Firm360 announces tax prep automation capacities
An accounting management solution provider
Administrative Matters
AutoPrep takes client companies’ tax forms that are already compiled in Firm360 and turns them into input, accurate data in tax software, without manual typing. Firms select documents in their Firm360 documents section, individually or in bulk, and send them to Juno in one transaction. Juno outputs information in more than 100 document types, including W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, Schedules C and E, balance sheets and P&Ls. It then builds a workbook for review programs, flagging source-return discrepancies and sending accurate data into Drake, Lacerte, ProConnect, CCH Axcess, UltraTax and other major tax software. When the previous year’s return is on file, Juno also builds a checklist so teams know what’s still outstanding before the return goes out.
“Every company must have three things right to thrive: customer experience, operations, and strong health. The tax system runs through all of them,” said Firm360 CEO Patrick O’Neill in a statement. “AutoPrep provides companies with hundreds of man-hours each season, and their planners start at the workshop, where their judgment is most appropriate.”
In a later email, he said that Firm360 was informed with the idea that companies should not integrate separate systems for operations, tax and accounting, because the interface between these systems is where many companies see waste of time and accumulation of errors.
“The tax system is one of the most obvious examples,” he wrote. “It affects the customer experience through the speed of returns. It affects the team through all the tracking and manual keys. And it touches the company’s borders, because every hour spent typing in a W-2 is an hour not going to valuable work.”
To O’Neill, delving deeper into the tax preparation space isn’t really a departure from the firm’s traditional operational focus. Integration, he said, was the trick, because the goal was always to bring management, tax and accounting to one platform as a complete experience. He intends to further develop AutoPrep with additional features and capabilities in the future.
“As for what’s next, I can tell you that AutoPrep itself is not finished growing,” he said. “Juno is the engine that allows you to improve the information and verification that you will see during the launch, and we have partnered with them deliberately because we share a lot of DNA with them – they are also founded by CPA, and they are concerned about creating the best customer experience. After the integration of Juno, we have already built more features in AutoPrep, so this could not be implemented, and we added that we could not do, and we increased the capacity. We intend to continue to do construction.”
AutoPrep is coming soon and requires a Firm360 Premium subscription and an active Juno account. Firm360 companies can join a waiting list for early access
