Turn compliance season from fire drill to foresight

The curve illustrates the progression from manual, disconnected processes to greater integration, automation, and data-driven decision-making. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of corporate tax departments still operate at the chaotic or reactive end of the maturity curve. Only 29% have reached the proactive stage — the point where more repeatable processes move work earlier in the compliance cycle.

For direct tax teams, manual data preparation and disconnected processes define the reactive stage, leaving limited time for review and analysis. Rather than beginning with tax analysis, reactive organizations spend much of compliance season gathering, structuring, and preparing data simply to get it into the return.

Are you operating reactively?

Your team may be at the reactive stage if:

• Your team manually gathers and consolidates data before preparing returns.
• Delays such as unfinalized data or late state apportionment information push provision true-ups later into an already compressed compliance cycle.
• Your critical processes depend on spreadsheets and one-off workbooks stored on individual or shared drives.
• Filing deadlines routinely trigger long hours, weekend work, and last-minute problem-solving.
• Unanticipated legislative or regulatory changes catch your team off guard, forcing last-minute rework close to filing deadlines.

These behaviors can become so familiar that they simply feel like “compliance season,” but they’re also signs of unnecessary friction in the process.

The real cost of staying reactive

The clearest sign that compliance season has become a series of fire drills isn’t always a missed filing deadline. Most returns are still filed on time. What’s less visible is the extra effort, last-minute problem solving, and compressed review required to get there.

“The warning sign may simply be that people are working later than they normally would,” says Eric Gondek, Product Success Manager with Thomson Reuters. The strain behind that outcome — and the risks created by compressed review — may not become apparent until after the return is filed.

The visible costs include:

• Additional hours
• Weekend work
• Repeated data requests
• Time spent correcting errors
• Greater strain on already stretched teams

Some of the highest costs don’t appear until later. A rushed review leaves less time to investigate anomalies before a return is filed, while spreadsheet-dependent processes make it harder to trace where information originated or how a number was calculated. One-off workpapers can also trap valuable tax data in files that are difficult to reuse.

Together, these gaps increase audit exposure and make it harder to reconstruct the data and decisions behind a return.

The business case isn’t simply about filing faster. It’s about shifting from reactive work focused on chasing information to proactive work focused on review, analysis, and better decisions. Tax departments are already seeing the impact of that shift in their technology investments.

According to the Thomson Reuters Institute 2025 State of the Corporate Tax Department, tax professionals spend 56% of their time on basic, reactive work even though they aspire to spend far more time on strategic planning and analysis. The 2026 Corporate Tax Department Technology Report also found that 67% of respondents said technology investments helped their departments become more strategic, while automation significantly improved accuracy and reduced routine work for many organizations.

That shift will become increasingly important as compliance demands grow without corresponding increases in tax department resources. In fact, the Thomson Reuters Institute reports that 58% of corporate tax departments consider themselves under-resourced. Instead of asking your team to absorb additional complexity through longer hours, you can redirect capacity toward planning, analysis, and other higher-value activities.

What changes when you get ahead of the calendar

Proactive compliance begins by moving work earlier in the compliance cycle. Between filing cycles, your team can identify manual work, automate repeatable processes, and anticipate data requirements — determining what information you’ll need, where it will come from, and how you’ll collect it before peak season begins.

With that foundation in place, information flows into the compliance process as it becomes available, allowing returns to take shape incrementally and structured review to begin sooner. Teams have more opportunities to identify anomalies, investigate questions, and correct issues before filing deadlines approach.

The greater advantage comes from what you do with the time and structured data you recover. As routine compliance becomes more efficient, your team can devote more time to data analytics, forecasting and scenario modeling, tax strategy, and risk assessment. You also gain more capacity to collaborate with finance and other functions, anticipate future data needs, and provide strategic insight to the business.

Moving from reactive toward proactive doesn’t require a wholesale technology overhaul. It’s a workflow shift that uses the right tools to address the manual processes creating the greatest burden. Within a single filing cycle, teams make compliance more repeatable and predictable by improving high-impact processes, even if reaching every characteristic of a fully mature proactive department takes longer. Sustaining that progress requires treating improvement as an ongoing habit — revisiting and refining your processes each season rather than settling into a new routine.

Bridging the gap from reactive to proactive

Moving from reactive to proactive ultimately requires tools that support more repeatable, connected compliance processes. Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE Income Tax helps close that gap by automating data movement, connecting compliance processes, improving visibility into return data, and reducing repetitive work.

Automating data movement

If your team operates reactively, the logical starting point is often data. Even after you’ve collected the information required for a return, moving it from tax workpapers into tax software can require significant manual effort.

Separately licensed Microsoft® Excel-based tools, including Workpapers Next Gen and the OIT Data Import Add-In, extend ONESOURCE Income Tax automation capabilities by moving data between workpapers and returns. As Gondek notes, automating high-volume data entry often requires less effort than performing that work manually over a single filing cycle, and the automation built in one cycle carries forward into future cycles, compounding time savings with little additional manual effort.

The outcome is a more repeatable compliance process with less manual effort and fewer last-minute data transfers during peak season.

Connecting compliance workflows

Reactive compliance also requires teams to coordinate work across disconnected files, applications, emails, and manual handoffs. ONESOURCE Income Tax supports federal, state, local, and international corporate tax compliance within a more centralized environment. If you need broader process oversight, ONESOURCE Workflow capabilities add task management, due-date tracking, sign-offs, and visibility into progress, giving your team a more consistent view of work throughout the filing cycle.

