How do the tax preparers on this forum "reconcile" the supporting documentation of a return to the tax return itself?
In other words, what checks are in place at the preparer level to ensure the return agrees in total to the underlying support and no amounts are transposed, skipped, etc?
Do you use a different process depending on return complexity? Or is process consistent no matter complexity?
The firms I've worked for have had various methods of preparing returns:
One firm was concerned that the preparer could explain federal taxable income and reconcile it via excel to the supporting docs.
Another firm took a spreadsheet approach and reconciled individual lines of the return. (total wages, total withholding, etc). Basically entering data once in a spreadsheet and once on the return.
A third firm checks the support against the input screen in the tax software.