Upstart Tax Document Automation Vendor Reports Strong Start

Boston-based Copanion, maker of tax document automation software as a service "GruntWorx" reported yesterday that they have reached the 1,000 user firm milestone. This level of success had not been previously reported by any other vendor in this relatively new space. [Note: Intuit's Auto Source Doc reported more users in its first year, but was subsequently pulled due to performance problems.]

The "scan and organize / scan and populate" genre was pioneered in 2005 by CCH ProSystem Fx's Scan (formerly BOCDIP). Thomson GoFileRoom's TaxSort and SurePrep's 1040SCAN soon followed and Intuit joined in with a single year run of their "Auto Source Doc" offering. CCH Small Firms Services and Thomson's UltraTax also report having a product available this year. As you can see, the space has gotten very crowded, very quickly. But, as great as the value proposition is for this type of solution might be, our profession has been [very] slow to adopt. Until now it seems that only the bravest of the brave were attempting to incorporate this new automation into their firm tax workflow. It seems that the Copanion offering may have found just the right combination of timing, features, and pricing to attract critical mass. Or maybe they were just in the right place at the right time.

I expect this new area -- tax document automation software -- to be wildly successful in the next few years. I'll be doing a session on it at AICPA TECH+ this summer and will also moderate a "Vendor Showcase" featuring a side-by-side comparison of all of the competing products. And, just to make sure we shine a strong light on what's happening, we'll review the category in our September issue.

If you're not yet too deep into 1040s, there may still be time to try a product. Call your tax compliance vendor and see what they recommend. Or, better yet, listen to  Tech2Go, Episode 10, where we discuss some of the current options. It's never too late to get smarter!

gll