Preparing for a Paperless Tax Season

By Kenneth McCall
December 2006
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The combined effects of these improved scanning products and real-time workflow control mean that firms should move toward scanning “up-front” and process their returns in all-electronic fashion, rather than continuing to work in a paper-based mode and simply scan at the end for archival purposes. Dual computer monitors have become a mainstream feature in firms, and the aggressive firms are moving beyond two monitors to three or sometimes more!

Process Review: One sure path to frustration is trying to overlay some of these new tools on old processes. Now is the time to review the way you do your work, the way you pass jobs around your office, and how and by whom work is done. You may find that some of your time-honored processes no longer make sense when combined with the tools available today. One proven way to analyze your processes is to draw them out. Use Microsoft Visio or some similar flowchart drawing program and document your process steps in the sequence they occur. This effort can be aggravating because of its level of detail, and is best performed by a team or task force of knowledgeable people. But once you have thoroughly captured and displayed your existing process, you can then begin to look at the steps and ask “Why?” Look for loops, dead ends, and redundant activities. If you find that you can delete some steps, modify others, and perhaps add some new ones, then draw a new diagram that captures what the new process should look like and use that for the basis of training your staff and partners.

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