busy season management

advanced tax preparers need managing, too

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four best practices.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

managing advanced-level preparers sounds easier than it is. these preparers will all have blind spots that appear at inconvenient times. some won’t be able to adapt to your internal procedures, because they worked at firms without well-defined procedures.

we had one person who insisted on printing out the prior year tax returns and workpapers before beginning a return. she said she just needed the paper in her hands. that didn’t work for us.

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she asked to be paid on a salaried basis. when we agreed, she then demanded to be paid on an hourly basis. we agreed to that as well. then she wanted to go back to a salary. she believed that whatever we agreed to would be bad for her.
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help tax clients help you

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eleven steps to better instructions.

by ed mendlowitz
tax season opportunity guide

providing instructions of what a client needs to do must be clear enough so that the client doesn’t call you to find out what to do.

more: is your team ready for tax season? | six methods for getting paid faster this tax season
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sometimes taking an extra minute to lay out what the client should do can eliminate that call or indecisive moment a client might feel.
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four challenges of managing new tax preparers

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… and three tips to make it easier.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

how do you train up newly hired tax preparers?

hint: don’t start with taxes.

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having standardized processes is key. teaching processes is much easier than teaching tax return preparation. learning your processes teaches tax return preparation if your processes are well defined. much of tax preparation is data entry-oriented. then you teach the variations.
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tax season 2025 begins. ready or not.

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bar chart
ready or not? more than four in ten accountants are expecting a better tax season this year than last year, with only one in six dreading worse. join the survey. get the results.

most pros will hit the ground running.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

join the survey. get the results.

ready or not, here it comes: the marathon of the tax season. the w-2s are in the mail, the k-1s shouldn’t be far behind, and the 1099s are being filed.

more: every tax reviewer should be able to answer these ten questions | art werner: corporate transparency act and fincen reporting | quick tax tip | taxpayer advocate sees big improvements at irs | ask tax clients the right questions | major changes to circular 230: implications for tax professionals
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so far, most of america’s cpas and tax preparers are ready for the tax season and reasonably optimistic about this year’s revenues.

according to early results to the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 busy season barometer, 44 percent of respondents are better prepared than they were last year, and almost as many are in about the same position as last year. only 14 percent say they’re less ready than last year, with a mere 3 percent much less ready. fifteen percent are “much better” prepared.

but that was before a trump-ordered government-wide hiring freeze and new threats of over $20 billion in budget cuts.

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ask tax clients the right questions

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hourglass on paper charts

don’t let them dictate your workflow.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

who makes the errors in your firm? staff obviously, but that’s half of the answer. clients are a major source of tax return errors. clients cause errors in three ways:

  1. errors of omission
  2. errors of commission
  3. errors in attitude

more by frank stitely
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every tax season, we finalize and deliver returns only to hear from the client, “i think i might have forgotten to tell you that we had a baby last year.” does this happen to you? this is a client error of omission. unintentionally, clients withhold important information.
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is your team ready for tax season?

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happy multi-ethnic business team with thumbs up in the office

three ways to prepare.

by ed mendlowitz
tax season opportunity guide

if you have staff, have happy cheerful helpful people. don’t surround yourself with downers and naysayers.

more: six methods for getting paid faster this tax season
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also have team players. part of this is your firm’s culture. it takes work to get people to work together and to focus on doing what it takes to service the client fully, properly and timely.  everyone working together gets it done.
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make ‘done but’ tax returns a thing of the past

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six people around work table

eliminate bottlenecks by asking better questions.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

a project hung up in process is one where there is a disagreement between people involved in a project as to the status. for example, a client thinks he has answered your tax return questions, while you believe he has not. another example is when a tax return preparer believes a return is ready for review while the reviewer does not believe it’s ready.

more: use humor to get tax documents in early
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the result of a hung-up project is a dead project – one that’s not moving to completion.

if a tax return gets hung up, eventually your client calls you, and you get to waste time determining why the project stopped moving. this increases work in progress (wip), which increases turnaround time.
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six methods for getting paid faster this tax season

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sure it’s good for business, but it’s also considerate to clients.

by ed mendlowitz
tax season opportunity guide

accounting is a business and businesses need to be paid.

