Nash Reicks

Dr. Karen Sturm

Accounting Internship Summative Report

25 April 2018

Tax Assembly at Honkamp Krueger

Honkamp Krueger & Co., P.C. (HK) is a Top 100 CPA and business consulting firm in

the U.S. and the largest Iowa-based CPA firm (Accounting Today, 2018). Serving client

organizations in all 50 states and thousands of U.S. cities, HK is one of the nation’s largest and

most respected professional service firms.

HK’s clients number in the thousands and range from privately-held organizations,

Fortune 500 multi-nationals, franchisor organizations across all industry sectors, government

agencies, individuals and not-for-profits.

Honkamp Krueger was first founded on January 1, 1947, by John and Peg Law. The

Laws were an affiliate office of Mail Me Monday. After twelve years, John Law became

entirely independent, changing the name of the firm to the John W. Law Company. Arnie

Honkamp became the majority stockholder in 1973. In 1985, the partners decided to identify the

company as a certified public accounting firm, changing the name of the firm to Honkamp

Krueger & Co., P.C., to reflect the names of Arnie Honkamp and Al Krueger.

Honkamp Krueger formed two affiliate firms, HKFS (Honkamp Krueger Financial

Services) and HKP. HKFS enables Honkamp Krueger partners and managers to perform a

thorough analysis of a client’s financial situation, and when appropriate, refer the client to HKFS
professionals who can comprehensively assist with their financial needs. HKP offers a complete

plate of human capital management solutions including payroll, HR/benefits, time and

attendance, tax credits, HR consulting, benefits consulting, and retirement plan services. HKFS

was founded in 1995, and HKP was founded in 2009.

While HK has expanded into three affiliated companies and Dubuque has all three, I

personally only worked for HK. I was stationed on the second floor, in the corner of the building

with the other assemblers. We had a decently sized square with room for four workers at one

time. The entire assembly team was very flexible with seating. Cindy, the assembly leader, did

a great job keeping the layout of everyone’s desktop similar enough that anyone in assembly

could work from any of the four desks.

As an assembler, I mostly focused on scanning client’s tax documents and assembling

paper returns. Scanning was a long and somewhat of a tedious process to me. Scans always

varied in size, but it wasn’t my favorite regardless of the size of the scan. Sometimes a partner

or someone on the accounting staff would have sorted through the client’s tax documents and

placed flag sheets where they were necessary. I thought it was very helpful for someone else to

do this, because it saved us time in assembly, and I personally hated having to look for flag

sheets. Even a few flag sheets inserted into the pile of source documents was better than having

to sort through every source document as an assembler. Sometimes we had to go through an

envelope full of source docs straight from the client. This was particularly annoying when

numerous source docs were stapled together.

Scanning was a task that required us to charge time to individual clients. We were to

make two separate entries, one for the time it took to compile the source docs, and another for

the amount of time it took to actually scan the source docs, sort through them, and adjust the
PDFs on the computer. It seemed unfair to have the timer for a client running while I had to take

staple after staple out of their source docs. If this were the case, I wouldn’t adjust the time, but I

would leave a note at the bottom of the entry explaining the amount of staples made this scan

take longer than it probably should have. I asked Cindy if it was fair for us to be charging time

to clients simply for removing staples, and she said whoever looks at the entries and bills the

clients will likely reduce the amount of time.

I was not much of a fan of scanning, but I wouldn’t say I hated it. Cindy was once again

extremely helpful by having a list of all the different types of source docs separated into two

categories, ones that needed flag sheets and ones that did not need flag sheets. There were

around thirty different flag sheets to choose from, so I understood why it was sometimes difficult

for me to find the one I needed. Just when I would gain some confidence, a new and unique

source doc would come along and make me question everything I learned. I messed up on some

scans along the way, especially early on. Thankfully those mistakes were found by others.

When Cindy was correcting one of my mistakes she mentioned that if I was unsure of where a

certain source doc should be placed, to place it without a flag sheet. She said the preparer can

always insert electronic flag sheets where they feel they are necessary, but it doesn’t help anyone

to have an incorrect flag sheet. I think that was the most important advice I received about

scanning. This took a lot of the pressure off of me, eventually leading to less mistakes.

Fortunately, one of the other assembly workers, Katie, really enjoyed scanning. We all

gave her a hard time, saying that she was weird because she enjoyed scanning. I thought it was a

little weird, but I surely wasn’t complaining. She liked scanning, so she scanned the majority of

the time. Katie hated assembling returns, which I actually really enjoyed.
 I don’t know what it is about assembling paper returns that made me enjoy them so

much. At the beginning of the tax season, I was solely assembling business returns, given that

the business deadline is a month before the individual deadline. Individual returns scared me a

little, because some of them required a separate section of the return for estimates.

We had two shelves of a bookshelf set aside solely for storing printed returns. I would

grab the return farthest to the left and begin assembling it. Assembly required two different

programs on the computer. I had to check a box on one webpage to inform everyone else of the

progress I had made on it. Another program allowed me to print an address label and copy and

paste part of the invoice into practice management. Practice management is the program that we

used to charge time to specific clients. After using the two computer programs, I began sorting

through the actual paper return. Most returns allowed us to throw away a few sheets. The tax

software automatically inserted flag sheets between most sections of the return, allowing us as

assemblers to section the returns easier. If the return had some estimates, I had to move them to

a separate section. Estimates didn’t have flag sheets, so we had to pay close attention to them.

Estimates and payment vouchers looked extremely similar, but were two very different things.

Both were to be sent into either federal or state IRS offices, but most had different addresses for

each. Some pages that were towards the top of the return originally had to be moved to the back

under a tab titled “Additional Information.”

Once all of the papers of the return were in the correct order, I grabbed a front and back

cover and used the binding machine to punch holes in all of the sheets and covers. It makes

sense that the larger the return was, the longer it took to bind. Once all the holes were punched, I

had to grab an appropriately sized coil. Some of the assemblers used the binding machine to

twist the coil through the holes, but I personally preferred to twist the coils by hand. To finish
the return, I used another part of the binding machine that cut and bent the coils, to prevent the

pages from coming loose. After completing the assembly, I moved them to the appropriate

shelves of the supply closet where the partners then picked them up and moved them farther

along in the process.

I mentioned some of the challenges of my internship in my learning goal reflections. I

think time management was problem the most difficult challenge I encountered. Many days I

simply wished there was more time in the day. I learned to take advantage of small windows of

time instead of waiting to do all of my homework at night. It was definitely a struggle at times,

but I survived.

There were other challenges from time to time, but I thought of them as typical office

problems. There were errors in returns, glitches on computer programs, and lapses in

communication. People were rushed and pressured at times, but we all managed to meet the

deadline. I personally had some brain farts from time to time. I once forgot to move scanned

PDF files to the correct folders, which prevented them from advancing on in the tax process.

Another time I checked too many boxes in the software system, and made others believe that

those returns were farther along in the process than they actually were. I was never scolded for

these errors, but was informed of them so I could then do my best to avoid making the same

mistakes again.

I feel like I benefited a lot from this internship. I started with basically no knowledge of

the tax process, and I now have at least a basic understanding of numerous tax forms. I was

exposed to tax documents that I didn’t even know existed and gained some understanding of

estimates. I gained some great connections as well, and made some memories while working. I

loved hearing stories from coworkers while also sharing stories of my own. I am so thankful that
I was able to experience my first tax season at a young age. I learned that I can handle tax

season, and still plan to pursue a career in accounting. I gained some more professional

experience, and hope this only leads to bigger and better opportunities in the future, staring with

being a tax preparer for Honkamp Krueger next year.