tax season

how to train clients

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skip this, and both service and satisfaction decline.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

you’ll hate me after this post. i’m about to reveal that many of the behaviors that you rationalize as good client service are really just desperate measures to avoid losing bad clients. we’ll talk about getting out of that mess later.

more: avoiding projects hung up in process | when clients create errors | how we killed the tax season client meeting | why small firms can win the talent wars | there are no easy answers | how to thrive as a 21st-century firm | farm-aid for accountants? | whittle down wip
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clients are trainable – at least as trainable as jack russell terriers. that is to say, they’re somewhat trainable. however, like jack russell terriers, you train clients or they’ll train you. somebody’s getting trained. here’s an example of how that works.
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peer-to-peer: your best advice for 2021

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clockwise-from-top-left-raizen-wehr-paulson-swigert-anderson-stitely.png
pivoting to 2021 (clockwise from top left): raizen, wehr, paulson, swigert, anderson, stitely

‘clients still need us.’

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

keep calm and carry on.

that may be the best overall advice for the situation we’re in.

more in surveys & research: survey: a glint of optimism for 2021| accountants say: brace for a dismal 2021 | ppp client fraud: how much risk is too much? | ppp traps: 1 in 5 accountants report shady dealings | cloudy forecasts call for rainmaking

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and by “we,” we mean “everybody in the world.” because everybody’s got it tough. whether covid has touched close to home or not, its presence is impacting everyone.

but… how should accountants carry on? we asked. and you – the readers of 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 – delivered. adapt, pivot, focus on the client, watch your expenses – just a few of the themes gleaned from the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 business barometer.

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avoiding projects hung up in process

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businessman with fingers crossed behind backhow to climb out of “done but” hell.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

a project hung up in process is one when there is a disagreement as to the status between people involved in a project. 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: when clients create errors | how to reduce tax return errors | why your firm needs to attract more millenials | the fool in the room | the 3 biggest tech failures of accounting firms | wip-ing clients into shape | maximize your role as visionary
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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. by now, you know this increases wip and thus decreases turnaround time.
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when clients create errors

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one cause? taking us out of our familiar 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: how to reduce tax return errors | teaching the meaning of ‘done’ | why millennials are the answer | calculating and cutting turnaround time | debunking the demise of the cpa firm | how many tax preparers do you need? | how the annual tax meeting died | how to teach reviewing and time management | 4 steps to take before next tax season | 3 tips for handling rookie tax preparers
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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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19 ways to make reviewers happier

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bonus: they improve the firm for everyone else, too.

by ed mendlowitz
the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 practice doctor

question: how much time should a reviewer spend on a return in relation to the preparer time? our reviewers spend .75 hour for each hour of preparer time.

more: before you sell your practice | price your practice by gross | advising estate executors: the newbie guide to getting started | how’s your overhead? | envision your future, then plan for it
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answer: you are high and most firms i speak with are also high with an average time of about 24 minutes, or .4, hour.
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how to reduce tax return errors

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error stampedwe must turn unseen clients into human beings in the eyes of staff.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

i wasn’t initially certain this post was necessary. i covered a lot of material in my first book and other posts.

more: teaching the meaning of ‘done’ | how we killed the tax season client meeting | why small firms can win the talent wars | there are no easy answers | how to thrive as a 21st-century firm
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

however, last night my sleep was haunted by the ghosts of tax return errors past, present and future. i saw my coffin rolling down the chute to the cremation chamber. i was inside shouting that i had one more checklist to complete before my life was done.
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teaching the meaning of ‘done’

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angry boss in chair staring down at tiny businessmannot to be confused with the dreaded “done but.”

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

in my last book, as with this one, i recommended hiring younger staff. in that book, i cautioned that you might have to teach very simple tasks like breathing and using the bathroom to your newbies. m.g005e.com posted an excerpt with my advice.

more: how we killed the tax season client meeting | why your firm needs to attract more millenials | the fool in the room | the 3 biggest tech failures of accounting firms | 7 steps to effective project management | wip-ing clients into shape | the land mines in tax returns | give your people the resources they need | the right way to assign staff projects | workflow for dummies
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

one reader posted that she didn’t believe it was the responsibility of an admin department to teach bathroom use. she was new to this hot new writing technique called sarcasm. she did a great job making my point that you have to teach your staff a lot of really basic things.
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how we killed the tax season client meeting

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man working hard at office deskyep, there’s an app for that!

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

what did dorothy and her friends fear in the wizard of oz? “lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” dorothy feared the wrong things if she’s a partner in a cpa firm. we don’t see much wildlife in our offices during tax season unless you count fast food delivery people and the occasional crazy client.

more: why your firm needs to attract more millenials | why millennials are the answer | calculating and cutting turnaround time | debunking the demise of the cpa firm | how many tax preparers do you need? | 3 tips for handling rookie tax preparers
goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

we should really fear the events that destroy our priorities and drain hours from productive work. meetings and phone calls and emails, oh my! let’s look at why these communication methods are so destructive from a practice management standpoint.
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don’t get burned by these ppp pitfalls

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three ways to get it wrong and only have one chance to get it right.


^ click for video

by stephen nelson

over the last few months, i’ve answered hundreds of questions about ppp loans. and i’ve written a short e-book, “maximizing ppp loan forgiveness” for the accountants who will help small businesses with their forgiveness applications.

stephen nelson’s new e-book maximizing pp loan forgiveness is available through 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 directly from his website for instant download. |  more from stephen l. nelson

learn more here: new e-book: ‘maximizing ppp loan forgiveness’

goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

^ click for podcast

and, here’s an insight from all this frenzied ppp activity: big surprises await many borrowers.

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software saves the 2020 tax season

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survey says tax practitioners have never been so satisfied with their tax prep applications.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

what’s the best word to describe the infamous 2020 tax season?

brutal? infectious? interesting? perpetual? weird?

one word works for everybody: unprecedented. a pandemic. a lockdown. new legislation. new rules. federal programs. federal disasters. bankruptcies.

it seems the only thing that’s gone right is software.

the bottom line: tax practitioners have never been more satisfied with their tax apps.

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the forecast: partly gloomy, chance of doom

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almost three in four accountants now foresee a deeper downturn for the u.s. economy.

it gets worse: almost 25 percent of accountants forecast a “much worse” outlook for the nation’s economy over the next 12 to 18 months. and another 48 percent predict “somewhat worse.” (卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research)

busy season barometer:
how accountants are battling the coronavirus recession
join the survey. get the answers.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research

new 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 2020 busy season barometer results bear bad tidings for cpa firms, their clients, and their families. the forecast is not good. accountants know numbers, and the numbers they are seeing do not bode well.

more busy season 2020: busy season benchmarks in free fall | fiinal rs efiling stats: the end of tax season? | say hello to the new 24-month busy season | 9 big ways the irs could help accountants | the mystery of 10 million missing tax returns | tax pro e-filings down 20 percent | irs web traffic doubles over year-ago | covid drowns irs in new filings |   percent | irs web traffic doubles over year-ago | covid drowns irs in new filings | 2020 tax season comes to a screeching halt | the tax season 2020 dumpster fire | tax pros fall behind 6.2% in returns filed
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as the u.s. braces for a summer surge in coronavirus infections, the economy is crashing – with gdp down at an annual rate of 33 percent last quarter, and a 10 percent drop from the first quarter – the worst declines in more than 70 years of record-keeping. and new jobless claims in the latest week rose by 867,000 to 17 million.

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