A critical component of a successful scan and populate process is the timely delivery of high-quality source documents. The delivery of such documents, however, is costly to many firms, especially if they are using the paper organizer to collect and process client information. Firms have accepted the costs of printing supplies and postage, but what is the indirect cost of the paper organizer for your clients, tax professionals, and 1040 productivity, and what opportunities are passing you by while holding onto antiquated processes? More importantly, is there a more efficient way to request and deliver client information that your clients will love and use?
Burdensome tax document gathering — for everyone
The 1040 tax return preparation process typically begins with firms mailing out paper organizers to clients. Though many firms consider this to be a staple in their routine, it carries with it the cost of postage, paper, toner, envelopes, administrative time spent mailing and receiving them, and a poor client experience.
The indirect cost to your clients is that the bulky organizer feels like a painful chore and misuse of their free time. It gets set off in the corner and goes unaddressed until the eleventh hour. Clients try hard, then sometimes get overwhelmed. They leave the questionnaire half empty – the tax professional will figure it out. They wait to submit all documents and firms often don’t receive the needed information until late March, resulting in stressful workload compression during peak tax season.
The last drop in the bucket for your tax professionals occurs when emails start pouring in with pictures of coffee-stained documents. Your clients are thinking “made the deadline,” while your staff is deciphering numbers on the photographs. And even if the photo is perfectly taken, it is still unrecognizable through OCR and therefore incompatible with any scan-and-populate solution. Furthermore, sending sensitive information via email exposes your clients to enormous security risks.
As tax season progresses, workload compression becomes palpable. With a lot of painstaking effort, your staff has pushed this heavy burden all the way to the tax filing deadline, only to feel like they are approaching a cliff. The inconsistencies, the pressure to perform faster and better, all feel out of their control and can lead to deep dissatisfaction with work despite their best efforts.
Many tax professionals have accepted the burden of this routine because their firms can’t find a viable alternative. Is there no other way, no better way to give taxpayers and tax professionals a chance to decrease the anxiety and frustration caused by collecting documents during tax season?
SurePrep has developed TaxCaddy, an innovative award-winning mobile solution that eliminates the paper organizer and delivers peace of mind for both the taxpayer and tax professional.
A TAXPAYER’S EXPERIENCE WITH TAXCADDY
When I was all done, I remember feeling like I was missing something. I was thinking there’s no way it could have been that easy, but it was.
Kevin Frank, TaxCaddy user
TaxCaddy transforms the tax season experience for your clients by allowing them to quickly complete the questionnaire, provide e-signatures, and fulfill document requests in a format that delivers high-quality information and eliminates data entry for your tax professionals.
A FIRM’S EXPERIENCE WITH TAXCADDY
[TaxCaddy] feedback has been very favorable and some of our taxpayers who are habitually very late to provide their information have already submitted all their information to prepare their return. [TaxCaddy] facilitated some clients an easier method to collect and submit their documentation.
BKD CPAs & Advisors
What if your firm was able to bring relief from the burden of tax season to your clients? How unexpectedly welcomed that would be, and how motivated will they be to work with your firm?
Photographs, faxes, and photocopies of photocopies do not lend themselves to accurate data extraction through Optical Character Recognition (OCR). If you give your clients an easy way to provide high quality PDFs, your tax practice will be transformed for the benefit of you and your clients.
TaxCaddy allows your clients to quickly complete the questionnaire, provide e-signatures, and deliver documents in a format that can be automated through OCR. It’s a win-win for your clients, tax professionals, and your entire 1040 tax workflow by eliminating data entry for more than 2/3 of the source documents.
Find out how TaxCaddy’s features support a successful scan-and-populate process: