5 Productivity Tips to Help Your Firm During Tax Season

July 12, 2022

The past couple of years has been quite a rollercoaster for everyone, even for accounting firms. The recent economic turmoil has made CPAs extremely vulnerable and sensitive to the ups and downs of their businesses, especially during tax season. This is perhaps the busiest time for CPAs. If you want to be as efficient as possible with your work, here are some tips to help you maximize your firm's productivity during peak tax season.

1. Automation is Your Friend

Since the process of preparing, filing, and paying taxes is already tedious, you want to make sure that you are doing it in the most efficient way possible. This means simplifying your work, streamlining the process, and making sure that everything you need to prepare, file, and pay taxes is in one place and can be accessed efficiently. This includes setting up automated reminders and notifications for key tax dates, deadlines, and meetings.

Automating your firm's tax process also helps you create a chain of accountability that ties together each of your employees and their work. They will also have access to the relevant information they need to do their job without you having to micro-manage them. This will allow you to spend more time managing your firm, which will ultimately give you more time to work on your own business.

2. Streamline Your Work Processes

Having too many things going on at once is a recipe for disaster. It is like trying to manage a big business while trying to prepare and file taxes for that business. You need to create a work process that will work well for your business. Make sure that everyone in your firm is aware of your work processes so that everyone can work seamlessly together.

When you streamline your work processes, you also need to delegate your work effectively to your employees. Don't give them something you can do yourself. Delegate work to the person who is best suited to do it. This way, your employees will understand what work is expected of them, which will also make it easier for you to track their progress on the projects you've assigned to them.

3. Establish Routine Checks

It may sound cliché, but establishing routine checks is key to improving your firm's productivity. You can do this before your peak seasons and before the end of each year. You can monitor the quality of your employees' work and the overall efficiency of your firm. You can use this information to make the necessary adjustments to your business processes in order to improve your productivity during your peak seasons.

4. Practice Habit Maintenance

Everything you do at your firm has to be efficient and effective. Each of your employees has to do the same. This can only be achieved by practicing habit maintenance. You need to make it a habit for each of your employees to do their work properly. They will only do this if you reward them for it. If your employees see that you appreciate the work they have done, they will be motivated to do a better job the next time. This will ultimately lead to higher productivity.

5. Set Client Expectations

It is also important that you set client expectations. Let them know when they can expect your firm to finish their tax preparation. This will not only help your business stay on track, but it will also help you establish a good reputation as an accounting firm.

When you set client expectations and communicate them clearly, you lessen the chances that your clients will be disappointed with the service you provide. You should be able to clearly communicate to your clients how long their tax projects will take and what their expectations should be.

Conclusion

Getting your firm ready for peak tax season can be a daunting task. It requires a lot of management, but the end results will be well worth it. You should manage your firm effectively and efficiently if you want to get your clients' returns finished in a timely manner. If you want your business to succeed, then you need to keep your firm's processes optimized and running smoothly at all times.

If you want to be ready for the next tax season, a reliable tool to help you process all your work. Luckily, Firm360 brings you an accounting practice management software designed to streamline your accounting and bookkeeping workflow. This software can organize your tax documents and make them easily accessible with just a few clicks. Book a demo today to see how Firm360 can help you and your team be more productive.

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