Intuit is apparently getting back into the booming tax document automation market with a new product called Intuit Document eSort.

The screen shot (after the jump), shows what we know Intuit is currently testing for a fall release.

The site was password protected minutes after I contacted Intuit asking for more information.

It looks like eSort is a “scan and organize” offering integrated into both Lacerte and ProSeries. Testers have (unofficially) told me that the compliance program recognizes the document and automatically presents the preparer with the appropriate input screen while displaying the scanned image for keypunch. Those same testers have indicated the product is powered by Copanion’s Gruntworx forms recognition engine. Both Copanion and Intuit declined comment for this post.

While the initial iteration evidently will not offer “scan and populate” capability it’s not hard to imagine that service being added eventually.

The Intuit product joins a field of competitors including Copanion, CCH (ProFx Scan and Scan & Fill), and Thomson (also with two products), SurePrep -- which integrates with CCH’s ProFx, Intuit’s Lacerte and Thomson’s GoSystem Tax ES which, interestingly enough, also works with the Copanion GruntWorx product.

Stay tuned for more on this product -- I expect an Intuit announcement yet this month.