Hi tax community! I work at a small firm (6 staff, 3 senior preparers, 2 junior) and we have grown quite a lot over the years! We run our main business through people just bringing us their papers, old-school style. Over the years though, we have a lot more emailing going on. Part of the issue is people sending us things in bits and pieces, or sending us some things via email and other things dropped off. We have a process for dealing with full email clients and an automatic reply during tax season (we MUCH prefer people call in). I am looking for some strategies for managing all the emails. The increase is taking up so much of our valuable prep time, and a lot of the questions are not ones our admin/junior prep staff can answer. Then there’s the constant stream of “What’s this notice all about?” “Where’s my refund?” “What do you need from me this year?” “Should I sell off these shares?”… as you all are familiar with. We send them a concise and informative mass email every year outlining what to bring, tax changes, and timelines, but they don’t seem to read them. We just are in desperate need of strategies to deal with the quantity we are receiving, especially during tax season! I thought I’d ask here to see if our community has any strategies I’m missing!
Welcome to public accounting. Buckle up and settle in because it won’t stop, and you will struggle to control it for the rest of your career. Enjoy.
The best advice I can give you is to tell the clients directly to keep everything in 1 piece.
Agree that public accounting brings with it lots of unbillable time.
I am one person office, I use folders in Outlook to handle emails, I use client track portal --when clients actually use it, I use client track to track progress and status and as everyone does… I have piles here, there and everywhere.
I find that a response to a complex question does take time… and if required /possible I will ask the client to schedule a time to discuss their particular issue. I do state that although I do not invoice for every minute, I cannot be responding to complex emails, texts and have meetings without invoicing. Often this is enough to stop the annoying questions.
Where is my refund… refer them to CRA 1-800 line, what do you need… yes I quickly pull up last year and send in point form this is what we had last year.
Also as I repeat myself… I have found it useful to save snippets in word and copy/paste. I do not use mass email as my client base doesn’t read it. Hope this helps, I have been in solo for almost 23 years technology has not made it easier… just different.
We call those piles “waiting for parts”… a phrase stolen from my mechanic. I have learned to tell clients that I will not begin work on their return until they have everything. The exception being financial statements or farm statements… I encourage clients with business statements to bring the information and documents relating to their business in February so I can complete the statements.
We encourage people who like to send their documents electronically to use TaxFolder. I open an engagement, they upload all of their documents and when they are finished uploading everything they hit the “I’m done button” which lets me know I can start on the engagement.
If a client wants to communicate via email and sends me more than 3 emails containing tax documents or slips I ask them to go back and send everything in a single email or there is a chance their documents will get lost.
Medical expenses can be a killer. We strongly encourage all clients to get year end print-outs from all of their healthcare professionals. We don’t add up or scan those little “prescription squares” unless there are only a few of them. I don’t need to know which clients are taking viagara or this year’s designer drug… ozempic.
“Quick Questions” are those that can be answered with either a Yes, No, or How long is a piece of string?. Credit goes to my good friend Joe for the piece of string. Anything that requires anything more than a simple answer needs to either be billed or the client needs to offer up some of their time to me. Cut my grass, shovel my snow, or help me cut firewood. I’d prefer they offer up their time rather than their money.
Unless it’s been a very long time between the client collecting their paperwork and their NoA being received I don’t think I get many people asking about their refunds.
I charge high fees to include all that rigamorale. Tax Return fees start at $200/return and go up from there. I also don’t tend to start files until all the information is there. It’s all collected in Verifyle and my admin assistant watches the message threads to answer basic questions and remind clients for info if the client said something was coming but they haven’t uploaded yet.
I’m wondering, @rachelavryl, what your snippets in Word are for? I also have some snippets that I use in emails when people ask about things like principal residence exemption, vehicle expense deductions, and tuition transfers (among a number of them).
I have some TaxCycle email templates I use for asking questions or request more information, asking the client how they’d prefer to get the tax return, telling them to setup an appt, etc. I like that feature of TaxCycle.
The whole issue of how we get information is important. We all get way too many emails, I get texts, people drop off paper, or they call and leave a message with whoever answers the phone. Managing the collection of those sources is a huge issue.
This year, my top snippets are:
Use of home requirements now that $2/day is not available
Statement that this year CRA, does NOT have all the slips available for download. RRSP contributions are a big one and that clients MUST bring / send all of the slips they think they should have
Please go to University website student portal and download the T2202 in PDF format, the link doesn’t work as I don’t have access.
In NB… One time tax free NB Workers Benefit… application link and requirements.
This changes year to year for me.
Thanks for expanding on that. I had something similar in my email signature. Now my email signature just says if your T1 comes in after April 17, it might not get done by the deadline. I have two boxes of those so far.
I forgot the golden rule… don’t waste your time sending clients detailed correspondence thinking you are going to make anyone’s experience smoother or easier (including your own).
NOBODY reads anything longer than a tweet.
It seems as a society our attention span suffered the same fate as common sense. 
Thank you all for these suggestions!! This definitely gives me some more ideas!
#Client Documents
#Client Communications
#Client Correspondence
#Client Emails
Effective client communications and client document management has been and remains as my biggest pain point in tax preparation. I have tried many solutions and systems and have found that one size does not fit all. Each tax preparer and tax preparation firm will have to chose their own path.
Since 1999 to current I have migrated my own process from all paper to all paperless within my own firm. Although I still accept paper based client I retain only scanned copies of their documents. I have stopped trying to get my clients fully organized. I found their sweet spot and with that or part ways. Instead, I am focused on keeping myself, my accounting firm, and all my clients documents organized and systematized with standard naming and standard document sets.
As far as client procedures are concerned, for each client we specify the following:
- Documents - all paper, all digital, or combination.
- Communications - in person or remote by phone or email, etc.
- Initial onboarding - email attachment, Dropbox synch, Google Drive link, drop-off/pickup, Canada Post, etc.
- Client review - email, phone, text, etc
- Document cutoff date for on-time filing
- Signatures - physical, scanned, e-sign
Things that have not worked for me in the past for various reasons:
e-Courier
Various accounting portals such as Citrix ShareFile, SmartVault, etc
Various accounting apps such as DoxCycle, etc.
Various practice apps
Accounting Focus
With some regret since I love personal tax, I have moved my focus away from personal tax preparation and filing to small corporation bookkeeping and tax to retain my mental sanity and financial and physical health.
Accounting Firm Goals
#1 Refine my ideal client for each service.
#2 During the next three years continue improving and refining clear guidelines and standardized operating procedures and workflows for all offers to reduce confusion and stress and improve profits.
#3 I will try something new for the next tax system to share documents and to manage client communications.
Some Final Thoughts
@snoplowguy
I concur with snoplowguy.
"…don’t waste your time sending clients detailed correspondence thinking you are going to make anyone’s experience smoother or easier (including your own).
NOBODY reads anything longer than a tweet.
It seems as a society our attention span suffered the same fate as common sense."
@anitaval
Please share with us what any insights, fails, wins, and ideas that you may think is helpful.
This year I’ve changed my process completely. I have around 95% of my clients giving me slips electronically so this year I set up a new system. My yearly letter starts it off then when they say they are ready I send an engagement letter for them to sign. Once that is signed a questionnaire is sent automatically asking then the common question I need answers to start the return. It also allows everyone to upload their form into the questionnaire so I have everything in one place. I do not get it in my workflow until they have completed the questionnaire. Then I start and the client get regular emails about the status of the return. Have I had problems , a few but overall clients are responding well to it. I started using TaxDome so I could do this within a secured upload area