With every tax season, there is always the same burning question: How can we drive efficiency at every stage of the process? For some, the question might be: how do I prevent the same undue stress I felt this year? For CCH Personal Tax customers, the answers are right in the software you already use.
CCH Personal Tax simplifies and streamlines every step of the tax return process, from data collection and data entry through to review, approval and online filing. You already know this, but are you making the most of the software with the hidden gems designed to make your life in the tax season easier?
Here are some of the best hidden features within CCH Personal Tax, and how to you use them.
Navigating CCH Personal Tax – the choice is yours
Tax season is unbelievably busy. You are often left juggling many clients and even more tax returns. You need to be able to switch between different tax returns with ease. Did you know that you can navigate between your client’s tax return, their previous tax returns as well as other connected clients from within CCH Personal Tax?
If you wanted to view a connected spouse’s tax return while completing your clients, by clicking switch to spouse. This will take you to equivalent screen within the spouse’s tax return. That allows you to easily navigate between both tax returns without changing screens, saving you time.
You can also open two client records at the same time as well as detach another client’s records so that you can view it on another screen. This enables you to complete and compare both tax returns at the same time.
What’s more, you can also easily navigate between your client’s current tax return and pervious years. Simply click on the previous year button, and it will open up last year’s tax return.
Get ahead of the game with the mail merge tool
CCH Personal Tax includes a tool that lets you link your client tax data to a mail merge function, allowing you to send a data request to all your clients, including details of their prior year tax return.
This tool allows you to generate a mail merge information request letter for each of your clients. The letter incorporates personalised tax details based on their 2018 tax return. It will also ask your clients to enter or supply the 2019 figures in an easy to use format.
The mail merge encourages your clients to provide the relevant information as soon as possible, enabling your team to get started on the returns earlier.
If you do anything in CCH Personal Tax, use the Tax Return bundle feature
When you have finalised your tax return, you will most likely need to send it to your client for approval. This usually includes tax return and a letter which explains the client’s tax information and liability. Creating this takes time to print that information from CCH Personal Tax, write a personalised letter to each client, and saving as a PDF for email communication.
Imagine producing the same output with the click of a button. The Tax Return bundle makes it easy to produce a professional looking set of client facing documents as a single PDF pack once a tax return has been completed.
It is not only easy to use but it will also deliver professional looking client facing documents no time at all. The pack contains all necessary compliance documents with the option to add a fully customisable, client specific cover letter.
The Tax Return bundle feature will enable you to:
- Save 15-20 minutes per client when preparing a Tax Return for client approval.
- Produce standardised, consistent documents for all clients.
- Ensure all staff follow the same process for document production.
- Ensures client documents are professional and comprehensive.
Live tax computations – not a pipe dream for CCH Personal Tax
One tool that should not go unused is the live tax computation. There is a constant, real-time tax computation within CCH Personal Tax, giving you the full picture of your tax return with every change you make in the system.
Wherever you are within CCH Personal Tax, you can click back to the summary tab for your client’s latest tax computation.
The live computation is interactive meaning you can drill down to the underlying data entry screens by clicking on the relevant figures. This gives you the full picture of the tax computation from end-to-end at any point, with real-time data.
This will be a helpful tool if you ever wanted to show your clients a hypothetical example of a change, and how it will impact their final calculations. Simply detach the underlying data, move it over onto another screen and watch as the live tax calculation changes with every figure you enter.
This is a helpful tool for any advisory service you may wish to offer your clients in the future.
Find out more information about how CCH Personal Tax can help streamline your tax process or take a deeper dive and watch the webinar.
