Drake Software with RPA BOTs in US Tax Process

Drake Tax system can be interfaced with RPA for hyper-efficiency. Learn how Tax Practices and CPAs can now reduce cost and improve efficiency.

Over 65,000 Tax and Accounting firms in the US, use Drake Software to prepare, review, e-file 1040 returns for their customers.

US Taxation process is a complex process since taxes can be filed at the federal, state and local government level. On top of that there are tax laws across 50 states that may have a high degree of variations.

The IRS (Internal Revenue Service) changes laws on a regular basis which tax and accounting firms need to abide by.

Drake with it’s depth of functionality in taxation enables firms to automate a large part of their business processes.

While Drake has immense advantages, it can add greater value to your Tax practice if Drake’s products are interfaced with RPA (Robotic Process Automation) products.

Introduction to RPA

RPA is essentially a technology that automates human actions thereby reducing repetitive manual work. RPA implementations are gaining moment as organizations have experienced the value of automating repetitive tasks thus freeing their employees to be productive. The future of organizations is a world where human intelligence will be complemented by software robots.

RPA solutions have a wide array of applications ranging from 24X7 business operations support; data entry into multiple systems; interfacing across disparate systems such as ERP, Accounting etc.; conversion of physical data into structured e-data; automation of customer support, email automation etc.

RPA solutions are agnostic to industries can find applications in taxation, banking, healthcare, manufacturing etc.

There are broadly these processes using Drake that can be automated by RPA

· 1040, 1040EZ, 1040-X, 1040-NR Preparation

· 1040, 1040EZ, 1040-X, 1040-NR Filing

· 11040, 1040EZ, 1040-X, 1040-NR Acknowledgements Processing

Within each of the processes, there are several sub-processes that can be automated using RPA. They are processes such as: -

· Income statements data entry

· Bank account details capture

· Form preparation

· Acknowledgement check at Federal and State level

In any Tax Practice, the CPAs have a lot of data analysis to determine the customer’s Tax implication for the year. However, if they are bogged down by data entry work, their quality of tax preparation and filing suffers. Hence, firms should strive to identify areas within each sub-process where employees are making errors and then apply RPA solutions on them.

RPA Uses cases for interfacing with Drake are the following: -

· Customer Data Extraction from Drake for daily operations

· Data Extraction from Drake and feeding into CRM system

· Data Extraction from Drake and feed into accounting systems such as QuickBooks and Zero

· Export data from Accounting Software like QBO and Xero and import into Drake Tax

The above also apply to taxation platform such as TaxAct, Pro Connect tax etc.

How a Tax & Accounting Practice can benefit from implementing RPA solutions: -

Inefficiencies in a tax practice are due to repeatable processes that employees are not able to manage well. These lead to errors in calculations; slippages in customer correspondence; incorrect amounts credited to customer bank accounts; incorrect bank accounts numbers being saved. The list of these errors is long.

Following are the benefits of implementing a RPA solution for a Tax practice

· RPA solutions reduce errors and repetitive tasks in the taxation process

· By taking away the repetitive and mundane tasks from employee’s organizations can scale-up faster

· Tax Practice can provide better customer service if their employees have more time

· Tax Practices can even reduce cost by manpower optimization

So to reduce errors and complexity in the Tax practice, the right RPA solution can be implemented.

The implemented RPA solutions are built on secure standard products such as UiPath, Automation Anywhere etc.

The RPA solution can be an attended BOT or an unattended BOT depending on the need of the Tax Practice. Typically, a mid-size Tax Practice may implement 4 to 5 BOTs in different processes. The can be on-premise solution or on cloud solution. These BOTs are triggered during the Tax season and can run 24*7 ensuring all customer cases are handled before deadline.

The BOT can be configured so as to direct the exceptions for the team of expert CPAs to handle. RPA products also provide BOT analytics so that they can be fine tuned better. The IT team will be provided with regular BOT analytic reports to take necessary action.

From a cost perspective, the greater the volume of returns (eg. Greater than 5 thousand annual) the faster is the ROI. However, even if firms that don’t have such volumes initially once firms BOT-ify their processes, they will be able to free up their resources to grow the business.

If your Tax practice is struggling to scale-up your business volumes or provide superior customer service reach us to learn about our Drake integration for Tax Practices.