RPA Use Case for Professional Tax Prep Automation

Per the IRS, it takes 13 hours to complete a typical 1040. This jumps to 23 hours for the avg 1120 business return. For an individual preparer, this is lost time. For a tax accounting firm, this equates to lost profits. Utilizing RPA, tax firms are eliminating laborious (and error-prone) data entry, all while improving client communication, delivery, and satisfaction.

Although commercial tax software has significantly advanced over the last ten years, data input and review remain the most time-consuming components of the tax preparation process. Fortunately, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and AI-based OCR can dramatically reduce low-value professional input time and the errors associated with manual data entry.

Regardless of your firm’s tax software (ex., Intuit ProSeries, Drake, Lacerte, CCH, etc.), RPA & OCR can read digital or paper-based source data and automatically key this information into your tax preparation software. Data capture automation increases productivity (a single bot = 3-4 FTE’s) and reduces keying errors (the average human makes 3-6 keying mistakes an hour, while bots offer 100% accurate data input).

In addition to data capture and entry, firms utilize RPA to automate client communication regarding time-sensitive documents (ex., Form 8879). A custom RPA workflow can manage and monitor critical tax document receipt status and automatically send client reminders via email and SMS until all necessary filing documents are signed and finalized.

Once all filings are complete, RPA can automatically deliver completed client documents via e-mail or your firm’s secure document hosting portal. Additionally, a bot can automatically organize and archive client tax documents to your secure internal data storage.

As you can see, RPA can turbocharge your tax preparation from end-to-end; resulting in increased productivity, more engaged tax professionals able to focus on “highest and best use” activities, and increased client satisfaction.

Utilizing our proven Automation-as-a-Service RPA delivery model, we deliver most custom automation projects in less than four weeks. Thanks to extensions, tax season is always upon us, so contact us today to learn more about upgrading your tax preparation processes utilizing Intelligent Automation.