auto-nagging isn’t always enough.
by frank stitely
the relentless cpa
one of your roles as ceo is chief traffic cop. you keep the flow of returns moving along the information superhighway that is your workflow system. you manage the managers. you remove process bottlenecks. you soothe irritable clients.
more: the land mines in tax returns | how to teach reviewing and time management | 4 steps to take before next tax season | some uncommon advice on hiring full-time staff | what goes into a client project? | the value-pricing con job | the 21st-century cpa firm | ruthlessly efficient workflow management
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i live in 15-minute increments during tax season. there are four things i do over and over and over again:
- start the return process by assigning returns to staff
- review and send questions to clients
- perform the secondary review of returns
- communicate with clients
lather, rinse, repeat. over and over again for three and one-half months. it sounds pretty boring to be me. boring is good during tax season. boredom means the office is functioning at a peak level. i have had a few minutes of terror over the years. i’ll take boredom any time.
traffic management means monitoring the overall health of your workflow system. you should be reviewing project statuses at least twice per week during tax season. this means:
- identifying returns lost in process
- prodding clients to answer questions and approve draft tax returns
- prodding managers and preparers to stop returns from aging
- prodding your admin staff to get returns in progress and finalize returns on the back end
let’s take a look at these four traffic management tasks in detail.
identifying returns lost in process rescues client relationships. nothing angers clients more than the april conversation that goes as follows:
“hi, ed. are my returns about done? will you make the deadline?”
“hi, jane. let me check on this and get back to you.”
you run down the hall flailing your arms and shouting, “who has jane’s file?”
nobody answers. jane’s file is the very last one you find after going through every scrap of paper in the office. it hasn’t been started yet. you pick up the phone and call jane.
“hi, jane. we’re almost done with your returns, but i’m not certain we’ll make the deadline.”
“ed, you’ve had my information since the last week in february.”
jane is the daughter of your biggest client. so, you personally pick up the file and work yet another 14-hour day. this was a return lost in process. you had no idea where it was or its status.
it’s your job as traffic cop to head off this situation. if you don’t have a good project management system, you are out of luck. using the “piles of files” project management method caused the disaster above.
if you can’t see project statuses in a few seconds, you will continue to have those awkward april conversations.
returns lost in process have some common characteristics. you are looking for projects for which the status of the project doesn’t make sense. for instance, you remember that joe answered your questions a week ago, but the status still shows as waiting on answers.
normally, this means joe didn’t answer all of his questions, but he likely thinks he did. don’t directly resolve the situation. check with the preparer why the return hasn’t advanced. it’s the preparer’s job to let you know items are still missing. then you can contact joe and let him know you still need information. this is a perfect example of your thinking the return is in one status and the client thinks it’s in another.
next, look for returns that have been in a status for a longer time than usual. for example, if you have a return that shows it has been in the initial scanning stage for a week, you likely have a return lost in process. the return likely was scanned by admin, but the status never was changed in your project management system. thus, admin thinks it’s been sent to the preparer, but the preparer doesn’t think it’s ready to start. contact your admin people and ask why the project has been in scanning for a week.
check your project list from top to bottom at least twice a week to identify potential projects lost in process.
find these returns before they age more than a few days unnecessarily. i look at my project list one preparer at a time. i may have 500 or more projects in process in late march. breaking the list down by preparer makes reviewing the list less depressing. i then send one message to each preparer or manager asking about specific return statuses.
each of these top-to-bottom project status reviews takes about an hour but saves many multiples of that time by preventing clients from ambushing me in april when i don’t have the time for scavenger hunts like finding jane’s file in the above example.
during my twice-weekly project status reviews, i prod clients to answer their tax return questions and remind them to approve draft returns. our project management system has an auto-nagging feature that sends email reminders to clients about unanswered questions and unapproved drafts. however, some clients need just a little extra attention. so i post notes in our system for individual clients that go something like this:
“fred, please pretend to be a responsible adult and answer your questions. you’ve had two weeks to get your dog’s social security number. if you don’t get it to me, you won’t be able to claim lassie as a dependent.”
clients aren’t the only human beings who need occasional prodding. during the project status reviews, i also prod preparers, managers and admin staff to get returns moving that threaten to age to the point of social security eligibility. one-minute goal settings help minimize the need for prodding, but shockingly some people don’t always meet their goals.
cattle prods are unfortunately illegal. my attorney friends tell me that tasers are a legal gray area.