Tax process automation is a journey, not a destination:

As we have witnessed in the last few years, the global labor shortage is a post-pandemic new reality that businesses of all size must deal with. One of the areas where labor shortage is a real challenge is the field of tax. As more senior tax professionals opt for early retirement and not many college grads are willing to put in the long hours on repetitious spreadsheets, tax has a real problem. To make the issue worse, while Tax Technology has advanced, many tax departments are still relying on the old and time-consuming manual procedures performed by the tax preparers. Why? Honestly, a sustainable transition to technology and automation is not that easy. Simply hiring a consultant to automate a tax process is not a realistic and sustainable solution if your tax professionals who use the new solution cannot maintain it for future use. This is why most Tax Technology investments either fail after the 1st cycle or do not yield the expected ROI.

Designing rewarding automated solutions require some basic understanding and best practices of technology concepts. Therefore, we believe it is unreasonable to expect a tax professional to develop or maintain complex scripted solutions that are normally performed by professional IT staff.

Before considering any type of technology, it is critical to have the right people and the right culture in place.

• People:
  • Automation must be championed by all layers of the tax leadership team.
  • The automation project team must include qualified IT and tax professionals.
  • Before project completion, a trained maintenance team and plan must be in place to maintain the new solutions.
  • All effected members of the department must receive the right amount of training on the new automated solutions.

• Culture:
  • Automation participation cannot be voluntary.
  • To ensure on-going success, process efficiencies require agility for change and willingness to accept the new culture.
  • In some cases, be prepared to encounter some productivity loss during the transition to the new process before realizing the full benefits of the new process and maximum ROI.

To assist with the on-going maintenance of the new automated solutions not all tax departments have the budget to have a Tax Technology team of their own. In situations like this, establish long-term relationship with a Tax Technology partner like our team, Tax Technology Solutions, can be a great cost-effective investment.

Location: New Jersey, USA