it’s harder to justify prices when providing services rather than products. products are usually priced before delivery while many times services are priced after delivery, i.e., performance.

more: four steps could close the tax gap | art werner: how to turn tax prep into tax advisory | quick tax tip | art werner: navigating business structure decisions amid tax law changes | quick tax tip | tax season memo from staff to managing partner | is the irs adequately tracking corporate tax evasion? | irs still unsure how to measure audit rate | irs vs. fraudsters | is the irs mismeasuring phone service?
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many accountants price tax returns before they are worked on, usually basing the fee on last year, or a rate schedule. sending a bill with the return establishes the relationship that you should be paid promptly for the work done.
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use humor to get tax documents in early

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my secret? humor, sarcasm and a bit of shame.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

there are easy ways to get clients to do what we need them to do. in our office, we call the process “training” clients. one of our biggest headaches is the late delivery of tax materials. so, we train our clients to bring their tax documents in early.

more: end tax season meetings with clients … seriously | get clients to understand firm processes … or say goodbye | train now before it costs you down the road | keep clients from “balance due” shock | stop clients from performing “favors” | who needs fall tax planning? clients … and you | it’s ok to say no to clients (even the large ones) | control your time: avoid ambush meetings and calls | you train your clients, whether you mean to or not | don’t let clients dictate tax workflow | make fewer mistakes, increase revenue and capacity | easy ways to avoid ‘done but’ tax returns
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we accomplish this through a series of e-blasts explaining our deadlines. the e-blasts start in december, and we call them “countdown to tax season.” they cover much more than our deadlines for clients to provide business and personal income tax returns documents.

we use the blasts to train clients in other areas – such as minimizing the use of staples when they give us their documents. we also discourage people from putting their documents in three-ring binders. as i’m certain you already know, staples and binders drive your admin staff crazy when they’re trying to scan documents.
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make your next busy season easier now

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sad businessman sitting at desk outdoors and looking straight ahead

five ways to shift some of the heavy lifting to your lighter months.

by sandi leyva
the complete guide to marketing for tax & accounting firms

for some of you, summer can be a slow time in your business. if you do taxes, all the action is during busy season and in september if you have a lot of extensions. if you’re a bookkeeper, your busiest month is january. and if you do software consulting or training, it slows down in july and august.

more: how to put your strengths to work for you | implement these two daily rituals | want to close a deal? set a deadline | five business development mistakes to avoid | how to leverage chatgpt during this crazy tax season | eight steps to getting started with ai: a guide for tax professionals | you don’t have a time problem | three money leaks and how to plug them | eleven ways to serve clients even better
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if you have a good relationship with your clients, you might be able to move some of your busy season work to off season. and if you have clients who are ready to take advantage of new technologies, there are lots of opportunities in the cloud. here are five quick ideas to stir up some revenue in the slower summer months.

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three ways to thrive with limited capacity

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smiling man working at laptop in office with glass walls

turn the staffing shortage into a new opportunity.

by frank stiteley
the relentless cpa

charles dickens had to be writing about the accounting profession when he wrote, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

clients are plentiful. i met a new client coming out of the restroom at our office complex. we get four to five inquiries a day – out of tax season. during tax season, we turned down four out of five prospective clients.

more on staffing: tax and accounting jobs and salaries show strength | olympics of outsourcing and offshoring for accountants | new study: strong and steady growth for accountant jobs and salaries | can’t recruit? retain! | is tech causing both cpa shortage and low salaries? | staffing tops list of woes at cpa firms | to replenish the talent pipeline, go back to the classroom | whole person retention: when it’s not just the money | more big firms shut their doors to new college grads | seven enticements to keep talent on board | employee retention is easier than attraction | let interns fix the staffing shortage? | disruptors: talent crisis? what talent crisis? | firms culling clients as staffing woes persist
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staff are not plentiful – at least not good ones. i’m getting two or three resumes a day, but they’re the warm body sort most of us learned the hard way not to hire during the pandemic. you’ve seen these resumes too. they are people with six employers in eight years. you are certain to be number seven in nine years. they claim eight years of experience, but you can see from their job history that it’s really two years of experience repeated four times. and – they want $100k for those two years of real experience.

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