Copanion Inc. — GruntWorx Populate

by Brian Tankersley, CPA.CITP; Technical Editor
Created:

 

Copanion, Inc. - GruntWorx Populate
800-291-2136
www.copanion.com

From the July 2011 Review of Tax Document Automation Systems

Best Fit:
While the GruntWorx Gather, GruntWorx Organize, and GruntWorx Trades services create files that are compatible with almost any tax application or document management tool, the GruntWorx Populate tool integrates fully with GoSystem Tax RS, ProSystem fx Tax or UltraTax CS.

Copanion’s GruntWorx is one of the two independent providers of tax document automation tools reviewed here. Unlike many competitors who license optical character recognition (OCR) engines to convert images to text, Copanion took a more basic approach and wrote its own OCR engine to serve as the backbone of GruntWorx. The company has processed millions of documents through this engine over the last six years, and its OCR engine recognizes and extracts data from thousands of different IRS forms.

Since GruntWorx is sold to end users on a per-use basis, it is an ideal solution for those who would like to try tax document automation before it is implemented across an entire firm.

Strengths

  • Firms can process as few or as many returns as they like, and pay as they use the services. There are no large up-front costs associated with this offering.
  • The GruntWorx web portal is easy to use and makes uploading and downloading documents very easy, even for novice computer users.
  • GruntWorx Gather is one of two offerings in this review that facilitates indirect download of data from financial institutions.
  • GruntWorx is one of two offerings in this review that allows import of information into most major advanced workflow tax preparation applications.
  • Since GruntWorx is a SaaS application, there is no need to purchase and set up a separate server to run the OCR applications needed to extract data from scanned documents.

Potential Limitations

  • The service level agreement (SLA) for Copanion GruntWorx Organize indicates that it may take as much as four hours for GruntWorx to organize and bookmark batches of source documents. This may prevent firms built around the traditional “one-hour interview” model of retail tax preparation from adopting this technology.
  • Firms using document management systems with built-in PDF printers like Doc-It DM and File Cabinet CS may need to follow specialized procedures to retain the bookmarks created by GruntWorx applications.
  • The GruntWorx portal does not integrate with other client portal products, nor does it provide tools for client submission of images into the GruntWorx system.
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GruntWorx Gather, a service that aggregates consolidated 1099 information from numerous financial institutions on behalf of clients, is the newest product in the GruntWorx line, and was launched in 2011. While there is some initial resistance from both accountants and clients to enter client brokerage account passwords into the Copanion website, the GruntWorx Gather product represents a step into automatic aggregation of account data, which many believe is the future of accounting in the internet age.

Core Product Functions/Features:

There are four major products in the Copanion GruntWorx product line:

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