OLVA: Run Client Planning Meetings Without Losing a Single Follow-up

Updated October 21, 2026. Built against the tool’s current screens and checked step by step. How we check this lesson

A year-end planning meeting is where the work for tax season gets decided, and if you are typing notes you only half listen. The follow-up question about the equipment purchase never gets asked, and the documents the client promised to send live in your memory. OLVA is a third-party AI meeting assistant that runs on your computer instead of joining the call as a bot. In this free lesson you click through real OLVA screens in a made-up planning meeting: you load the agenda and last year's open items as a context, ask for a follow-up question when an answer is vague, check which agenda items you haven't covered, look at Live insight, and turn the meeting into a handoff for the preparers and a list of open questions for the client.

Stepthrough partner. OLVA links to our OLVA lesson from its site. No payment or free plan was involved.

Part of: AI for Accounting & Bookkeeping Firms (step 37 of 38)

OLVA: Run Client Planning Meetings Without Losing a Single Follow-up: step-by-step guide with screenshots

About the screenshots. They come from Stepthrough’s simulated practice environment (a practice copy of OLVA), not the live tool, so no real account appears. The buttons and labels match the real screens the lesson was built against. Practice it yourself free at learn.ynteractive.com.

• Tools: OLVA
• Time: about 8 minutes, 26 steps in 5 parts
• Level: intermediate

Part 1: Load the client's agenda

Step 1: Open Manage contexts

If you type notes in a client meeting, you only half listen. Then the follow-up runs on memory. Give OLVA the agenda first.

Step 2: Add a context

Make one context per client meeting.

Step 3: Name it after the client and the meeting

Name it after the client and the meeting.

Step 4: Add a note

Step 5: Paste the agenda and open items

Five numbered items. Last year's open items. And your rule: no final tax answers in the meeting. Anything that needs research goes on the open list.

Client: Northline Design Studio (Elena Vasquez, owner). Small design agency, 6 staff. Meeting: year-end tax planning, 45 minutes.
Agenda: 1) this year's profit so far vs last year, 2) equipment she plans to buy before year end, 3) estimated tax payments made this year, 4) the new contractor she hired, 5) documents we still need from her.
Open items from last year: late 1099s for contractors, missing receipts for travel.
Rules: no final tax answers in the meeting; anything that needs research goes on the open list. Never put account numbers or SSNs in notes.

Step 6: Save the notes

Step 7: Attach the client's document checklist

Now add the client's document checklist. Not the return itself, just what you plan to discuss.

Step 8: Save the checklist

OLVA shows it as text, so you can check it.

Step 9: Go back

Part 2: Start OLVA in the meeting

Step 10: Check the context

The planning meeting with Elena is starting in Zoom.

Step 11: Choose the client

Pick the Northline Design context.

Step 12: Start OLVA

Tell the client you're taking AI notes. Some places need their consent.

Step 13: Start Olva

The first time, OLVA tells you it detects the language for you.

Part 3: Ask better follow-up questions

Step 14: Turn on Live insight

You start with item one, profit so far this year. Switch on Live insight, at the top right.

Step 15: Get a follow-up question

Elena mentions new equipment, sometime soon. Don't move on yet.

Step 16: Click Ask about this call

Answers show up in the Chat tab, only for you. Ask the follow-up in your own words. What, how much, and when. Then later, check what's missing.

Step 17: Ask about the agenda

Ask which agenda items you haven't covered.

Step 18: Send it

The client doesn't see this.

Part 4: Check what you heard

Step 19: Open AI Assist

OLVA answers from the call and your agenda. If the new contractor and the missing documents aren't covered, raise them before time runs out.

Step 20: See it side by side

A Define card explains terms, so you can follow the client's industry talk. No fact check came up in our test. So if a number doesn't match your notes, note it yourself, to confirm against her records.

Step 21: End the meeting

The transcript and cards now sit side by side. When the meeting wraps up, click End.

Step 22: Stop the meeting

Part 5: A handoff the preparers can use

Step 23: Open the meeting chat

Now write up the meeting for the preparers.

Step 24: Create a team handoff

Under Try asking OLVA, click Create a team handoff. We didn't capture its answer in our test, so check it against your notes before you share it.

Step 25: Copy it for the preparers

Every answer ends with a copy button. Read the handoff, fix anything misheard, especially numbers.

Step 26: List the open questions

Last, click What open questions. That's the start of your follow-up to the client. Read it before you send anything. OLVA keeps the record, you give the advice.

Part of these free courses: AI for Accounting & Bookkeeping Firms

Now do it yourself, free

Reading the steps is a start. Doing them is how it sticks. The interactive lesson puts you in a practice copy of OLVA: you do every step yourself, it checks your work, and “Do it for me” finishes any step you get stuck on. Nothing touches your real accounts.

Practice “OLVA: Run Client Planning Meetings Without Losing a Single Follow-up” step by step

The business problem: client meetings followed up from memory

Planning meetings decide the work for tax season. The client mentions an equipment purchase, a new contractor and a payment they think they made, and each one becomes a question for the preparer. When those details only live in the notes you typed while half listening, the preparer ends up emailing the client weeks later for things you already discussed.

