Overview

Leveraging digital transformation to drive value.

Discover how robotic process automation (RPA) can transform your tax business by decreasing errors and increasing productivity - freeing you to focus on complex issues, tax planning and business growth.

RPA can improve the overall efficiency and system security of your tax practice leading to increased profitability and reduced firm risk. Empower yourself by learning about the tools you need to implement RPA in your firm and to educate clients on the benefits of RPA.

This CPE self-study course, designed specifically for accounting and tax professionals worldwide, will cover how RPA can be implemented to decrease errors and increase productivity within the tax function.

In this course, you will learn to:

• Identify steps in the tax preparation processes that lend themselves to automation
• Discover how automation can transform your tax business, freeing you to focus on complex issues, tax planning and business growth.

RPA will affect the overall efficiency of the tax practice by increasing profitability, supporting business growth, and reducing firm risk. A recent report by the AICPA found that CPA firms hired 11% more non-accounting graduates in 2018 compared to 2016.

"Increased demand for technology skills is shifting the accounting firm hiring model. This is leading to more non-accounting graduates being hired," said Barry Melancon, AICPA president and CEO, and CEO of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants.

Given the shortage of talent to meet this growing demand for technology skills, there is a unique opportunity for accounting professionals to expand their skills to meet this need.

This course will help you identify the areas where RPA can be beneficial and understand how it can be implemented in your firm. Additionally, you will be able to educate your clients on the benefits of RPA.

Highlights

Key Topics

• Overview of the basic concepts behind robotic process automation
• Potential uses for robotic process automation within the tax function
• Benefits and considerations of current RPA uses.
• Decision criteria involved in RPA implementation.
• Creativity, innovation, and exploration
• Use cases that show how RPA can be applied within the tax function.

Prerequisites

None

Objectives

Learning Outcomes

• Identify tax preparation processes that lend themselves to automation.
• Identify data elements required to support the tax reporting process/business cases where RPA is applicable, including potential benefits and pitfalls.
• Identify current data process flows required to support tax reporting needs.
• Recognize how to confirm and validate that automation outputs meet functional requirement expectations.
• Outline the flow of information.
• Distinguish human versus digital roles.