Mary Lundstedt, Checkpoint News
Background
After tax season, prioritize rest and personal time to recharge. Then, tackle essential non-technical tasks to improve your practice, streamline your workflow, and enhance client satisfaction for the upcoming year. This article provides tips and tricks you can implement in your practice to reflect on how this past busy season went, celebrate successes, and make improvements for a great year ahead.
Hold an After-Tax-Season Review
Consider conducting a post-busy-season review with your team to discuss what went well and what can be improved. When identifying areas for improvement, focus on understanding what happened, how, and why in order to create a plan to prevent similar issues from arising in the future.
To get the best results, begin with an idea of what you want to understand. A good starting point could include the following questions:
- Do you have an example of something that was successful and/or something that failed?
- What obstacles prevented you from meeting your goals?
- In what technical areas did you feel you or others could use more training?
- Is there a tool or aid that would help you accomplish your tasks better?
- What was the most difficult part of this tax season?
- What parts of our process could be changed?
- Should there be a change in the order that certain steps are completed?
- Are there parts of our process that could be eliminated?
- How effective was communication between all team members during tax season?
- Which organizer items did clients consistently answer or respond to incorrectly?
Tip: To encourage honest feedback, consider conducting an anonymous survey before the meeting or using online collaboration tools that allow real-time anonymous posting.
Key Performance Indicators
The after-tax-busy season review is a great time to look at some key performance indicators, determine which were favorable, which need improvement, and ways to improve. Some performance indicators to consider are:
- Number of each type of return (Forms 1040, 1065, 1120S, 1120) completed by a specific date or dates.
- Average number of days to complete a return, starting from the day client data is received.
- Total hours worked by each staff level.
- Number of days from invoicing to collection.
- Number of returns reassembled due to firm error.
- Number of returns transmitted electronically.
- Number of extensions filed.
- Average number of days returns wait for open items.
Depending on the key performance indicators you identify for your practice, this might involve looking at time reports, workflow software reports or billing reports (utilization, realization, days to collection). Any feedback from clients should also be included.
Appreciate Staff
Don’t forget to express gratitude to your staff for their dedication to clients, long hours, and hard work. Encourage your staff to take a well-deserved break, reconnect with family and friends, and recharge. Show them that you are committed to their continuing tax education and to the success of their careers at your firm. Tax talent is in high demand and replacing staff can be time-consuming and expensive.
Get feedback from staff on the encouraging or motivational practices that worked well, or that didn’t work at all. Some items to consider:
- What incentives in the firm kept you motivated during the long busy season hours?
- What non-monetary recognition boosted your mood in challenging situations?
- Consider nominating employees for workplace superlative awards in such categories as: most supportive team member, most innovative thinker, most likely to continue their workout routine through busy-season, most helpful software problem solver.
Consider Building a Practice Niche
Based on the filing season that just ended, you may realize you have certain client matters you enjoy working on more than others. Or you may find that you’ve developed a group of clients in a particular industry. Either way, you might want to carve out a niche practice in that area. By establishing your firm as an expert in a certain area or areas, you can build a reputation and bill higher rates for your expertise. You can target your marketing to potential clients in that industry, showing them that you really understand the tax and nontax issues they face.
Once you identify the clients you want to focus on, you can determine who in your firm will be serving those clients and line up some continuing education for them. Or, if you already have the expertise, think about mentoring younger staff and encouraging their interaction with clients.
Review Processes and Technology
Now is the ideal time to assess your tax and accounting software’s performance over the past few months. If it did not meet your needs, consider making a change before the next busy season arrives, which for some practices may be as early as August for returns on extension. Switching software can be challenging, but acting now will save you from greater headaches later. In addition to tax preparation software, you should evaluate how your document management systems, client portals, and data security protocols worked during tax season. Just like you do with your tax prep software, now is the time to make any needed upgrades or changes that could streamline and protect processes for next year.
Safeguarding client data is crucial to protecting the reputation of your firm and your clients’ assets, and it’s the law. Professional tax preparers are required to draft and implement a data security plan for their practice. During a busy tax season, sensitive tax and financial information has an increased opportunity to be casually passed around or exposed to administrative staff, other tax professionals and non-essential employees. Your firm should review and reflect on any close calls or areas for improvement when it comes to protecting private client information. IRS Publication 5293 provides information on how to safeguard taxpayer data and provides recommendations for drafting a data security plan.
Client Retention and Expansion
Now is a good time to look for ways to maintain and strengthen client relationships. Most clients want to hear from you throughout the year, so maintaining regular communication after tax season is a great way to keep them happy.
Hint: You can send the client letters and handouts included in your Tax Action Bulletin Newsletters to clients, potential clients, and referral sources.
Since busy season is over, you can identify clients that may be looking for other services, such as estate or financial planning or business consulting advice. That’s great value-added work you can do right now.
Consider Severing Firm Relationships with Troublesome Clients
Once the tax season ends, it may become clear that some client relationships no longer align with your firm’s values. Some clients consistently exhibit behaviors that impact your firm’s efficiency, reputation, and your staff’s overall well-being. You should consider whether it’s time to let clients go when they exhibit the following behaviors:
- Chronic late submitters – clients who need to be reminded on numerous occasions to submit required tax documentation and refuse to extend their tax return due date, cause unnecessary stress and disruption to workflow.
- Questionable business practices – clients who engage in practices that expose the firm to heightened risk, like overly aggressive tax planning, unethical behavior, or non-compliance cause risk to your firm’s reputation.
- Demanding and rude behavior towards staff – clients who treat your staff disrespectfully create a toxic work environment that impacts your team’s morale and productivity. This type of behavior should not be tolerated.
Do a cost-benefit analysis. Assess whether the revenue generated from servicing troublesome clients justifies the cost, both financially and emotionally, of doing business with them. Severing the relationship with troublesome clients can be handled professionally by being respectful, but firm, by avoiding blame or confrontation, and by referring these clients to another firm.
Spend Time on Marketing
Be sure your website is up-to-date and engaging. One way to do that is to post frequently on topics your clients and potential clients will find useful. Your messaging to clients and potential clients will be more compelling if you identify the target market(s) you want to serve and make sure you demonstrate to your targets how your firm can address their specific needs and concerns. Engaging on social media platforms is another way to set your firm apart and demonstrate your expertise.
Conclusion
The break after busy season is a well-deserved opportunity to recharge. Analyzing the previous season and implementing improvements is an investment in your firm’s future. By taking the steps outlined, you can pave the way for a smoother, more efficient operation, ultimately allowing you to focus on delivering exceptional value to your ideal clients.
Editor’s Note: The full article presented above is available in the Practitioner’s Tax Action Bulletin, as Tax Action Memo (TAM-2316), Issue 8, first published April 22, 2025, along with other valuable tax practitioner articles. Contact Our Sales Team for a Subscription to Checkpoint’s bi-monthly Practitioner’s Tax Action Bulletin, which is available in print, and online or to add Thomson Reuters Planner CS to your advisory toolkit.
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