Established in 1979, Demers Beaulne is a chartered accountants firm that experienced continuous growth throughout the years. Today, a professional and dynamic team of 21 associates and 100 employees are able to satisfy the needs of their clients. The firm is a member of the International Association of Practising Accountants (IAPA) and the Buchanan Hyatt association, and has affiliated offices throughout the world. The firm has 408 associates working in 118 offices. Demers Beaulne's legal office and their affiliates benefit from a reputation that meets the founders' expectations.

We wanted to facilitate and improve income tax return preparation and, by the same token, reduce the huge amount of paper being used by switching to a paperless mode. Our legal office is committed to preserve our social and ecological environment by recycling paper and using, preferably, electronic methods of communication. The T1 tax season is always the time of the year where pressure and workload are high, due to the handling of numerous documents. Therefore, we considered using CCH Scan to help us reach the objective of streamlining the review and preparation processes for returns. Furthermore, since we already were Taxprep users, the integration between both products was a valuable asset in favour of CCH Scan.

We appreciated several functionalities that made review easier, i.e. the "Highlighter" and "Sticky Note" tools, but what we particularly liked was the "Connector Stamp" (tool allowing to add references between several documents) as well as the PDF tape calculator allowing to add different amounts, just as a traditional tape calculator. We also customized the PDFlyer review marks so they would correspond to our existing standards. All those functionalities enabled us to be as efficient, if not more, in this new paperless environment.

We also bought PDFlyer, which is an Adobe Acrobat complementary plug-in for T1 return preparation. We could not do without it. This tool possesses functionalities that are specifically created for reviewing and preparing T1 returns, so they greatly facilitate the paperless process.

We appreciate that all documents related to the return are generated in electronic format, for example slips, workcharts, notes to clients, etc. This functionality saves us a lot of time - when we want to consult the file at a later time - and storage space. Everything is saved on a server and we can easily access files directly from our workstation.

Scanning documents at the beginning of the process spreads out the workload over the tax season and frees us from having to make photocopies during the last weeks of the season.

We produced more than 950 returns in the first year of use. Our office has already implemented dual monitors for all of the workstations involved in the return preparation and review processes. The review of returns is greatly simplified by the use of PDF source files on a screen and Taxprep with the Xpress pane on the other screen. All you have to do is browse the displayed list of data in Xpress and select the data with the Taxprep review marks. Once the list has been browsed through and counterchecked using the CCH Scan generated PDF, we are sure that nothing has been forgotten.

The scanning process has been integrated as an important step in our workflow. By customizing return statuses, we can track them in the Client Manager.

The bookmarks structure, which is standardized in the PDF files, enables to quickly find the different type of client slips.

We also save a lot of time when the CRA or RQ make post-assessment requests following EFILE transmissions. In the past, these requests required a substantial amount of time, since we had to physically go get the client folder. Now, all we have to do is open the Taxprep file and print the PDF pages attached to the return. We fax them to the CRA or RQ and it's in the bag! This greatly reduces the inconveniences related to EFILE once the season is finished.