3 lessons learned.
by ed mendlowitz
call me before you do anything: the art of accounting
one time i was reviewing a time run and noticed a certain staff tax person, elliot, kept appearing on clients he wasn’t assigned to and i wondered why.
more: what’s your negotiating style? | why tax time is the best time to get new business | becoming a ‘media star’ | don’t pass up opportunities | why we train on excel, word and adobe | stop pricing by the hour | getting by giving back
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.
when i asked the people in charge of those clients what elliot did, i was told that they either needed a tax question answered or some research done and asked him to do it. elliot was one of the younger people in the tax department. i wondered why they asked him and not the tax manager.
i was told that they asked the manager a couple of times and got no response. everyone said they then asked elliot, who got them the answer quickly.
this gave me two valuable insights: 1) elliot was respected by his peers and became their go-to person for tax questions. 2) the tax manager was not responsive to the needs of the accounting staff. it appeared he only gave his attention to what he thought were “important” issues on clients he was directly involved with.
lessons learned were
- to not underestimate any staff person,
- to be aware of how staff interact with each other and
- to make sure managers understand what their role is and that they, too, need mentoring.
an added comment: i found this through analyzing the time run. i know many firms simply toss away their timesheets. i wonder how this would have been uncovered if we were not using timesheets.
i believe this information would have eventually been uncovered, but in this instance it was through the timesheets. proponents of not using timesheets contend that it is more than simply not recording hourly fractions. it is a pervasive management technique requiring a greater awareness of the value
provided to a client; a clearer and tighter definition of the scope of the work; and closer oversight of staff performing the services. these are admirable ways to manage and should always be done regardless of the use of timesheets.