Overview

A Big Four accounting, global leader in assurance, tax, transaction, and advisory services firm, partnered with Softensity. Over the past year, this collaboration has redefined the processing of tax documents through the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, marking a significant milestone in the automation of complex, non-standardized documents.

Challenge

For over two decades, the firm faced a formidable challenge in automating the processing of tax documents. The free-form nature of these documents, lacking a uniform structure, made traditional programming approaches ineffective. This limitation necessitated extensive manual review by tax professionals, a time-consuming process. Moreover, its tax platform naturally entangled by scalability issues, managing to process only five PDFs per minute—a bottleneck that severely limited throughput.

Solution

Softensity’s engagement commenced with the scaling and maintenance of the internal program, a vast and intricate platform involving numerous engineers and teams. The partnership took a groundbreaking turn with the advent of AI, leading to the development of a novel solution for tax document automation. This AI-driven product was designed to navigate the complexities of tax documents, automating tasks previously deemed unautomatable with remarkable accuracy.

The solution employed advanced AI techniques, including preprocessing, data science, and prompt engineering, to interpret and process free-form tax documents efficiently. This innovation achieved unprecedented processing speeds, escalating from 5 PDFs to 10,000 PDFs per minute. The AI’s ability to understand and execute tasks based on plain English prompts empowered non-technical staff to influence outcomes using their domain expertise, potentially redefining programming paradigms.

Results

Early results are promising, with the AI consistently meeting accuracy thresholds. This breakthrough has garnered considerable acclaim within the firm, sparking interest in developing more AI products down the pipeline. The collaboration has also fostered a closer relationship with tax domain experts, enhancing the agile development framework and ensuring a deep integration of domain knowledge into technological solutions.

Looking ahead

The partnership between this big 4 Accounting Firm and Softensity represents a paradigm shift in tax document processing, leveraging AI to tackle long-standing industry challenges. This case study not only highlights the transformative power of AI but also underscores the evolving landscape of software engineering and the potential for technology to redefine professional roles. As this initiative progresses, it stands as a testament to the innovative spirit and collaborative synergy paving the way for future advancements in the field.