CPA Practice Advisor - 20

REVIEW: TAX DOCUMENT AUTOMATION

By Mary Girsch-Bock

Significant Time Savings
NO ONE CAN disagree that preparing taxes requires a lot
of documents. In years past, you could always tell when
it was tax season by the number of documents on an
accountant's desk. Those documents would need to
be organized, scanned, and used in preparing a client's
return. Once the return had been completed, the organized
documents then had to be filed away for future access.

X
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X*
X

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* - DONE THROUGH TAX CADDY													
** - ONLY THOMSON REUTERS APPLICATIONS

20

AUGUST 2020 ■

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4.75
5
4.25
5
4.5

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ALL

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Impo
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OCR

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digital files and PDFs of each created
folder for future access. We also looked
at integration options and whether the
application could be used as a standalone application or is part of a specific
software application.
While it's a well-known fact that
tax document automation will save
large firms a lot of time, the fact is that
it can save smaller firms a considerable
amount of time as well. So, spend a few
minutes reading the reviews, download
a few demos to try out for yourself, and
maybe come tax season, you can leave
the office on time. ■

Crea

CCH PROSYSTEM FX SCAN
GRUNTWORX
INTUIT LACERTE/PROSERIES SCAN & IMPORT
SUREPREP 1040 SCAN
THOMSON REUTERS SOURCE DOCUMENT PROCESSING

tax preparation software, while others
are designed as stand-alone applications that can integrate with other tax
preparation products.
The products reviewed in this issue
include:
■ 1040 Scan
■ GruntWorx, LLC
■ Lacerte and ProSeries Scan and Import
■ Thomson Reuters - Source Document
Processing
■ Wolters Kluwer - CCH, ProSystem
fx Scan
Some of the features we looked
at include the ability to populate tax
forms, which tax documents were
supported, and the ability to create

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Orga
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i
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Docu es S
men cann
t s Au ed
t oma
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ly
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t
Tax s Com
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that can occur when using manual
systems
For instance, tax document
organization applications can take a
large stack of work papers and organize
them into a single digital binder, which
includes bookmarks and labels for
all relevant documents, while also
standardizing the documents in each
binder that's created.
Some of the applications offer the
ability to auto-populate tax returns,
reducing or eliminating the need for
time-consuming data entry. Most of
the applications are able to recognize
common tax source documents such
as W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, and brokerage
statements, and are able to review data
for accuracy.
The tax document automation
products reviewed in this issue vary,
with some better suited to larger firms,
while others work better for smaller
firms processing fewer returns. Some
of the applications are part of a specific

Clou
d
Acce / H os t ed
ssib
ilit y

The good news is that tax document automation programs can help
to reduce many of these time-consuming tasks. They offer time-saving
features such as automated scanning,
document organization and document
management capability. In many
cases, these applications can also
significantly reduce or even eliminate
the amount of data entry necessary by
reading and auto-populating information found on scanned documents into
the correct form.
Tax document automation was
originally designed for larger CPA
firms that needed to reduce the
amount of time spent managing
hundreds of thousands of pages of tax
documentation. But even smaller firms
can realize significant time savings
by using tax document automation
applications. This automation also
significantly reduces the number of
mistakes, document misfiling, lost
documents, and transposed numbers
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