Using the CCH® ProSystem fx® Suite, JM CPA LLP Tackles Even the Busiest Tax Seasons with Ease and Efficiency

Tax & Accounting

Using the CCH® ProSystem fx® Suite, JM CPA LLP Tackles Even the Busiest Tax Seasons with Ease and Efficiency

Case Study: Digital Tax Workflow

When you have to be right

http://CCHGroup.com

JM CPA LLP Key Data

• Founded in 2016

• Located in New York, NY

• 23 employees

• Offers consulting services, accounting, auditing, and tax planning and preparation.

• Specialized niches include real estate, manufacturing, doctors and law firms.

• Member of the MSI Global Alliance

Using the CCH® ProSystem fx® Suite, JM CPA LLP Tackles Even the Busiest Tax Seasons with Ease and Efficiency2

JM CPA LLP (“JM”) is a full service firm offering consulting services in addition to the traditional services of accounting, auditing and tax planning and preparation. Headquartered in the heart of New York City, JM serves diversified industries, with a mix of primarily business clients, as well as high net worth individuals and some trusts.

About 60% of the firm’s practice is tax, and the remaining 40% is financial statement-related and business consulting. The firm specializes in helping client businesses to operate and expand successfully by optimizing profitability and minimizing tax burdens.

The firm was founded in 2016 by three CPAs who worked together previously at a large New York accounting firm. Today, JM employs more than 20 professionals and serves clients in many different industries, including real estate, manufacturing, construction, and professional services.

Technology, Outsourcing Help the Firm During Busy Season When the three partners started JM CPA LLP, all agreed that technology would be instrumental to the success of their new firm. Having already used the CCH ProSystem fx Suite of solutions for years at their prior firm, they decided to immediately adopt the suite at JM. They also added CCH® Global fx for ease of maintenance and telecommuting, and CCH® ProSystem fx® Outsource to help process the heavy volume of returns during the busiest part of tax season.

“Our number one reason for going with the

CCH ProSystem fx Suite was ease of use. We

have a deep familiarity with these solutions,

and we appreciate the technical accuracy of

them. The support provided by the Wolters

Kluwer professionals who manage our account

is excellent.”

— Steven J. Eller, CPA, JD,Senior Partner,

JM CPA LLP

Three Partners Streamline New Firm Operations with the CCH® ProSystem fx® Suite

Using the CCH® ProSystem fx® Suite, JM CPA LLP Tackles Even the Busiest Tax Seasons with Ease and Efficiency 3

Digital Tax Workflow Allows Firm to Handle Returns In-House or Outsource them while Maintaining Highest Standards of QualityFrom the start, JM staff has benefited from an automated, integrated and fully-digital tax workflow. Most returns are prepared internally, but during the busiest part of tax season, the firm trusts CCH ProSystem fx Outsource for outsourced preparation.

“Whether returns are prepared in-house or are outsourced, all client documents are scanned using CCH® ProSystem fx® Scan. It automatically identifies Form 1040 source documents and converts them into a single organized, bookmarked and indexed PDF workpaper file,” explained Eller. “CCH® ProSystem fx® PDFlyer enables our team to make custom notes within documents as well as quickly bookmark, link and merge multiple scanned PDF files.”

When it’s time to complete the returns, the team at JM turns to the award-winning tax compliance and preparation solution CCH® ProSystem fx® Tax. Firm employees can access CCH ProSystem fx Tax from home or virtually any remote location with an Internet connection using CCH Global fx. After returns have been completed and reviewed, they get published to secure client portals using CCH Axcess™ Portal.

“We used another portal solution in the past and it was not nearly as robust as CCH Axcess Portal,” said Willinger. When you set up a client in Portal, setting up the folders and providing access is intuitive.”

“Given the trend towards

the cloud and our own IT

needs and wants, we felt

CCH Global fx was a natural

fit. It gave our people the

ability to work from home.

We don’t have to worry

about IT issues — that

was crucial in our decision

making. CCH Global fx lets us

avoid downtime because we

don’t need to download any

software updates, and that’s

especially important during

tax season.”

— Steven J. Eller

Alan M. Willinger, CPA, JDJM CPA LLPManaging PartnerNew York, New York

Steven J. Eller, CPA, JDJM CPA LLPSenior PartnerNew York, New York


“We have always had a

very strong relationship

with Wolters Kluwer. We are

almost like partners and

have been for a very long

time. So when we started the

firm, it was only natural to

continue that relationship.

Our entire staff knows the

solutions, and we’re all very

comfortable with them, as

well as comfortable with the

people at Wolters Kluwer.”

— Alan M. Willinger, CPA, JD,Managing Partner,

JM CPA LLP

Efficient, Accurate Outsourcing for Individual Tax Return PreparationWhen JM needs a little extra help getting through the busiest parts of the tax season crunch, CCH ProSystem fx Outsource is ready to assist. It’s a tax preparation outsourcing service that helps firms cut costs by as much as 60 percent by supplementing and streamlining in-house tax return processing with highly trained onshore and offshore tax professionals.

JM leverages Outsource to manage staffing requirements during peak season and to allow its professionals to focus on the most complex work without sacrificing productivity. In this way, the firm can serve both business and individual clients more effectively. During the early part of the tax season when the staff is concentrating on business returns, they send individual returns to Outsource. This better serves the individual clients who turn in their information early, because they can receive their tax returns sooner.

