Avoid the January Tax Return Chaos – Automate Your Requests and Reminders to Ease Your Workload

Happy New Year? For many accountancy firms, January is the most hectic time of year.

As the January 31^st deadline looms, once again your clients are suddenly rushing to provide you with last minute information as they realise they need to get their accounts in order and pay their tax.

Every year this happens and the only way to break this is through education and constant reminders and nudges sent to your clients to get the right records, receipts, documents, and information over to you, the accountant.

The issue of sending information over last minute probably comes down to Parkinson’s Law:

Parkinson’s law is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”.

“A whole year to complete a tax return? I have ages!” they must think.

Clients might keep their accounts up-to-date throughout the year, or they may just send you everything in one go and rely on you to do the rest.

So how can you have a more peaceful January in 2020?

Scare your clients with tales of fines?

Encouraging your clients to get their accounts in order earlier and keep them as up-to-date as much as possible all year round is an easy solution, but it might seem like a tough one to manage.

Even when you explain the possible danger of a late submission or payment, it can seem like it won’t happen to them. Continue reading...