Without proper software training, tax season can mean costly gaffes

Most Americans find collecting paperwork, documents and information to complete their individual tax returns very stressful. Now imagine having to do this for a medium or large company.

Tax filing season can be an extremely difficult time for corporate tax and accounting professionals as they must navigate countless forms and gather vast amounts of information without making mistakes. The looming threat of an audit can add to the stress of tax season.

High stress (increased stress levels proven to lead to weaker cognitive function) and long hours (anecdotal data shows that accounting professionals work 50 to 80 hours per week from February to April) can combine to create an environment ripe for error. Now add the fact that accountants will interact with necessary 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 your finger discard the entire bookkeeping process. With the amount of data entry that occurs in most accounting departments, it’s probably no surprise that manually entering incorrect data is such a common annoyance. If left unchecked, this can lead to audits, fines and huge amounts of wasted resources. In fact, estimated 27% Accounting errors are the result of incorrect tax data entry.

While your organization may be putting its 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 most of what they learned in a one-time training session after only a day or two. That means you can’t train your accountants on tax technologies once and probably expect them to remember how to use them weeks or months later—not to mention year after year. Considering that these are often tax modules built into ERP systems, which have a reputation for being difficult to use and have a steep learning curve — kudos to your accountants if they remember even a small part.

The best way to equip your accounting professionals to protect against errors and keep tax returns spotless during this time of high stress and fatigue is to change your approach to software training. In particular, training should be treated as an interactive, ongoing process, involving timely, targeted delivery of content within the application, unlike the final exercise.

This means offering real-time learning content exactly when it’s needed, for example, reminders, alerts, announcements and information bubbles with links or videos related to learning and development. This way, learning and development teams can offer buried or underutilized materials in the application whenever needed. This real-time delivery of learning content reduces the cognitive load (stress and fatigue) of your accounting professionals. Furthermore, it does not require them to stop what they are doing to think and ask questions; the information they seek is presented intuitively, without the need to change windows or environments. App usage, 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 as it can help organizations identify and address the areas most likely to confuse their accountants. In particular, analytics can pinpoint areas that give accountants trouble so that these parts of the training can be supplemented with content, making the learning experience easier and more successful. It also helps with process compliance — for example, field validations that double-check that information hasn’t been skipped or entered incorrectly, reducing errors and helping to mitigate risk. Changing user behavior can prevent mistakes before they happen or correct them afterwards.

In addition to minimizing errors, changing your approach to training and empowering your accounting professionals in this way can lead to another important benefit — retaining highly valuable accounting talent, which has been subject to the trend of giving up in recent years. Actually, almost all accounting professionals suffer from burnout, making tax season a particularly dangerous time for those trying to ensure their satisfaction and retention. As in any profession, when you train your accountants to excel in their jobs within a workflow environment, you demonstrate your commitment to their professional development and success, making them happier and more satisfied at work.

With tax season upon us, organizations have another opportunity to help their accounting professionals stand out while helping businesses prevent costly avoidable mistakes, lost revenue and churn. Real-time on-the-job learning and development can be key factors in supporting our accountants as well as ensuring clean, accurate and stress-free tax documentation.