The partners appreciate the organization and accuracy they receive with returns prepared by Outsource. Eller explained, “Outsource not only prepares the return, but it provides nice, neatly bookmarked and indexed workpapers, which can be voluminous for a high net worth individual. Our whole tax workflow is paperless. We get the papers bookmarked and indexed in a folder, within the client’s binder inside CCH® ProSystem fx® Engagement, making it much easier to review the return.”


“One of my larger high net

worth clients has about 35–40

K1s. It normally would have

taken a person in my office

between three to five days to

bookmark and prepare this

return. CCH ProSystem fx

Outsource turned around

the preparation on this high

complexity client within

36 hours, with a fairly good

degree of accuracy. And

that was right before the

October 15th crunch time.”

— Steven J. Eller

“Since a large part of

our practice is preparing

partnership and corporate

returns, the bulk of the work

takes place in February and

March. Outsource allows us

to have the staff concentrate

on the business returns

while being able to have the

individual work in February

and early March processed

and reviewed, so that those

clients are not waiting a long

time for their returns. This

allows us to be more efficient

in getting those returns back

out to clients.”

— Alan M. Willinger


CCH ProSystem fx Engagement and CCH® ProSystem fx® Practice Management Deliver Organized Firm Administration and ManagementThe partners rely on CCH ProSystem fx Practice Management to capture time and billing information and help them gather insights needed to make decisions about staff utilization and client projects and rates. WIP and AR aging reports, the Billing Worksheet and the Posted Time Summary report help the firm perform various realization analyses. The partners can easily see if the staff is meeting productivity goals. Practice Management also identifies time-intensive and less profitable clients, helping the partners decide when to adjust billing rates or make the hard decision to let a client go.

“We use reports in

CCH ProSystem fx Practice

Management to analyze the

profitability of work we do

for clients and also the

productivity of the staff.”


JM CPA LLP uses Engagement as the central hub for both tax and audit client engagements. Eller said the top strengths of Engagement are its ease of use and the ability to customize the organizational structure of the client binders to fit his firm’s needs.

Each client is set up with a binder in Engagement, and within that binder, folders exist for finished returns, workpapers and correspondence. Whether a tax return is handled in-house or outsourced, the workpapers and returns are organized in Engagement.

“Whether it is an outsourced return or an individual return or not, it’s helpful that we have this well-organized hierarchy structure within Engagement, where we could put in workpapers, notes, correspondence, answers to open items and outstanding questions from open items,” Eller said.

“Having everything right

there — workpapers,

correspondence and

notes — within the client

binder in CCH ProSystem fx

Engagement is extremely

valuable. It helps the tax

preparation process, the

review process, as well as

helping us to be ready to

answer subsequent questions

from clients or respond

to correspondence from a

governmental agency.”

— Steven J. Eller


Wolters Kluwer: A Long-term PartnerWillinger and Eller both emphasized the value they place on their firm’s strong relationship with Wolters Kluwer. Both are expert users of the CCH ProSystem fx Suite, and Eller worked closely with Wolters Kluwer to help make the solutions better, offering advice and testing software features. The firm also participates in the CCH Power User group.

“Wolters Kluwer often asks

me to test the solutions,

and I have a close working

relationship with all the

developers. Further, when

we have an issue or problem,

Wolters Kluwer gets to

the heart of the matter

and provides a solution

rather quickly—and with a

positive outcome.”

— Steven J. Eller

Having a technology partner they can rely on means the partners can concentrate on managing the firm and serving clients. Responsive customer support is the bedrock of their relationship with Wolters Kluwer. Willinger noted that any time there has been an issue with an outsourced tax return, “as soon as I have contacted Customer Service, they have been right on the case and solved the problem.”

Smart Firms Invest in KnowledgeEller and Willinger have both attended the CCH Connections: User Conference multiple times, and they agree that it’s one of the best places to pick up helpful ideas.

Eller has given two presentations at the conference and always enjoys the roundtable discussions. “Listening to other firms talk about their paperless processes was valuable to me,” he recalled. “Some firms scan on the front end; some do it on the back end. Talking with other firms about the reasons why they do certain things and then discussing our own firm’s needs helped us reach the conclusion that we should scan on the front end.”

Willinger recalled a particularly helpful roundtable discussion about how firms were setting policies around telecommuting. He said, “I came away with the understanding that no single policy would fit all employee circumstances. The best approach was to take it on an individual-by-individual basis.”

“I have been to several

CCH Connections: User

Conferences and find them

useful. The roundtables are

the best sessions because

you get an exchange of ideas

with other accountants who

use the CCH ProSystem fx

solutions and learn some best

practices. When there are

new software initiatives, it

is great to be there and hear

about them firsthand.”


© 2017 CCH Incorporated and its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Contact information:Wolters Kluwer2700 Lake Cook RoadRiverwoods, IL 60015United States800-739-9998

Please visit CCHGroup.com/DigitalTaxWorkflowfor more information.

2/17 2017-0025

When you have to be right

http://CCHGroup.com/DigitalTaxWorkflow

http://CCHGroup.com

Business

Using the CCH® ProSystem fx® Suite, JM CPA LLP Tackles Even the Busiest Tax Seasons with Ease and Efficiency