Why tax preparation automation is more important than you think

Tax season shouldn’t feel like a death march. Yet for countless tax professionals across the country without tax preparation automation, the annual ritual of manual data entry, workpaper organization, and document gathering turns what should be routine into a 3-month marathon. 

The numbers tell a clear story. According to Thomson Reuters research, tax professionals spend 56% of their time on reactive tasks when they want to dedicate just 28% to such work. These figures depict an industry subjecting its employees to burnout, long hours, and time-consuming work that’s beneath their expertise. And it demonstrates that automation has become an essential piece of tax preparation in today’s environment. 

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The manual tax preparation trap

The talent crisis connection

Ready to Review: Next-level tax preparation automation

Bring automation into your tax preparation process

The manual tax preparation trap 

Walk into any tax department between January and April, and you’ll probably witness the same scene. Experienced professionals hunched over keyboards, manually inputting data that could be automated, and creating workpapers that follow the same format as last year. Without tax preparation automation, this manual approach creates a cascade of problems that extend far beyond the immediate task at hand. 

Document gathering: The endless chase

Client document collection remains one of the most frustrating aspects of tax preparation. Preparers can spend countless hours following up on missing forms, organizing incomplete submissions, and attempting to piece together fragmented financial records. This document chaos creates bottlenecks that ripple through the entire filing season.  

Data entry consumes valuable time

Tax professionals didn’t earn their credentials to spend hours typing numbers from one system into another. Yet manual data entry remains the backbone of most tax preparation processes.  

The time cost is staggering. What should take minutes stretches into hours. What should be completed in days extends into weeks. The math is simple: more time on data entry means less time for the analytical work that actually drives value for clients and firms. 

Chaotic document management

Tax preparation can involve dozens of documents per return. And each piece must be collected, organized, and indexed for easy reference. Without automated systems, this document management becomes a logistical nightmare. Files get misplaced. Workpaper versions get overwritten. And tax professionals spend precious time playing detective instead of focusing on strategy and compliance. 

The talent crisis connection

Inefficiency isn’t even the worst symptom to arise from laborious manual processes. They also drive talented professionals to the brink of exhaustion and, in some cases, out of the tax industry entirely. 

Seasonal burnout becomes the norm

You know the busy season drill. Staff work 12-hour days, pace increases, and personal time becomes a luxury. At a time when staff are demanding more work-life balance, this trend isn’t sustainable. 

Highly qualified tax professionals have leverage. When they can earn similar compensation in roles that don’t require seasonal sacrifice of their personal lives, many choose to look elsewhere for work, often in the corporate tax space. 

Career stagnation frustrates high performers

Manual data entry and workpaper indexing don’t develop professional skills, advance careers, or stimulate the interests of passionate professionals. Without tax preparation automation eliminating these tasks, professionals miss opportunities to develop expertise in tax planning, advisory services, and strategic consulting—the work that actually builds careers and serves clients better. 

Limited growth opportunities

Firms stuck in manual processes also have less bandwidth to scale. They can’t take on additional clients without adding proportional staff. They can’t expand into higher-value advisory services because their best people are tied up with data entry. The entire organization feels the effects of these limitations. From partners who want to grow their practice to staff who want to propel their careers. 

Ready to Review: Next–level tax preparation automation 

Thomson Reuters Ready to Review takes tax preparation automation to a whole new level. Instead of spending endless hours on data entry and document organization, tax professionals can reach the review stage in record time. 

Data gathering

Ready to Review’s Gather Agent analyzes source documents and prior-year tax returns to identify what data can be carried over and what information is still needed. The Gather Agent verifies and categorizes all relevant data before sending it over for preparation. 

Automated preparation

Extracted data from the Gather Agent is then sent to the Preparer Agent and put through our most robust automation engine. The agent analyzes information, auto-populates data into the tax return, and solves diagnostics on behalf of the tax professional.  

Review-ready returns

The tax professional is then given a fully prepared return that’s ready for review before a human even touches it. Areas that need attention are flagged by the Preparer Agent. 

Bring automation into your tax preparation process 

The ability to skip the preparation stage of the 1040 process has enormous implications for tax firms. Tax professionals have more time and energy to focus on tax planning and client advisory services. Firms can take on larger volumes of work and more complex engagements without proportional increases in staff. And most importantly, tax teams can navigate busy season without overextending themselves. The entire practice becomes more profitable and sustainable.  

Want to learn more about Ready to Review? Check out our product page for detailed breakdowns, a video demonstration, and request a free demo to try it out for yourself.