Tax Season. Two-words guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of even the most battle-hardened CPA. Luckily, we reached out to some of the leading experts in cloud accounting to find out their top tax season tips.
Here we present our first four, in a series which will run throughout January and early February.
This is key for setting team expectations and prioritization throughout Tax Season.
David Cristello, Founder and CEO, Jetpack Workflow
When you’re really busy, it’s easy to make mistakes or miss deadlines. So do yourself and your team a favor and keep it simple.
Pricing is a great practice area where you can try this out. For instance, simplify your model so it’s easy for anyone on the team to price out add-on type services for clients. That way you as the partner or manager don’t have to do it.
Let’s say you’re filing 1099s for clients. Rather than billing based on time and expenses, consider fixed fee, tiered pricing based on the number of 1099s, assuming that you’re doing the books and clients are providing the vendor data. You could add a markup if you also have to gather W-9s from vendors.
Here’s an example:
1-25 forms — $250
26-50 forms — $500
50-100 forms — $1000
Add a markup if firm must gather W-9s from vendors: 1.5x
Blake Oliver, Manager, Consulting OFA, Armanino LLP
While it’s a sensitive subject, some clients just aren’t beneficial for your firm.
You need to identify which clients are “D clients.” A first step is finding these D Clients, the ones that you or your staff really don’t want to work on. It’s a great way to provide some levity for your tax practice.
Start by running a report on your 1040 clients – some will be obvious to banish. Running these reports should be an easily achieved priority, as the lowest 10% should be the obvious ones to banish from your practice.
These are the D Clients, and practices should either raise their rates, or have them go elsewhere.
Darren Root, CEO, Rootworks LLC
My top tax season tip for CPAs to consider is staffing for business development. While I understand this is your busiest time and you can’t imagine taking on more clients and workload, this is also the highest demand period for your target demographic to be searching for a new firm to work with.
So rather than miss out on those opportunities and then look to firm growth in May or June, plan accordingly and either free up 20% of the Managing Partner’s time to dedicate to engagement opportunities, or hire someone to handle your sales & marketing efforts.
When it comes to growing a business, client-centric organizations that recognize their customer demands rather than work on their own seasonality will lead the pack.
Kacee Johnson, MBA, Founder, Blue Ocean Principles
Find out how Receipt Bank can help you save time and increase your profits this tax season.
Whether you work with small businesses or Schedule C clients, we have a tailored solution for you. Click below to sign up for our webinar and learn more.