this is the only way they’re handled.
by jody padar
from success to significance: the radical cpa guide
here’s the old-school way of completing 1099s:
cpa calls customer before year-end reminding them 1099s need to be completed for january. cpa reminds customer to send in names, addresses and amounts for 1099s to be issued. cpa waits for complete data, usually missing at least one address. cpa rushes at last minute to enter data in 1099 system and issue 1099s. cpas have multiple customers who act like this, creating havoc and late nights in january.
more on radicalism: how to develop productized services | dean quiambao: ‘if you’re not disrupting, you’re not doing it right’ | josh zweig’s liveca offers new thinking from the ground up | how ‘agile’ applies to cpa firms | our pain points are opportunities | transitioning to a radical firm: bringing a legacy customer along
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it doesn’t have to be this way!
many people ask me how we file 1099s. the biggest tip i give people is that there is only one way we do this. we don’t allow our customers to pay and file 1099s haphazardly. they are required to follow the rules, guidelines and system that we provide. we’ve found this to be the most successful.
- all our customers are on intuit payroll for accountants
- all our customers must use this system to pay contractors
- at the end of year, we confirm payments were made via intuit payroll for accountants
- print, mail and e-file only 1099s
- all created and filed by second week of january
you don’t have to use our exact system of 1099s to be successful; however, when the outside regulatory dates changed this year, our system didn’t miss a beat. why? because we had a process that our customers followed. they had to play by our rules.
1099s prepared the way we do take us minutes, not hours.
we file hundreds of 1099s in a day.
when we onboard a small business, we ask them about potential contractors. we tell them about how the payments and the process will work. we teach them the software, and we do this all during the year, not at the last minute.
small business owners adapt to our system, allowing us to build in capacity. this is why process and technology are so important.
we don’t give these small businesses a chance to tell us how they are going to do it. we give them a system that works.
we sold a productized solution of 1099s. if they don’t want to use our service, no worries, we just won’t prepare their 1099s. we have higher value work that needs to be done in january. we don’t want to be focusing on an administrative function because we don’t want to wear out our team. also, because our year-ends are already done, we can start business tax returns as soon as the software is ready.
we need to create productized services for everything. for how we sell and support payroll, accounting, tax, for benchmarking and dashboards, for forecasting, for the sale of a business, and yes, i think we can even do it for irs resolution.
all those things we used to sell at an hourly rate? we need to now create a process that includes tools, labor and pricing. it’s an all-inclusive package, so to speak.
when we do this, we can get our whole team understanding
- what we sell,
- how we deliver it and
- their part in the process/product.
we can become a more efficient and effective firm. team members will also become better at selling because they completely understand the result. it’s hard to sell something that doesn’t have closure. it’s easier to sell a result or solution.
this is why many midsized firms are having a hard time moving away from the hourly model. they haven’t redefined their paradigm. they haven’t thought of themselves as product managers.