how to onboard your new client.
by jassen bowman
upon securing an irs collections representation engagement, as a result of your marketing and sales systems, your next step is to actually onboard the client and get to work.
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tax debt cases are unique from many other types of engagements because not every case has the same starting point. each case is unique enough that it requires a specific assessment of the additional services, such as tax preparation, bookkeeping, payroll, etc., that may be required, as well as an assessment of where the case currently sits within the irs collections process.
in order to prevent me from missing important steps, and to increase operational efficiency, i have long conducted business through the use of checklists. my client intake process is no exception to this.
to get started working on the client’s case, i first need to ensure that i have the proper paperwork completed by the client:
- signed power of attorney (irs form 2848)
- signed tax information authorization (form 8821, only if needed for staff)
- signed service agreement (engagement letter)
- signed payment authorization (including all payment dates and amounts if not being paid in full up front)
- any recent notices or letters from the irs and/or state revenue department
if you have administrative staff at your firm, one person should be designated as responsible for verifying that this paperwork is signed and completed. then, each form needs to be routed to the proper place. for example, the 2848 and 8821 must be sent to the irs centralized authorization file (caf) unit for processing. payment authorizations must be routed to your accounts receivable department, and so forth. this is all a broader piece of the new client intake checklist.
next, your process needs to include a set of initial actions that begin the process of researching the status of the tax debtors’ irs (or state) tax accounts. this will usually involve a call to a revenue officer, if one is assigned, or to the irs practitioner priority service (pps) hotline in order to request transcripts and other information. this process is faster than waiting a week for your 2848 to post to the caf and then pull transcripts via eservices.
also very early in this process, you’ll want to verify all contact information with the client, and make sure that important contact numbers, email addresses, and fax numbers (yes, fax numbers, even in 2017!) are accurate. while the irs moves slowly, when they do move, we need to be able to communicate with clients quickly in order to lob the ball back over to the service’s side of the court as rapidly as possible in many situations.
the next steps in our client intake process involve gathering financial information from the client. often, this is the most painstaking part of working with these clients. it’s not uncommon for them to have incomplete, or event non-existent, business and personal financial records. this is often part of their overall reason for having a tax debt to begin with. they may also be resistant to providing this information, despite the fact that it is absolutely critical to obtain a resolution on their behalf.
let me share with you two “tricks of the trade” that i frequently use with clients to help them overcome both of the aforementioned difficulties.
first, to overcome the resistance to providing information at all, i always explain to clients that they need to think of the irs resolution process like a loan application. in effect, by not paying taxes, they defaulted on an obligation to the government. now, we are making a loan application in arrears to determine eligibility for what basically amounts to a “loan program,” since the vast majority of tax debts are resolved through a monthly payment plan. i’ve never had a client fail to understand this analogy.
second, to facilitate the collection of client financial information, i like to apply the “spoon feed method.” with this, i will call the client every day and request one specific piece of information. for example, call them on monday and ask them to log in to their online banking system while you’re on the phone, pull down three months of bank statements, and upload them to your secure portal. on tuesday, do the same thing with their recent mortgage statements. on wednesday, have them walk out to the garage and pull vehicle registrations from all the cars and scan them, while you’re on the phone.
i like to have all client supporting financial documents into my office within 14 days of them hiring me, and this spoon-feeding approach often works well to accomplish this.