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Accounting firms

Document AI for accounting firms. Close more clients.

Tax season throughput is gated by how fast your team keys W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, and brokerage statements into Lacerte, UltraTax, ProSeries, or Drake. Every transposition error is a downstream amendment risk. Cogneris extracts the full client packet the moment it arrives — form-by-form, line-by-line — with field-level provenance back to the source PDF.

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The challenge

Tax-season volume crushes manual data entry — and every keyed figure is an amendment waiting to happen.

Tax season document deluge

Clients arrive with bundles of W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, brokerage statements, and receipts. Manual sorting and data entry caps your throughput and squeezes margins on every 1040.

Manual entry into tax software

Lacerte, UltraTax, ProSeries, Drake. Each form keyed by hand. Each transposition error a downstream amendment risk.

Audit-ready workpaper indexing

Review and audit engagements demand traceable source documentation. Building that index from a shared drive of PDFs costs billable hours that don't bill.

How Cogneris helps

Client packets, structured. Tax software, populated.

Cogneris sorts inbound 1040 packets the moment they hit the portal, extracts every form to the line, and pushes the result directly into Lacerte, UltraTax, ProSeries, Drake, or CCH Axcess — with a click-through audit trail from every figure on the return back to the page it came from.

  • 1040 source-document classification — inbound client packets sorted automatically — W-2s, 1099-NEC, 1099-INT/DIV/B/R, K-1s, mortgage interest statements, brokerage 1099-B activity — each tagged, named, and routed to the right return.
  • Line-level extraction to tax software — form-level data extracted to Lacerte, UltraTax, ProSeries, Drake, or CCH Axcess via published integrations, with field-level provenance preserved for review.
  • Bank statement transaction categorization — sub-3-second extraction with smart-merchant categorization for Schedule C and rental Schedule E preparation.
  • Audit-ready workpaper indexing — source documents linked to financial-statement line items, with reviewer signoff and an audit-defensible chain of custody.
1040 source documents — extraction result
client_idC-RT-204871 (PII redacted in log)
tax_year2025
w2_forms3 detected · US$ 187,420 total wages
1099_int2 detected · US$ 1,847 interest
1099_div1 detected · US$ 4,920 (US$ 2,840 qualified)
k1_forms1 detected · partnership: US$ 12,400 ordinary income
schedule_b_required✓ yes — interest + dividends > US$ 1,500
routingLacerte template: form-1040
Extracted in 6.3s · all fields linked to source PDFs
99.6%
Field-level accuracy on W-2, 1099, K-1 extraction
<6s
Per-page extraction across mixed-form bundles
25+
Tax forms supported out of the box
API
Direct push to Lacerte, UltraTax, ProSeries, Drake
Accounting specifics

Built for the documents that drive the return.

Client packets arrive in every imaginable shape — emailed PDFs, portal uploads, scanned mail-ins, mobile photos of W-2s. Cogneris's accounting configuration handles the full bundle: W-2s, 1099-NEC/MISC/INT/DIV/B/R/K, K-1s from 1065 and 1120-S filings, Schedule C/E/F supporting docs, bank and brokerage statements, payroll registers, fixed asset and depreciation schedules, and prior-year returns for roll-forward.

W-2 batch ingestion

Drop a folder of W-2s; receive a normalized CSV ready for tax software, with cross-form reconciliation against the prior year's wages.

K-1 schedule parsing

Partnership, S-corp, and trust K-1s parsed line by line with state apportionment schedules detected and routed.

Brokerage 1099-B activity

Composite 1099-B with hundreds of lots parsed to Form 8949 with cost-basis flags for non-covered securities.

Source-document audit trail

Every figure in the return traces back to a specific page in a specific source document — defensible under IRS examination.

Tax & bookkeeping integrations

Lives where your preparation and close systems already run.

Cogneris integrates with the major tax-preparation platforms and bookkeeping systems through each vendor's published data import APIs — so extracted form data flows directly into the return file or the general ledger without an intermediate data-entry step.

  • Lacerte & ProSeries (Intuit) — extracted form data flows directly to the tax preparation file via Intuit's data import APIs.
  • UltraTax CS (Thomson Reuters) — source document data populates the input screens with field-level mapping preserved for review.
  • Drake Tax — imported via Drake's data integration layer, with workpaper PDFs linked to the e-file submission package.
  • CCH Axcess Tax (Wolters Kluwer) — multi-entity returns supported, with K-1 reconciliation across partners and shareholders.
  • QuickBooks, Xero & NetSuite — bookkeeping integrations for monthly close — source documents parsed and matched to GL transactions automatically.
Documents we extract

The document types behind tax season and bookkeeping.

