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PROCESS IMPROVEMENT REPORT: INDIVIDUAL TAX RETURN

Analysis and roadmap to change for the Onward Individual Tax Return process.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This Report has been prepared with two objectives in mind: to examine the time and cost efficiency of the Individual Tax Return (ITR) lodgement process for the small accounting firm ‘Onward’; and to provide a roadmap to change for the ITR process to extinguish inefficiencies in the operational and organisational structure of the Onward business model.

To ensure that this report can provide a comprehensive analysis of the as-is ITR lodgement process, the context surrounding Onward has been examined, and the report has narrowed its analysis to that of ITRs prepared and lodged for existing clients only. Specificity in determining the Process to assess was important to the accuracy of the simulations conducted with IBM’s Websphere Business Modelling Tool – as assumptions have been made due to limitations in ascertaining accurate representations of the time and cost required to complete the various tasks depicted in the As-Is and To-Be process models.

As such, the ITR lodgement process for an existing client at a small accounting firm has been analysed from the initial meeting stages, through to information collection and sorting, to final audit and lodgement. In this analysis, such problems as the excessive time-cost of the firm’s uniquely qualified human resources – the Partner and Senior Accountant – became evident due to the large quantities of work attributed to them; work that could have been completed by a non-qualified human or mechanical/electronic resource.

The realisation that there were a number of inefficient manual tasks in the ITR lodgement process that could be addressed through process improvement and automation under a Six Sigma methodology created the basis for the To-Be process simulations presented in this report. The dominant finding in the analysis of the As-Is process and preparation...