You’ve come down to the home stretch—tax return delivery and invoicing for your client’s 1040. Review has just been completed and the return is practically wrapped up on your end. Now all that’s left is to send it to the client for approval and (potentially) e-file authorization. It may feel like the return is essentially finished, but the taxpayer still has work to do.
Right now, you’re probably handling delivery in one of two ways:
- Mailing out a copy of the tax return and e-file authorization to your client’s home address. Once they receive it, they can approve it, sign the e-file authorization and mail that back to you.
- Using an online portal and uploading PDFs of the tax return and e-file authorization for clients to download. If they have a printer at home they can print the e-file authorization. Without a printer at home they’ll need to print the e-file authorization at work or somewhere else. Without easy access to a printer, this option is especially inconvenient.
Optimizing your firm’s tax return delivery and invoicing workflow can be the key to a more successful scan and populate process, and a much better experience for your clients.
Downsides of these processes
While both of the above methods have been used for many years and may be satisfactory for the firm, the feeling may not be mutual for clients. As highly efficient mobile technology has become a part of our everyday lives, clients expect the same convenience from their trusted advisors. After all, most major banks now give customers the option to complete transactions entirely through a mobile app. It’s only natural for clients to wonder why their CPA firm isn’t providing a similar service.
In the past, scanning, mailing, and physically signing documents wasn’t considered a hassle. But with the business world shifting away from paper, the rest of the world is moving right along with it. Successful firms understand the importance of client service, yet the snail mail and portal experience can be meaningfully improved. Supplying them with an effortless, fully digital platform to view their return and sign forms is an excellent way to impress clients and strengthen your partnership.
Sticking to antiquated methods of delivery is not only a missed opportunity to satisfy clients, it adds to tax season workload compression. By giving taxpayers a chore that they may be inclined to procrastinate on, the tax return approval and e-file authorization process gets suddenly bottlenecked right before it can be submitted. Using a convenient, mobile option that’s fast and easy for clients to use is a crucial component of streamlining your digital tax return workflow from beginning to end.
Utilizing current technology helps to improve your internal image as a forward-thinking firm as well. The incoming generation of tax professionals have grown up with mobile phones and digital solutions and expect their employer to be up to date. By staying ahead of the technological curve, you’ll improve staff recruiting and retention.
Introducing a collaborative tax platform for delivery
While the snail mail and portal options were created with the firm’s convenience in mind, TaxCaddy was designed to dramatically improve the process for you and your clients. Once the tax return is complete and you upload it to TaxCaddy, the taxpayer can immediately view it from their PC, Mac, tablet or the TaxCaddy app for iPhone and Android. The 8879 and other consent forms can be instantly signed with the tap of a button through TaxCaddy’s e-signature feature. TaxCaddy brings you and your client closer together, simplifying their experience and helping you to streamline your return process as a result. It reduces the stress of tax season for everyone.
TaxCaddy simplified the process by eliminating the need to make multiple copies. It also provided and immediate receipt of documents versus having to rely on Federal Express or the US Mail. The ease of downloading information directly to [TaxCaddy] was a tremendous time-saver.
TaxCaddy user
A user of TaxCaddy would be very likely to recommend for this reason:
I didn’t have to photocopy documents and mail them, which saved a lot of time. [TaxCaddy] worked well.
To learn about the other key components to an efficient tax process in the 5 keys to a successful scan-and-populate process.