Exclusive checklist

Traditional tax tools vs. fully integrated software

All 11 stages of the 1040 — count the ones your firm still runs by hand

Your firm already has some level of automation. You probably have a scanner, a portal, and an e-signature tool bolted onto the end of the season. Each one solves a piece of the 1040. And none of them talk to each other. So, your staff becomes the integration:

  • Client documents arrive in three different ways while someone spends March chasing the rest
  • Staff download source documents, re-upload them to OCR, then key in whatever OCR missed
  • Reviewers bill at your highest rates while they hunt for a missing K-1
First page of the Traditional tax tools vs. Fully integrated software checklist

The 2025 State of Tax Professionals Report found that nearly half of firms have automated less than half of their tax workflows. That cost never shows up as a line item. Instead, it shows up as a 14-hour Saturday and seasonal hires you didn’t want to make.

This checklist sets every stage next to the same stage running on UltraTax CS, SafeSend, and SurePrep. Tick every row that sounds like your firm. What you tick is your automation gap. The other column names what closes it.

Download the checklist, count your handoffs, and pick which automation gap to close before January.

Access the checklist

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