The Hidden Costs of processing ATO Documents

Published by BPS Online

It always amazes me when I am speaking to people at the time it can take an accounting practice to process a notice of assessment from the ATO.  This can range anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes.

It typically involves the following steps:

• Put them into Alphabetical order.
• Scan the Notice of Assessment and then profile and name the document into the Document Management system for each client separately
• Check in tax to see if the assessment agrees with the estimate
• Group all the refunds, payable, deduct fees  etc.
• Prepare letters
• Raise the letters and then manually file them to each client.
• Get the partner to sign them
• Record an entry in the Mail Book or Practice Management software to say it has been put in the mail.
• This can be repetitive and takes enormous amounts of time.
• Why not streamline the above procedures, and do it in minutes instead of hours???  With the ATO Paper Buster it does this all in a fraction of the time and also ensures documents are filed against the correct client using consistent naming conventions for all your documents?

Now let’s look at a contrast to the above procedure using the ATO Paper Buster

• Batch your Notices of Assessment into Financial Year
• Scan the Notice of Assessments.
• Select the document type and year and hit the process button.  (ATO paper Buster will read the tax file number off the Notice of Assessment, match it back to your Practice Management software.  It then prepares the letter extracting the name and address of the client, and also their tax position out of your tax system.
• It then renames the notice of assessment and letter which is then ready to be imported into your Document Management system.
• It can also add the entry to our Practice Mail Book for follow up if required, AND check if they are a portal client and file a copy to your portal to allow the client to access it at any time.  This is all done in a minute instead of 5 to 30 minutes.

Call Debbie or Ron on 03 9497 1377 for an obligation free review.

BPS Online

• About
• Latest Posts

For Accountants

The official account of For Accountants, an online resource specifically designed for accountants in public practice.

Latest posts by For Accountants (see all)

• What does 2021 have in store for ATO audit activity? - 26 November 2020
• Over 30,000 people have invested in crowd sourced funding equity raising - 13 August 2019
• The 7 things your SMSF clients are judging you on - 13 June 2019