Effective management of accounting workflows in online services for agents or OSfA.
OSfA remains an online platform designed by the Internal Revenue Service, IRS to deal with tax practitioners and financial service providers to enable them to work with the IRS and manage their clients’ taxes. Through creating a one-stop shop for services that include access to client accounts and the most crucial IRS services, OSfA’s overall goal is to make accounting services simple and efficient.
Benefits of Using OSfA
OSfA provides several key benefits for accounting service providers and tax professionals including:
- Access taxpayer information: OSfA can be accessed 24/7 to securely view clients’ tax transcripts, records of account, and account information. This saves you the inconvenience of having to call the IRS to get the most up-to-date information.
- Manage Client Authorizations: Use electronic means to track your clients’ authorizations to represent them before the IRS through OSfA. Make sure that the authorization tasks are fully completed online to avoid delays triggered by mailing.
- E-Services Registration: Lower yourself and your firm for various IRS e-Services programs such as e-file applications as well as Transmitter Control Codes through OSfA.
- Communicate with the IRS: Communicate with the IRS with your client’s accounts through the secure mailboxes with OSfA. Submit supporting docs and get a reply promptly.
- Simple Authentication: Other methods for sign-in include the use of secure methods such as ID.me and Login.gov to minimize the hassle of the process. No signature for manual work or paperwork, as everything is done online.
Key Features and Tools
OSfA provides a centralized dashboard for tax pros to access the following key features:
Taxpayer Information Tools:
- Tax Transcripts – Receive your client's tax return transcript today as mandated in several accounting processes.
- Record of Account – Check the current status and other activity information of your client’s tax accounts such as penalties, interest, payments and so on.
- Electronic Account Resolution –Third, get a glimpse of the client’s account resolution history and convey to the IRS about any disparity.
IRS Tools and Services:
- e-Services – Apply for and manage e-File accounts and transmitter Control Codes and become involved in the IRS e-Services Program.
- Tax Pro Account – This feature allows the user to make updates on their IRS tax professional account information such as the PTIN registration, and CAF number among others.
- Bulk Taxpayer Data – Using single uploads, clients can file for tax transcripts of multiple entities.
Communications:
- Secure Messaging – Discuss the details of your clients’ cases with the IRS agents. You can attach documents quickly and expect thorough answers.
- Notifications and Alerts – This feature would help you to receive information on any action performed in your account by the IRS as well as any changes in the dates etc.
From the interactions, it is clear that OSfA is designed to assist tax professionals handle IRS and accounting chores in one convenient location. Primary benefits are no paperwork, real-time and 24x7 access to clients’ tax information and convenient and efficient communication with the IRS. These ultimately result in tedious, processing, compliance and resolution of your clients’ tax matters.
Onboarding to OSfA
To start using OSfA, tax pros can follow these steps:
1. If you do not already have an account on the IRS.gov website, you should register one.
2. ID verification through ID.me or Login.gov to ensure all identity information provided by the applicants is accurate.
3. Visit the IRS.gov and sign in, then go through the terms and conditions and get to the OSfA.
4. Sign up and connect PTIN (Preparer Tax Identification Number) to connect the clients with you.
5. Include other users with the necessary authorization from your firm to access the shared files.
6. Enable notifications so that you get to know when there’s an important action on the key account.
7. Still confused? No worries, here is a direct link to the taxpayer tools, communications and e-services!
With more capabilities and features in mind for Tax preparers, OSfA is still growing, with more expected in the future. This is especially important as it gives time to get comfortable navigating and using it and be prepared as more applications and functionalities go live.
More than 30,000 tax and accounting service providers have already used OSfA for accounting services. Since the IRS has recently shut down e-Services Registration, CAF Number registration and TIN Matching, OSfA replaces them with their respective new technologies in addition to offering many other communication mediums all at one place.
If you have not considered OSfA for the accounting services or the tax preparation firm you offer, now is the best time to grab this opportunity and enhance the ways through which you deal with the IRS.
Contact us here for tax preparation services now!