Michigan business personal property taxes, when compared to other states, are fairly straightforward. For example, while some states have hundreds of different return forms—one for each county—Michigan is one of several states with a single standardized return form for all jurisdictions.

If you’ve worked with property taxes for any length of time, you know audits are an unfortunate reality. Just when you were sure you had everything just right—all your assets tied to the right locations, placed in the right asset classifications, and depreciated appropriately—an auditor points out various errors and wrong decisions, and calls out your unorganized recordkeeping.

Automation is a concept that’s had the business world abuzz for some time now. Leaders from nearly every industry praise automation for streamlining cumbersome or lengthy processes across the organization. Every functional area can benefit from it, and the tax department is no exception.

You know the headache of missed deadlines—financial penalties, lost opportunities for lowering your tax burden, and falling further behind on your tax schedule. Accounting due date tracking software can mitigate deadline slippage, but what exactly should it be able to do? Keep reading to see exactly what questions you should seek answers to when looking for the right deadline tracking solution.

The typical tax cycle can be daunting: filing returns for your business personal property (BPP), keeping up with notices of assessment for BPP and real estate, handling valuation appeals, and paying tax bills. You can easily have 1,500 returns; 90 notices; and 50 bills due next month. It’s enough to keep you and your tax team working overtime, especially if your strategy is reactive, so that you’re only taking action after you receive tax documents in the mail.

Regardless of your industry, your tax workflow is probably largely comprised of research and data entry tasks: keeping track of your assets and their location, retrieving appropriate depreciation schedules, filling out business personal property tax returns, reviewing valuation notices, and paying tax bills. A substantial amount of time and effort goes into tax preparation office procedures.