1. How far are we from the truly paperless office?
Although many firms have made great strides, the industry as a whole is a long way from being truly paperless. Most firms have made some efforts to reduce the paper in their operations but few firms have reached the point where paper stops in the mail room and the office is run in a completely electronic environment. The good news is, getting to this state of paperless nirvana is obtainable if you want it.
2. Why should accounting firms make the transition to paperless processes?
Going paperless is not really about saving trees, it is about increasing efficiency in the workplace. One great example of the tools available to a paperless tax practice is Optical Character Recognition (OCR). By automating much of the source document organization and data entry into tax software, OCR not only reduces the workload for preparers, but it also provides the reviewer a complete set of bookmarked electronic workpapers, resulting in a much more efficient review process.
3. What do they need to do to get there?
Moving to an electronic environment from a paper environment poses some great challenges. One tool that will make the transition much easier is a source document editor that is specifically designed for accountants like the one that comes with SurePrep's OCR solution, 1040SCAN. This PDF editor allows you to duplicate all the things you did in your old paper-based operation in a truly paperless environment. It is a must-have for any firm seriously considering a paperless workflow.
SurePrep's advanced OCR solutions and industry-leading onshore and offshore tax outsourcing services will allow you to reduce your cost, provide better client service and take your practice paperless.
SurePrep Outsource provides significant time savings on complex tax returns. Because of our assigned teams, full-time year-round employees and extensive use of technology, SurePrep has been the leading tax preparation service for 7 years running.
1040SCAN is the only OCR product on the market that recognizes thousands of documents, uses hundreds of business rules, eliminates over 50 percent of data entry and reduces review with an organized, bookmarked and referenced PDF.
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