Scanning all of the source documents the clients bring in, whether it’s the once a year they come in for tax time or throughout the year, keeps it more organized in our electronic folder. This way if the client calls us throughout the year to ask their W2 or 1099 or any type of document, I can easily jump on our system and email that document to them. Or to be more secure we can upload it to the Client Portal for them as long they’re willing to login and download it.
The Client Portal is really great. We can upload any type of document whether it’s just a tax PDF or a Quickbooks file, anything can be uploaded to the site and then downloaded very easily by simply logging on and downloading it. So the Client Portal is something we use and we hope to get our clients into, as time progresses and next tax seasons comes along. We want to make it an option that they feel they’re comfortable using.
The other thing is we always offer copies of tax returns on CD instead of paper to be a little more green and save space. A lot of people in New York City don’t want paper. Even thin tax returns build up year after year. It’s obviously a lot simpler to store a CD or copy it to your own hard drive or home computer than to store paper. It’s also more secure. Leaving your paper tax return around your home and office, you never know who is going to pick it up and see it. Keeping it electronically makes it easier to put a password on it and lock it.
Our tax software is definitely one of the leading softwares on the market. We’re able to email PDF’s directly from it, store all kinds of information, and keep it from year to year. This all leads to more efficiency. We’re going to send an updated Tax Organizer to all of our clients this year so they can keep their information more organized and not feel like they’re repeating it to us year after year.
Technology helps us save money on rent, printer ink, on printers, on paper…and by our saving money we’re able to pass these savings on to our clients. We’re generally a low overhead firm. We don’t have a huge office, huge personnel or a huge staff. Even as we expand our firm to more employees and more clients, we want to keep our overhead in track so we can keep the fees in track. For a CPA in New York City, we’re a great value.
How do you use technology within your own business? Has it led to cost savings and better customer service, like it has with us?
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