SurePrep Re-invents Itself

Faced with growing skepticism from mid-size and large-firm leaders regarding their client's eventual acceptance of the outsourcing concept, coupled with crippling legislation from thought-leading California, pioneer Dave Wyle has decided to take those lemons and manufacture --- LEMONADE!!

A few weeks ago I was given a personal demonstration of Dave Wyle's latest brain-child and came away impressed --- very impressed. And I did NOT plan on being impressed. My skepticism level was about 8.6 on a scale of 10. Frankly, as they say in the business, I "didn't get it".

The new product service, SurePrep Express is a preparation workflow system designed to cut the time tax professionals spend preparing returns by changing the PROCESS of who does what and when.

SurePrep Express is a web-based system that categorizes source documents as “Standard”, if they have common line or box numbers (e.g., W-2, 1099, etc.), or “Complex”, if they do not.  Standard source documents are identified by tax preparers and routed to data entry operators who match box or line numbers on the source document to those on the input forms.  Complex source documents are tagged by tax preparers with a point and click referencing system before being sent to data entry. The data entry system uses a blind "double punch" method --- reminiscent of the 1970s style service centers. [Everything old IS new again!]  Once entered, the data can be automatically transferred to either CCH's ProFx Tax or RIA's GoSystem Tax/RS. [SurePrep intends to add other packages in time for next season, naming Intuit's Lacerte as one possibility.] This process enables firms to transfer work traditionally done by tax professionals to seasonal data entry staff with little to no training making the task of finding temporary help during busy season easier and less expensive.  And because SurePrep Express sends all source documents for dual data entry, accuracy is improved and review time reduced, leading to further increases in professional productivity. Because it is web-based, there is no need for data entry staff to be physically co-located with professionals.  This provides options --- firms can hire data entry staff to work on-site, from home, or from any other location, or, alternatively, firms can use SurePrep’s data entry service (either offshore or U.S. based).

I believe Wyle's system has some merit for many firms. Forget what you "know" about outsourcing and take a hard look at your process and I'll bet you see a lot of high-priced people doing a lot of keypunch --- here's at least one way to reclaim some of that time.

gll