Are you an accountant with a long list of information about your clients that you must enter manually? Are you tired of tedious and repetitive data entry work? OCR is a tool we have implemented at Expert Tax to help you streamline the process of transferring information to our platform. Learn more about how OCR saves you time when filing tax returns.
What is OCR?
Optical Character Recognition, better known by its acronym OCR, is a technology that collects information from a document or image and prepares it to be edited, transferred, or converted into electronic format.
For example, here in Puerto Rico, many people receive a W2-PR form for filing their tax returns. This W2-PR has several boxes filled out with personal information, such as the person's social security number, which an accountant usually has to enter by hand into the program they are using. This is where we come in. We use a platform that works with this technology to automate and streamline the taxpayer documentation process online.
How Does it Work?
We train the tool by feeding it tax-related forms, these are documents with taxpayer information reporting income, and it organizes them in the appropriate boxes in Expert Tax, saving time for our clients.
The tool is integrated with Expert Tax. All you have to do is upload the information that will be read and the tool places the information in its boxes.
It Validates your Information
On the other hand, it is a technology that we have recently implemented, so it is not perfect. It is a continuous process. That is why it is important that you verify and validate that all the information is correct in the forms.
The tool is not absolute and you have the ability to modify the information it inputs, in case it is not correct.
It is a tool that has facilitated the "data entry" process of our clients. Many tell us they are satisfied with it!
What Forms are Available for the Use of the Tool?
We currently have the following forms available: W2-PR, 4806SP (services rendered), and 480.7A (mortgage interest). The goal is to have every form ready as soon as possible. It is a technology that we have available for individual forms, but we will be working to expand it to corporate documents soon.
Watch our Webinar: How to Import your Data to Expert Tax video, where we demonstrate how to import data to Export Tax using OCR, or you can visit our Support Center and read the OCR Manual. For any questions, request help from our Technical Support Team and we will assist you as soon as possible.