Accounting Major Article

“What Tax Firms Need to Know Now About Technology” by Andrew Kenney
The article examines the importance of using present-day technology for tax firms to enhance their practices and the most suitable technologies to embrace. Many are times that when people here of leveraging the technology they will think of the future, but it’s not the case. Shimamoto, the managing director of CPA firm, and Dan Moore, a tax practitioner at AICPA ENGAGE 2019 addressed how firms of all sizes can leverage technology with smaller jumps into it and Management philosophy. The article highlight six areas in the leveraging of technology that tax practitioners and firms should consider. The important aspects include the paperless office, cloud computing, and collaboration tools, client communication tools, tax outsourcing, visualization, and automation. Taken together, the various aspects will make the tax marketplace way much better as automation and outsourcing improve the routine work tasks.
The article goes ahead to give guidance to the firms on how they can embrace emerging technology tools. As an accounting major, this article directly relates to the emerging issue of how to leverage technology in tax practices. When adopting new technology in tax regulation and any other firm, technology should not be the starting point but a better way to solve problems. The article proposes a business-first approach when leveraging technology in firm operations. The answer to issues within firms will be different, therefore what is most important is the returns that the business or firm gets in leveraging technology. Similarly, the proposed leveraging of technology in tax regulation requires prior research on how productive it can be and how it will enhance tax practices.
Tax accounting requires considerable research skills and requires tax firms to keep up with the continually changing regulation and rules. Leveraging technology gives the best answer to this objective with the prime aspects of automation and outsourcing in today’s technology. With automation, tax regulation can be able to trace present changes in the taxation world through and manage the significant amounts of client data through cloud computing. With outsourcing, tax regulation firms can seek external help in tasks like data entry, financial accounting, and data processing.
Many tax firms today, both local and national, have transitioned to digital information management systems. Understanding how technology is being leveraged in the business world will help me understand how information systems work. Along with the hard skills learned in tax accounting, excellent interpersonal communication skills are equally important for tax accountants. Most of our clients don’t have prior knowledge of tax regulation or accounting. Therefore, to retain clients and move with the trends, we have to be personable enough and able to simplify the hard financial topics. Through visualization, technology has helped bridge this gap through interactive charts, dashboards, and online tax portals.
Considering the present changes and integration of technology in taxation, it’s essential to understand various important aspects. To take advantage of the technology trends in accounting, it needs enough understanding of its direct impacts. How does technology affect project and process management? How does technology improve the data analysis process in tax regulation? Various current and emerging software and technology tolls like excel, programming languages, machine learning tools, and artificial intelligence allow employees to improve processes. Understanding technology will help tax CPAs figure out the best ways to communicate with clients for the best results. With this, I have learned the importance of automation and technology in general in tax regulation and accounting in general.
References
Kenney, A. (2019, June 13). What Tax Firms Need to Know Now About Technology. Journal of Accountancy. Retrieved from https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2019/jun/technology-for-tax-cpa-firms-201921293.html