved from drafting FPAs to approving them, with the operations lead preparing the first draft from the call.
The ChatGPT workaround and the notetaker trials ended, replaced by one tool connected to Karbon and Ignition.
More consistent client communication, because meeting context is open to the whole team.
Bottom line
At BNA, the biggest change sits in the proposal process. The person who runs the prospect call now drafts the fixed-price agreement, and the CPA's expertise goes into approving it.
For firms on Karbon and Ignition, BNA's setup shows how much follows once the notetaker connects to the systems where the work happens. Bec Argent saw something similar, turning a half-day proposal process into minutes.
"I don't need it to be Karbon. I just need it to be able to talk to Karbon." (Whitney McLaughlin, Operations & Onboarding Coordinator, BNA)
Frequently asked questions
What did BNA use before Vinyl?
BNA trialled two or three AI notetakers, including Fathom and Google Gemini, without committing to one. Whitney McLaughlin also pasted transcripts into ChatGPT to write recaps and check which services a prospect had discussed.
How does BNA use Vinyl with Ignition?
After a prospect call, BNA's operations lead asks Vinyl to create the client contact in Ignition and draft a proposal using service items from the firm's Ignition library. She checks the draft in Ignition, then a tax accountant approves it before it goes to the prospect.
Does Vinyl integrate with Karbon?
Yes. Vinyl syncs with Karbon, and BNA's meeting summaries go straight to the client timeline. The Karbon integration was the deciding factor when BNA chose Vinyl.
How long has BNA used Vinyl?
BNA has used Vinyl firm-wide for nearly 12 months. The firm chose it after trialling several other AI notetakers.
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