Year after year, tax season brings challenges that Finance teams are challenged to adapt to. From new policies to evolving best practices, there is a lot to consider. Met with a surge of work, teams are often left burning the candle at both ends. Moreover, time can be wasted on tedious tasks like organizing paperwork and manually entering data. These are tasks that can easily be automated to free time to focus on maximizing returns and preventing penalties.
This means not only ticking all of the boxes, but ticking the right ones—and, with ever-changing policies, that’s never as easy as filling in the same lines as last year. New workplace realities and increasingly complex tax rules make finance automation the natural next step to keeping on top of tax season for ambitious teams.
Wrk’s automated Wrkflows can pave over pitfalls to lead to a tax management process that’s simple, accurate, and future-proof.
Tax Season 2023 Start Date and Deadlines
According to the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. 2023 tax season started on Monday, January 23, 2023. The agency continues to accept and process 2022 tax year returns, encouraging taxpayers to file well before the tax filing deadline which falls on April 18, 2023. The IRS will accept reasonable requests for extensions until Monday, October 16, 2023.
Most Canadians must file their income tax and benefit returns for 2022 by April 30, 2023. Because April 30, 2023, is a Sunday, your return will be considered timely if it is received by the CRA or postmarked on or before May 1, 2023. Similarly, if your payment is received by the CRA or processed at a Canadian financial institution on or before May 1, 2023, it will be considered on time.
Enhance Your 2023 Tax Preparation Strategy With Finance Automation
Gathering and filling out documentation is the foundation of getting your company’s taxes filed. Trying to track down missing paperwork has proven to be a consistent and time-consuming headache for Finance teams. When you’re already crunched for time, why start out one step behind?
Here’s a snapshot of the various standardized, repetitive, rule-based tasks that Wrk’s automated Wrkflows can immediately take off your plate.
Expense Sheets
As tax authorities become more data-focused, the need for detailed and accurate expense reports is pressing, and detail is key to transparency. Using the right technology to make sure nothing goes unrecorded and save the finance teams from an exhausting search for missing numbers.
Classifying Expenses
Wrk’s automated Wrkflows have up-to-date tax policy information. With the added insurance of knowing your classifications are meeting government guidelines and income tax best practices, Finance teams can spend more time focusing on tasks that require their human touch.
Customer Receipts
Automating the collection of customer receipts can make chasing down missing paperwork a thing of the past. A curated Wrkflow allows you to not only seamlessly enter data, but can even flag missing documentation, safeguarding you from a potentially costly mistake of missing information.
Accounting firms are finding that implementing new technology is no longer an option, but a necessity. Creating a customized Wrkflow can alleviate pressure, and help your company meet the needs for a new age of accounting and tax preparation.
Does this mean completely derailing the tried and true tax preparation and management strategies of the past? Far from it. Automation platforms, like Wrk, can easily automate core tax management tasks in a way that complements pre-existing tax season processes. Finance teams can benefit from the simplicity of seamless integration with familiar software like Excel, Quickbooks, Caseware, or whatever else you use to prepare tax time documents.
“Given how complex many of the new rules are, the modelling needed for effective tax planning can’t be done without the aid of finance automation. The bottom line? Automation isn’t optional. Companies and their tax departments are going to need machines, bots, cognitive tools, and other technologies to handle the work.”
Empowering Finance Teams Remotely
This year there are new challenges, as finance teams need to adopt their own new best practices—that is, developing new ways to communicate with remote team members, clients, and government tax authorities—to make sure they have what they need when they need it. Over 20% of the global workforce is estimated to spend the majority of its time out of the office, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, and this is predicted to be the norm for finance teams of the future. By automating tasks that are done over and over again, teams can get more done and improve the consistency of how they manage taxes. More concretely, automation can support teams by:
Streamlining heavy-touch processes
Automation can speed up business processes that need a human touch. When you remove predictable routine tasks from the process, trade shows and meetings become easier. This gives teams more time to focus on how important human-to-human (virtual) interaction is.
Reallocating Resources
Your workforce should remain at the heart of your digital transformation: The time freed up by automated processes allows Finance teams to focus on re-skilling or up-skilling existing staff, adding immediate efficiencies without having to overhaul your current tax management approach.
Ensuring smooth communication with clients
An overburdened team can lead to receipts falling through the cracks. Instead of leaving the onus on accountants to remember to follow up with clients, with Wrk, a curated Wrkflow can do it for you: bots can identify when a document is missing and notify you. No more waiting until the last minute to discover that you misplaced something important.
CFOs must prioritize choosing the right technology to support their teams over the next few years. It's not only imperative to growth for finance departments. Gartner predicts the right balance of automation reducing operational costs by an estimated 33% by 2024.
Guarantee Accuracy for Tax Season
Automating online communication not only helps close the scary communication gap in remote workplaces, but it also helps digitize a lot of important paperwork. Handling physical copies of tax documents and receipts will always have its benefits, but the paperwork is often easy to lose and hard to find.
Take the stress and strain out of tax season by automating repetitive tasks. Photo Credit: Jeshoots.com
Inaccurate information can easily result in a loss of returns, and, at worst, may leave your company facing unnecessary penalties. The need to stay current on policies and best practices increases the margin for error: there are frequently new lines to fill, boxes to check, and rules to learn. By automating your tax management, you can make it easier to collect data and make sure it is always correct.
When faced with the choice, why gamble? A curated Wrkflow can simply and seamlessly reduce the risk of penalties while helping companies maximize returns. Deploying Wrk entails staying current on policies and best practices to ensure you're getting the most bang for your buck. We designed the Wrk Platform to find every chance to increase returns, which means a bigger budget for next year. Now, teams have more time to focus on tasks that require their expertise and problem-solving skills. They can also be sure that automation will take care of many time-consuming tasks.
New Challenges Require New Solutions
New problems require new solutions. Using new technology is necessary if you want to improve the way you manage your taxes. This is especially true if you work from home. The benefits of financial process automation can make your current strategies better. They can also help them fit into the software your finance team uses. Automation can be an invaluable tool for your entire Finance team. From bookkeepers to accountants, and analysts to CFOs there are benefits. Like meeting tight deadlines without misunderstandings or mistakes, making tax season easier (and more successful) for years to come.
Also, automating boring tasks can help fill important gaps in the process of managing taxes remotely. Wrk's finance wrkflows make it easier to keep track of reminders and find out the status of a document. They also empower finance teams to make the most of their resources.
Want to learn more about what financial process automation can do for your team? Visit our Finance Wrkflows page and check out our Tax Preparation & Management Wrkflows today!
