firms need to look at the busy season as a stepping stone, while their clients are focused on taxes and accounting more than any other time.
here’s why you need a business development strategy in busy season: read more →
if you don’t ask, you can’t know. if not now, when?
by jean marie caragher
the 90-day marketing plan for cpa firms
tax season is the perfect time to identify cross-selling opportunities, strengthen client relationships and ensure client satisfaction.
consider asking your clients the following 14 questions this tax season. you may discover a new gold nugget of opportunity: read more →
receipts, refunds still running higher than last year.
tax professionals e-filed about 18.47 million returns through feb. 13, 2015, down 2.6 percent from the 18.95 million returns e-filed by the same time in 2014. read more →
by ed mendlowitz
tax season opportunity guide
providing instructions of what a client needs to do must be clear enough so that the client doesn’t call you to find out what to do.
sometimes taking an extra minute to lay out what the client should do can eliminate that call or indecisive moment a client might feel.
read more →
it’s a long season. make it a happy one.
by ed mendlowitz
tax season opportunity guide
if you have staff, have happy cheerful helpful people. don’t surround yourself with downers and naysayers.
also have team players. part of this is your firm’s culture. it takes work to get people to work together and to focus on doing what it takes to service the client fully, properly and timely. everyone working together gets it done.
to most of us, this is busy season. but to a marketer like jean marie caragher, it’s opportunity season. caragher, author of the 90-day marketing plan for cpa firms, offers three simple strategies for leveraging practice-building opportunities while also promoting tax returns. 1. … continued
39% year-over-year increase in first weeks. next question: the accountants outlook for busy season 2015. join the survey; get the answers. tax professionals e-filed about 5.9 million returns through jan. 30, 2015, up 39.1% from the 4.2 million returns e-filed … continued
use these busy days to get to know your clients better. with a few quick questions, every client meeting can turn into a new relationship-building opportunity. ask how the firm is doing as a whole to assess satisfaction. ask some … continued
how many of these do you need to fix in your firm?
by ed mendlowitz
how to review tax returns
clients have many choices, including the choice of a tax preparer. every new client an accountant gets is because that client left – fired! – their previous accountant.
here is a listing of 21 major reasons why clients switch accountants. ask yourself how many of these mistakes you could correct immediately and think about what that might be worth. read more →
five traits of the best tax season managers.
by ed mendlowitz
how to review tax returns
reviewing tax returns is a key part of tax preparation. it also is an area vulnerable to major bottlenecks and backlogs. inevitably, firms have more preparers than reviewers. the latter are highly skilled professionals who are more difficult to train or find. therefore, you must consider ways to reduce review time, even at the expense of adding preparer time.
the best tax season managers know how to: read more →
feeling overwhelmed? here’s how to combat it.
by sandi smith leyva
the accountant’s accelerator
the exact solution to managing your “overwhelm” level will depend on what the source of your overwhelm is. you can also be suffering from more than one source of overwhelm.
here are five tips to help you manage the most common sources of overwhelm.
five reasons this is the wrong time to take your eye off the ball.
firms need to look at the busy season as a stepping stone, while their clients are focused on taxes and accounting more than any other time.
here’s why you need a business development strategy in busy season: read more →
4 ways the new breed of workflow application can simplify your tax season.
by roman h. kepczyk
quantum of paperless
the most important aspect of transitioning the firm’s tax process to a digital environment is managing electronic files that are no longer physically viewable in assorted stacks around the office. this requires a digital tax workflow system that lets everyone know the status of every return and easily connects that person to digital copies of the return and the source documents. under traditional manual tax systems, firms utilized due date tracking databases that identified when a return was due, but not what information was missing, or the preparation, review or extension status.
no, coffee is not one of them.
by sandi smith leyva
the accountant’s accelerator
busy season is just around the corner. can you feel the excitement? or the dread?
here are eight ways to boost your stamina and minimize burnout for those of you who are working long hours in the weeks ahead. read more →