Improving visibility during compliance

Visibility is another hallmark of a proactive compliance process. Within ONESOURCE Income Tax, connected workpapers show how data flows into the return, while e-file diagnostics identify issues before submission and Data Query Reporting provides access to calculated amounts and other return data for analysis and validation. For organizations using both ONESOURCE Tax Provision and ONESOURCE Income Tax, the connected ONESOURCE platform also enables shared entity data and integration between the two, allowing review to begin sooner.

Reducing errors and rework

Finally, fewer manual touchpoints mean fewer opportunities for errors and rework. ONESOURCE Income Tax simplifies complex tax forms, automates calculations, and reduces repetitive data entry to limit manual errors. More standardized, connected processes help teams focus review on exceptions and resolve issues earlier, supporting a more controlled compliance environment with fewer opportunities for downstream rework and stronger preparation for internal review and potential audit activity.

Together, these capabilities illustrate the operational shift represented by the Technology Maturity Curve:

The playbook: Make the next compliance season different

Moving from reactive to proactive happens through a series of deliberate decisions across the compliance cycle. At each stage, you can replace reactive habits with repeatable proactive processes supported by technology.

Pre-season: Find the friction before the pressure builds

The greatest gains often come before return preparation begins.

The reactive trap. Your team discovers bottlenecks only after compliance work begins.

The proactive target. Use the off-season to remove manual work from the upcoming filing cycle.

Review the previous season to identify high-volume manual processes and recurring bottlenecks. Following Gondek’s advice to “look at where your manual work lies,” prioritize a small number of repeatable processes for improvement. Then prepare data, configure automation, and clarify responsibilities before peak season begins.

Filing window: Focus on exceptions, not routine work

This is where preparation either pays off or the reactive cycle returns.

The reactive trap. Your team builds returns under deadline pressure while chasing data, entering information, and resolving unexpected issues.

The proactive target. Let established processes handle repeatable work so your team can concentrate on review and exceptions.

Use standardized workpapers and automated processes to reduce manual data transfers and build returns incrementally as information becomes available. Within ONESOURCE Income Tax, connected workpapers, e-file diagnostics, and access to return data give your team greater visibility as you prepare the return, helping you identify issues earlier and focus review on exceptions and areas requiring judgment.

With less routine work competing for attention, your team has more capacity to address unusual transactions, data issues, and regulatory changes. Measure success by timely filing, fewer manual interventions, less overtime, and earlier identification of significant issues.

Post-season: Turn this season into a better next season

Improvement doesn’t end when returns are filed.

The reactive trap. Your team finishes the returns, moves to the next deadline, and repeats the same process next year.

The proactive target. Treat the end of compliance season as the start of your next improvement cycle.

Review the season while it’s still fresh, documenting remaining manual steps, late-arriving data, and sources of rework. Year-over-year rollover and Data Query Reporting help teams carry data forward, analyze results, and identify the next opportunities for automation.

Establish a performance baseline and track measures such as time savings, workflow efficiencies, and error reduction. Demonstrating measurable improvement in specific processes also helps tax leaders build the case for further investment.

This creates a continuous cycle:

Each compliance season becomes an opportunity to remove another layer of manual work, strengthen repeatable processes, and move one step farther along the Technology Maturity Curve.

Making the move: Start where friction is greatest

Moving from reactive to proactive is as much about changing how your team works as it is about technology. You don’t have to begin with the entire compliance process.

Keep the scope manageable; one process, one team, one filing cycle. Choose a workflow your team immediately recognizes as burdensome and establish how much effort it requires today. Then identify the steps you can standardize or automate and measure what changes during the next cycle.

Measurable results also make the case for further investment more concrete. Instead of asking leadership or IT to support “tax transformation” as an abstract goal, you can point to time saved, fewer manual interventions, or improved accuracy to guide the next round of investment.

ONESOURCE Income Tax is designed to help you improve the compliance workflows you already understand without requiring you to become a technology specialist. Starting with a focused opportunity gives your team a practical way to demonstrate value within a single compliance cycle and build momentum toward the next stage of the Technology Maturity Curve.

Conclusion: One cycle can change the trajectory

Compliance will always be about reporting on the past, but the way your team prepares for it doesn’t have to be reactive. If you’re like most tax departments at the reactive stage of the Technology Maturity Curve, your next achievable step is to address the manual work and disconnected processes that consume the most capacity.

Tools like ONESOURCE Income Tax provide the operational bridge between reactive and proactive by helping you create more repeatable, connected compliance processes. With that foundation, you don’t need to transform your entire compliance operation overnight. Start with one process, one team, and one compliance cycle. Each improvement moves you farther along the Technology Maturity Curve, reducing future fire drills and creating more capacity for higher-value work in the next compliance season.

The goal isn’t simply to survive the next compliance season. It’s to make the next one better.

Know today. Navigate tomorrow.

Ready to put this playbook into practice?

See how ONESOURCE Income Tax can help your tax team reduce manual compliance work, streamline return preparation, and build a more proactive compliance process — request a demo.

Explore the 2026 Corporate Tax Department Technology Report to learn more about the Technology Maturity Curve and how you can use technology to move toward more strategic, proactive work.