AP intake, source-document gathering for 1040 prep, monthly reconciliations — they all run on the same set of inputs. Cogneris extracts each into structured objects ready for your tax-prep or accounting platform.

For category context, see the IDP buyer's guide, the 2026 State of Document AI report, or estimate ROI at your volume.

  • Invoice extraction — vendor, line items, GL-code hints, and totals for AP automation across NetSuite, QuickBooks, Xero, and Sage.
  • Receipt extraction — itemized employee receipts with tip handling and policy-flag detection for T&E reconciliation.
  • Tax return extraction — prior-year 1040s, K-1s, and schedules with AGI, deductions, and partner-level allocations parsed for current-year prep.
  • Bank statement extraction — transaction-level extraction from client statements for monthly reconciliation, cash-flow review, and source-of-funds documentation.
  • Payroll extraction — W-2s, 1099s, and pay stubs with wage, withholding, and YTD reconciliation tied directly to 1040 line items.
FAQ

Common questions.

Which tax software does Cogneris integrate with?
Cogneris ships published integrations with Lacerte and ProSeries (Intuit), UltraTax CS (Thomson Reuters), Drake Tax, and CCH Axcess Tax (Wolters Kluwer). Extracted form data — W-2 boxes, 1099 amounts, K-1 partner allocations, Schedule C line items — flows directly into the preparation file via each vendor's data import API. Field-level provenance is preserved so reviewers can click any imported figure and jump straight to the source PDF page. QuickBooks, Xero, and NetSuite are also supported for bookkeeping engagements.
Can Cogneris handle multi-entity engagements?
Yes. Partnership (1065), S-corp (1120-S), C-corp (1120), and trust (1041) returns are supported alongside individual 1040s. K-1s issued by pass-through entities are reconciled across partners and shareholders, and state apportionment schedules are detected and routed. CCH Axcess Tax is the primary integration target for multi-entity workflows; Lacerte and UltraTax also support entity returns. The tenant model isolates each client engagement, so a single firm can run consolidated workpapers across hundreds of related entities without cross-leakage.
How does Cogneris stay current with IRS form revisions?
Form templates are version-pinned per tax year. When the IRS publishes a revision — a new box on the W-2, a renamed line on the 1099-NEC, a changed K-1 footnote schedule — we ship an updated extractor before the form enters general circulation. Tax year 2025 forms are supported out of the box; tax year 2026 drafts are added as IRS releases them. Customers see a per-form version stamp on every extraction so they can prove which template revision produced a given figure during peer review or audit.
Is Cogneris SOC 2 Type II audited?
Yes — Cogneris carries an annual SOC 2 Type II report covering the Security, Availability, and Confidentiality trust services criteria, audited under AICPA SSAE 18. The current report is available under NDA. Controls align with the safeguards CPA firms expect under the IRS Pub 4557 safeguarding guidance and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act safeguards rule. Access controls, encryption in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest (AES-256-GCM via GCP KMS), and immutable audit logs are built into the platform — not bolted on.
What happens with client documents after a return is filed?
Default retention on raw source documents is 90 days; structured extractions are retained per the firm's configured policy. Most firms set 3 years for individual engagements (the standard statute of limitations under IRC §6501) and 7 years for matters that touch fraud-extended or substantial-omission territory. Retention windows are configurable per engagement type on Enterprise. Audit logs are retained for 7 years to support both client-portal traceability and any subsequent IRS examination.
How does pay-per-page pricing work for tax season volume?
Cogneris prices per page extracted, not per seat or per return — so a 200-return practice and a 2,000-return practice both pay only for what they process. Tax season volume tiers kick in automatically once monthly throughput crosses set thresholds; the unit rate drops as your processed-page count rises. There's no minimum commit and no surge pricing in March and April. Firms typically run a paid pilot on 50–100 client packets before season starts to model their effective cost per return.
Accounting evaluation

Send us 50 client packets. We'll show you what comes out.

Send us 50 client packets (de-identified). We'll run them through Cogneris and return a structured-extraction report with form coverage, accuracy, and time per packet. No commitment.

Book an evaluation Security & compliance