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Tax & Accounting
CCH® ProSystem fx® Engagement:
A Win‑Win for Thaney &
Associates and Its Clients
Thaney & Associates Delivers More Value to Its Clients with
CCH ProSystem fx Engagement
Garrett Wagner, CPA, CITP
Business Therapist
Recently, Wolters Kluwer asked Garrett Wagner, CPA, CITP, Business
Therapist at Thaney & Associates, why he is such a huge advocate of
CCH ProSystem fx Engagement.
“With Engagement,
we are seeing a
30–40% reduction
in staff time to
prepare jobs, and
simultaneously
seeing higher
quality work
products being
sent into review.”
“In today’s competitive landscape, both
the assurance and the corporate tax work
processes need to be highly automated
and streamlined to allow all modern firms
to efficiently and effectively complete the
compliance aspects of their jobs, while
leaving their staff adequate time to focus
on driving value on the engagement. In
our firm, CCH ProSystem fx Engagement is
the key cornerstone tool that enables us
to achieve that. Additionally, our motto is
‘Forward. Thinking.’ and CCH ProSystem fx
Engagement allows us to deliver on that
too. Engagement is much more than just
a paperless solution. Its value comes
through driving automation and efficiency
in your work products. With Engagement,
we are seeing a 30–40% reduction in staff
Thaney & Associates CPAs PC
Rochester, New York
time to prepare jobs, and simultaneously
seeing higher quality work products
being sent into review. Staff are no
longer spending hours creating and then
completing workpapers. The workpapers
are automatically populated by
CCH ProSystem fx Engagement, freeing the
staff to now think about the results they
are seeing, whether those results make
sense, and if the results pose any risks or
opportunities. We are able to challenge
our staff on every job now. We ask them
to think through ’what would you do if
this engagement was your company?’ As
a result, we recently had two tremendous
ideas we were able to pass along to our
clients. Ideas that were a win‑win for our
clients and for us.”
CCH® ProSystem fx® Engagement: A Win‑Win for Thaney & Associates and Their Clients
Wagner continued by explaining how the first
idea evolved. “The staff on the job saw an
article about a new web‑based point‑of‑sale
system that allows a company to track leads,
schedule jobs, email invoices and accept
online payments. They noticed that our client
was a perfect fit for the solution they’d read
about, and brought the idea to the attention
of the partner in our firm. From there we
were able to provide consulting services that
helped the client get that new software up
and running. Through this idea our client
is now able to easily manage and run their
business, versus previously where they were
spending a full week each month generating
manual invoices — and not getting paid for
60+ days. Now the client generates and emails
all their invoices within two hours, and 50%
of their customers now pay them the next
day. This client couldn’t be happier. They
are seeing a huge time savings boost and a
major increase in their efficiency, collection
efforts and cash flow. And this is all thanks to
CCH ProSystem fx Engagement affording our
staff the ability to stop focusing simply on
paperwork and start focusing on ideas that
will be truly valuable to our clients.”
Wagner went on to say that the second idea
was equally inspiring. “The staff used the time
savings on this client to think about how we
could add value from the perspective of the
different business lines the client operates
in. Using Engagement our staff quickly set up
a multi‑year comparison and analysis on
the four distinctive business lines so they
could evaluate where the client was and
wasn’t making a profit. Turns out one
of the client’s business lines was highly
profitable and one was a large loss. This
was especially enlightening to our client
because they previously had no insight
into their profit by business line. So, not
only did we perform a tax return, we also
consulted with the client on the profit of
8/16
2016‑1841
their business lines. Through those consulting
services our client is experiencing significant
increases in their bottom line. Again, this
wouldn’t have happened had we not been
using Engagement efficiently and as the
tool that enables our staff to add value for
our clients.”
When asked whether he would recommend
waiting for the cloud version before buying
CCH ProSystem fx Engagement, Garrett
replied, “Absolutely not! While they might
be able to get by without the technology,
any firm that waits for the cloud version
of Engagement will suffer a bigger loss —
missing out on attracting and retaining
top talent. The competition for staff at all
levels is increasing no matter where your
firm is located, and high caliber staff today
are expecting to use Engagement just like
they are expecting to have a computer.” He
added, “CCH ProSystem fx Engagement will
make your practice both more efficient and
more effective at performing assurance and
corporate tax work right now. Why would you
wait to do that? Sure, you’ll rethink how you
perform jobs across your firm, and making
that shift is a large cultural change that takes
time to successfully complete, but acting
now has real and immediate benefits —
both in time savings and staff satisfaction,
since they’ll be spending less time on
low‑value work.”
“CCH ProSystem fx Engagement will make your
practice both more efficient and more effective
at performing assurance and corporate tax work
right now.”
© 2016 CCH Incorporated and its affiliates. All rights reserved.
For More Information
CCHGroup.com/Engagement800‑739‑9998
When you have to be right