Poor software training can cause costly gaffes in tax season

Most Americans find gathering paperwork, documents and information to complete their individual tax returns very stressful. Now imagine having to do that for a midsized or large business. 

Tax filing season can be an extremely trying time for corporate tax and accounting professionals as they have to navigate countless forms and compile extensive amounts of information without errors. The looming threat of an audit can ratchet up the stress of tax season even more. 

High stress (elevated stress levels have been proven to lead to lower cognitive function) and long hours (anecdotal data shows accounting professionals work anywhere from 50 to 80 hours per week from February through April) can combine to create an environment that's ripe for mistakes. Now throw in the fact that accountants are going to be interacting with required software (for example, tax modules within their ERP systems) that they may only touch once a year, and the stage is perfectly set for gaffes.

The financial consequences of mistakes can be very serious, with just one slip of a finger throwing off an entire bookkeeping process. With the amount of data entry that occurs in most accounting departments, it's probably not a surprise that manually inputting incorrect details is such a common snafu. When left unchecked, this may lead to audits, penalties and a huge amount of wasted resources. In fact, an estimated 27% of accounting errors are the result of incorrect tax data entry. 

Even though your organization may be putting your internal accounting professionals through extensive software training, the reality is that traditional "one and done" software training is insufficient. Moreover, research shows that people forget the majority of what they have learned during one-time training after only a day or two. This means you cannot train your accountants one time on tax technologies and possibly expect them to remember how to use it a few weeks or months later — never mind year over year. Considering that these are often tax modules embedded within ERP systems, which have a reputation for being hard to use and having a high learning curve  — it's a credit to your accountants if they remember even a slim portion.

The best way to equip your accounting professionals to safeguard against errors and maintain untarnished tax filings during this time of high stress and fatigue is to change your approach to software training. Specifically, training needs to be treated as an interactive, ongoing process, featuring timely, targeted in-app content delivery, as opposed to a finite exercise. 

This means offering real-time learning content precisely at the point that it's needed, for example, reminders, alerts, announcements and information bubbles with supporting learning and development-related links or videos. In this way, learning and development teams can offer buried or underutilized materials in-app at the point of need. This delivery of learning content in real-time reduces the cognitive load (stress and fatigue) on your accounting professionals. Furthermore, it doesn't require them to interrupt what they're doing in order to ponder and ask questions; the information they are looking for is intuitively presented, without having to switch windows or environments. The application use, training and learning happen all at once and in one place, increasing engagement, encouraging proper use, and reducing the likelihood of errors.

Providing in-app content delivery is also valuable because it can help organizations identify and address the areas most likely to trip up their accountants. Specifically, analytics can precisely identify the areas that are giving accountants trouble so that these portions of training can be supplemented with content, thereby making the learning experience smoother and more successful. And, it helps with process compliance — for example, field validations that double-check that information is not skipped or inputted incorrectly, thereby decreasing errors and helping mitigate risks. Changing user behavior can prevent mistakes before they happen versus correcting them afterwards. 

Beyond minimizing mistakes, changing your training approach and empowering your accounting professionals in this way can lead to another important benefit — the retention of highly valuable accounting talent, which has been subject to a quitting trend in recent years. In fact, almost all accounting professionals suffer from burnout, making tax season a particularly perilous time for those trying to ensure their satisfaction and retention. Like any profession, when you equip your accountants to excel at their jobs within their workflow environments, you demonstrate your commitment to their professional development and success, making them happier and more content on the job.

With tax season upon us, organizations have yet another opportunity to help their accounting professionals excel, while aiding enterprises in preventing avoidable costly errors, lost revenue and churn. On-the-job, real-time learning and development can be a key factor in supporting our accountants as well as ensuring pristine, accurate and stress-free tax documentation.