CCH Small Firm Services Scan&Fill for ATX & TaxWise

CCH Small Firm Services - Scan&Fill for ATX and TaxWise
ATX: 888-455-0183
TaxWise: 888-455-0182

From the July 2011 Review of Tax Document Automation Systems

Best Fit:

• TaxWise & ATX customers who would like to implement automated tax document filing.
• Tax and accounting firms, especially those with high-volume that need a solution housed entirely on premises.

CCH Small Firm Services’ Scan&Fill is slightly different from the other offerings in this review in that it is designed primarily to automate the filing of scanned documents into folders within the Document Manager within a tax practice. Although data can be extracted from forms W-2 and 1099, the real value for most users is in how it creates folders and automatically routes documents to those folders based on recognized information. The product’s automation is targeted at reducing the administrative burden of filing documents instead of reducing the time needed to enter information from those tax forms into the proper screens in the tax application. Since our review criteria were partially designed to evaluate products targeted at automating tax data import, this product’s limited functionality related to extracting and populating data into the tax application has caused its score to be artificially low. The application is an excellent choice for small firms, but it should not be mistaken for a direct substitute for a more comprehensive tool designed to scan, organize, and populate a variety of documents.

Core Product Functions/Features:

Recognized scanned forms (W-2s, 1099s, 1098s, Form 8879 and Schedule K-1s) will be read by the program’s OCR and either properly filed into an existing client’s folder, or the program will create and label a new folder to store the documents. Any document can be stored to Scan&Fill’s Document Manager through the scan function, the program’s print driver or the program’s Add function.

The application makes it possible for users to annotate the documents on screen within the Document Manager. Amounts entered into the tax software can be validated against the scanned source document, and other schedules or forms can be printed directly to the Document Manager by using the Scan&Fill print driver. The application has an extensive audit trail so that users can know when a document has been accessed or modified. Folders can be password protected to keep especially sensitive items away from prying eyes.

Paperless Workflow:

Documents are scanned into many formats including PDF. However, any type of document, including Microsoft Word and Excel files, can be added to a client’s folder using the “Add” function. Scan&Fill allows users to open documents in their native format for revising and editing. The program’s print driver also allows users to print Word, Excel and Notepad documents to PDF directly to the client’s folder for permanent storage.