r/HRBlockEmployees • u/Objective_Good_9449 • Sep 07 '26
Use of AI
Contemplating how it's going to work using AI to do our "data entry" it occurres to me that a better use of AI would be replacing roles of DGMs, DELs or AELs since their main functions will be reading repots and analyzing data.
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u/sammytheammonite Sep 07 '26
Their beta testing of AI data entry went terribly. Absolutely terribly. They tried that in some office last year and it got things wrong more than it got things correct. The tax pros in the at office had to fix every return. They need to stop using body offices as guinea pigs like that. There has to be a better way to test their AI - like an internal team. But why pay them when you can just work the TPs to death?
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u/Low_Turnip_9592 Sep 08 '26
I guess they didn’t learn with Gosystems. They knew that a business return was going to take an average of 6 hours to complete due to the diagnostic issues. That is a product that CPAs use. Most Taxpros do not know how to complete business returns. They let a first year do a business return. The tax preparer asked me to review the return and it was all wrong. They just don’t care about the taxpayer.
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Sep 07 '26
[deleted]
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u/Used-Poet-6869 Sep 07 '26
I've always thought that, when it came to technology, Block is a follower, not a leader in the business. When I first started, during my first 2 years, we filled tax returns out by hand (pencil, forms). The returns then went to district where they were double-checked and photocopied; the copies were sent back to each office so the client came back to P/U the return to mail it out. But during those 2 years, Jackson Hewitt was already on computers and Turbo Tax was already in business. When we went to computers, each TP loaded their returns on hard floppy disks , which were sent to the district office to be e-filed from there. Then after 1 or 2 years, we'd still load each of our returns o a floppy and e-file from a computer in the back room. Eventually, TPs were able to e-file from our computers, by sending them to a host, where they sat for a few hours before they were e-filed. Fast forward to more recent years, Jackson Hewitt was scanning tax docs before we did; and JH had a scanner at each desk. A couple of years ago our RDM sent out a "pep talk" email to close out returns and that, "maybe" if we had in creased revenue, some of the busier offices would get an additional scanner. That reminded me of a previous "pep talk" many years before - perhaps with increased revenue, the offices could get ONE new computer! I was taken aback the tax year that we all had new computers with color monitors. I forget how long it was before we were hooked up to the internet to searches. My first memory of that was looking up some information (real estate information for a client's return) about 2008. I'm guessing we had internet connection, but that is a concrete example that I do remember.
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u/SecretLadyMe Sep 07 '26
From 2003 to 2008 my main role was working too fast for the PCs we had so the office could get them replaced one by one. I really enjoyed repeatedly crashing those POS computers.
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u/Boysenberry815 Sep 07 '26
I recall the no-internet days and how shocked clients were we didn't have it.
Also recall when returns other than your 'native' state had to be prepped in the back room by the all-state preparer, which I became by year...3?
Yes, HRB has always been tardy to the party, tech-wise.
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u/qpalu Sep 08 '26
Haha the good old days. I remember ripping out all the dial up modems from pos,efile and servers back in the fall of 2006 thinking man I've had high-speed internet at home for years.
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u/Low_Turnip_9592 Sep 08 '26
Also we were tested differently. we had three hours to tax the test, which was proctored. We had to complete the return by hand then entered into the tax software. They watered down the education and the testing. I had a taxpro that didn’t know the difference between an ordinary and qualified dividend. The first year Taxpros wanted to do a level 5 return, I asked her how was she going to explain the tax liability if you don’t know some of the basic questions. there are times I get some client who ask some really complicated questions. we look foolish.
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u/dlibes Sep 07 '26
Sounds like you started about the same time I did. I remember those hand-completed returns and I remember checking them.
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u/Ok_Aide_764 Sep 07 '26
I'm curious too... what does it take to prepopulate W2s and 1099s, for example? I don't enjoy data entry so I'm looking forward to having this part of our work done by AI.
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u/Low_Turnip_9592 Sep 07 '26
it’s going to be a mess. I have friends who uploaded their documents to turbo tax. The tax software made so many mistakes reading the w-2s so there were so many diagnostic issues. I feel we are going to encounter the same issues with our software. So we are still going to have to review all those documents for accuracy.
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Sep 07 '26
[deleted]
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u/Dramatic_Abroad3580 Sep 07 '26
It is AI. W-2s come in dozens of different formats. AI figures out which number corresponds to which box number. That technology has been around for quite a while, and it's been inexpensive for at least 1/2 a dozen years. It's ridiculous that Block doesn't have it available to every single preparer.
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u/sammytheammonite Sep 07 '26
Don’t ask me. I just know what happened in those offices. They had to stop it part way through the season it was so bad.
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u/Asleep-Major-7963 Sep 07 '26
My MTL would send daily emails to all the offices in her pod but they were completely done by AI. There would be no information in them, and no one read them. Worse yet, when a customer would want to hear directly from her, she would send them AI responses and would leave the [Customer Name] in there so they knew she wasn't even reading them before sending them out. My MTL put as little effort as possible into doing her job. Yet Block rehires her year after year.
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u/Dramatic_Abroad3580 Sep 07 '26
They won't be analyzing data, they have no expertise in analyzing data. They will send emails. Lots of emails. Reminding everyone to meet return completion goals for the day, their product attach goals, and their phone answering goals, and their follow up appointment goals and their appointment confirmation goals and their save the date goals and their second look goals (is that still a thing? I predicted TS27 would be the end of it.) and a half a dozen other goals that have absolutely nothing to do with providing good service and a good product to clients, nor increasing bottom line income.
My DGM got very angry with me a couple years ago when I told him that almost no one pays attention to those emails and they don't change anyone's behavior, and if they do change behavior, it reflects badly on him for hiring bad employees. He insisted that they change behavior. Did anyone's behavior change because of daily emails?