The fix is the same habit good managers already have: a numbered agenda, the open items in front of you, and a write-up from what the client actually said. This lesson uses OLVA to keep that agenda in front of you during the meeting and to start the handoff and the client follow-up from the record.

What you will do: one planning meeting, start to finish

You are Jordan, a tax manager at Larkspur Tax & Advisory, a made-up accounting firm, meeting Elena Vasquez, the owner of Northline Design Studio, a made-up six-person design agency. Everyone and everything in the example is made up.

Before the meeting you save a context for it: the five numbered agenda items, last year's open items and your rules, including no final tax answers in the meeting, plus the client's document checklist. In the meeting you click Follow-up when Elena mentions new equipment "sometime soon", and you ask OLVA which agenda items you haven't covered. Live insight explains terms as they come up. After the meeting you ask for a team handoff and the open questions for the client. Every screen in the lesson is the real OLVA app, from our own test call, with that call's text blurred; the agenda and question you type are marked Example. Our test didn't capture what Follow-up, Create a team handoff or What open questions? return, and the lesson says so where it matters.

Who this is for

Tax managers, partners, client service staff and bookkeepers who run planning, review or advisory meetings with clients over Zoom, Google Meet or Teams. You do not need any AI experience. The lesson is built from screenshots of the real OLVA app, so nothing listens to a real meeting and you do not need an OLVA account to take it.

Step 1: the agenda and open items as a context

Make one OLVA context per client meeting. In OLVA you click Manage contexts, then Add context, and name it after the client and the meeting. Add a note with the numbered agenda, last year's open items and your rules. Then attach a document checklist with Add document. OLVA shows it as text so you can check it before you save.

Attach what you plan to discuss, not the client's whole return, and follow your firm's rules on putting client information into outside apps. Numbering the agenda pays off later: you can ask which items you haven't covered, and the handoff is quicker to check.

Step 2: follow-up questions and agenda coverage

Tell the client you are taking AI notes before you click Start OLVA. Some places require consent to record or transcribe. OLVA listens through your computer and opens beside the call, so it does not appear as a participant. Switch on Live insight at the top right.

Under the transcript is an AI coach row with Follow-up and Say next. When an answer is vague, click Follow-up. Answers show in the Chat tab, where only you see them. We didn't capture a Follow-up answer in our test, so ask your follow-up in your own words: what she plans to buy, roughly what it costs, and when it will be in use. Don't promise a deduction on the spot; it goes on the open list. Before time runs out, ask which agenda items haven't been covered yet.

Step 3: definitions, and numbers to confirm yourself

The AI Assist tab collects cards as the meeting goes. In our test call a Define card explained a specialist term the moment it was said; in a client meeting that could be a term from the client's own industry, like a design agency's retainer billing. OLVA can also add Fact Check cards, but none came up in our test, so don't count on one.

If Elena says she made all four estimated payments and your notes show three, note it yourself as something to confirm against her records. A mismatch is a question, not a verdict.

Step 4: a handoff for the preparers and the client's open questions

Click End and confirm Stop Meeting. In the meeting's Chat tab, under Try asking OLVA, click Create a team handoff for the preparers, then What open questions? for the documents the client still owes you and the items you said you'd research. We didn't run either one in our test, so we can't show what they return: read both against your notes, fix names and numbers, then copy them into the client file and your follow-up.

OLVA keeps the record; you give the advice.

What this saves you

• Full attention on the client, because you are not typing.
• Vague answers pinned down while the client is still on the call.
• Every agenda item covered, every meeting.
• A handoff and a client follow-up that start from the written record.

Mistakes to avoid

• Giving tax answers on the spot. Put anything that needs research on the open list.
• Uploading the whole return as a document. Attach only what you plan to discuss.
• Skipping consent. Tell clients you are taking AI notes, and follow the law and your firm's rules.
• Sending the follow-up without reading it. Check names, numbers and dates first.

Links

• OLVA (olva.ai): the meeting assistant this lesson teaches. It is a separate product with its own account and plans.
• OLVA how-to guides: OLVA's own short lessons on contexts, live answers and what you can create after a meeting.

Frequently asked questions

How does the interactive lesson work?

Each step is shown to you first (Watch). Then you do it yourself on the same real OLVA screen, which checks that you clicked the right button (Your turn). If you get stuck, press Do it for me. The screens are screenshots from our own test call, so nothing listens to a call and no OLVA account is touched.

Is OLVA part of Stepthrough?

No. OLVA is a separate, third-party product from olva.ai. This lesson is free. To use OLVA for real you need the OLVA desktop app for Windows or Mac and your own OLVA account; check olva.ai for current plans.

Is it OK to use an AI note taker in a client meeting?

Tell the client at the start and get their consent where the law requires it, and follow your firm's rules on client information in outside apps. Use the notes as a record; the advice stays with you.

Does OLVA join the meeting as a bot?

No. OLVA listens through your own computer and opens beside the meeting, so it does not appear as a participant. That is why telling the client is up to you.

Can OLVA write the follow-up to the client?

After the meeting, the meeting's Chat tab has Create a team handoff and What open questions? under Try asking OLVA. We didn't capture their answers in our test, so read them and check them against your notes before you share anything.

Start this module free

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