How CPA Firms Are Using Technology to Improve Workflow
Source: Accounting Today
In this article, four firms discuss how workflow technology has made them more efficient and enhanced their results. For example:
- Noblesville, Ind.-based ChurchShield LLC uses Office Tools Pro to more efficiently track the status of tax returns and track document flow. Instead of having to wait for colored folders to arrive at their desks, managers can see exactly where each project is. The firm processed 75 percent more returns during its last busy season and plans to use Office Tools Pro in all or most of its other departments.
- Mesa, Ariz.-based Schmidt Westergard & Co. uses Thomson Reuters' FirmFlow to streamline its workflow in processing more than 1,000 tax returns a year. The technology has helped the firm reduce inefficiencies associated with physically passing paper files from office to office, a process made more challenging by an increasingly mobile staff.
- Needham, Mass.-based Braver PC uses XCM Solutions' product to increase efficiency and eliminate paper control sheets. The technology allows managers to see the status of the firm's thousands of tax returns, as well as to access data on all the firm's clients, at any time. This is important because the firm has many partners working in multiple offices. After completing its first tax season using XCM, the firm's president said it had been the “best tax season ever.”
- Los Angeles-based Azran Financial uses CCH's ProSystem fx Workstream to track documents and make work assignments. Owner/partner Joshua Azran likes the fact that from his desk he can “know where all of my documents and projects are,” which gives him greater control over projects with “very specific compliance requirements.”
For the complete article, read “Case studies: Workflow.”
From Accounting Today, October 1, 2011, SourceMedia Inc., One State Street Plaza, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10004, 800-221-1809.