frank stitely, author at 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 - page 2 of 9

who needs fall tax planning? clients … and you

avoid balance-due whining sessions and earn additional revenue.

you’ve surely had this conversation a million times during multiple tax seasons, most often in april. you give a client a tax return with a $20,000 balance due.

client: i didn’t expect to owe that much.
you: how much did you expect to owe?
client: about $5,000.

more: it’s ok to say no to clients (even the large ones) | control your time: avoid ambush meetings and calls | train your clients before they train you | don’t let clients dictate tax workflow | how small firms can win the talent wars | do you know your turnaround time?
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

here’s where my conversations may differ from yours a bit.

client accounting services

it’s okay to say no to clients (even the large ones)

working with “smaller” clients can often be more rewarding – and profitable – than “big” clients.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

there’s a reason you aren’t actively training clients to allow you to work efficiently. you’re afraid that you’ll lose clients.

i guarantee that you will.

more: control your time: avoid ambush meetings and calls | get clients to bring tax docs early … yes, early | why time tracking still matters | make fewer mistakes, increase revenue and capacity | six ways to create a millennial-friendly firm | do you know your turnaround time?
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

clients have trained you to be inefficient. they’ll resist retraining. some of them will leave and infect someone else’s practice.

the reason you fear losing clients is that you fear you can’t replace them.

humor

why business email is doomed

malware, ransomware, phishing and other hacker tools will make email obsolete.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

last year, the ceo of slack predicted the demise of business email in five years. i think he’s wrong. i think business email maybe has another two years. there are two obvious reasons why email has a foot in the technological grave.

more: control your time: avoid ambush meetings and phone calls | get clients to bring tax docs early…yes, early | you train your clients, whether you mean to or not | train your clients before they train you | why time tracking still matters | business owners face one of three exits | don’t let clients dictate tax workflow | make fewer mistakes, increase revenue and capacity | how small firms can win the talent wars | easy ways to avoid ‘done but’ tax returns | six ways to create a millennial-friendly firm | do you know your turnaround time?
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

first, spam killed the efficiency of email. how much time do you spend each day deleting spam? you can train your spam blocker, but professional spammers get through using variable email addresses and agreements with internet routing companies.
read more →

client accounting services

stop non-tax season service requests

"i know you’re busy, but …"

by frank stitely the relentless cpa

management

control your time: avoid ambush meetings and calls

how much time do you lose to pop-ins and unscheduled phone calls? get it back.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

ambush meetings and phone calls are unscheduled events. clients just walk in with a tax document and want to say, “hello.”

more: get clients to bring tax docs early…yes, early |you train your clients, whether you mean to or not | train your clients before they train you | why time tracking still matters | business owners face one of three exits | don’t let clients dictate tax workflow | make fewer mistakes, increase revenue and capacity | how small firms can win the talent wars | easy ways to avoid ‘done but’ tax returns | six ways to create a millennial-friendly firm | do you know your turnaround time?
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

this morphs into, “quick question while i’m here. …” fifteen productive minutes escape your life, which is really 30 minutes when you consider the mental time you need to switch back to the task that was interrupted.
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client service opportunities

get clients to bring tax docs early … yes, early

the secret? humor, sarcasm and shame.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

there are easy ways to get clients to do what we need them to do. in our office, we call the process “training” clients. one of our biggest headaches is the late delivery of tax materials. so, we train our clients to bring their tax documents in early.

more: you train your clients, whether you mean to or not | train your clients before they train you | why time tracking still matters | business owners face one of three exits | don’t let clients dictate tax workflow | make fewer mistakes, increase revenue and capacity | how small firms can win the talent wars | easy ways to avoid ‘done but’ tax returns | six ways to create a millennial-friendly firm | do you know your turnaround time?
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

we accomplish this through a series of e-blasts explaining our deadlines. the e-blasts start in december, and we call them “countdown to tax season.” they cover much more than our deadlines for clients to provide business and personal income tax returns documents.

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advisory & consulting

you train your clients, whether you mean to or not

if you schedule it, they will come. so … stop that now.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

as we all know, there is a definite cost involved in not training clients. let’s look at the training that’s occurring, whether you know it or not. it actually all boils down to timing.

more: train your clients before they train you | why time tracking still matters | business owners face one of three exits | make fewer mistakes, increase revenue and capacity | how small firms can win the talent wars | six ways to create a millennial-friendly firm | do you know your turnaround time?
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

here is an example of my stupidity.

i met with a client who was a software company executive. he had been a client for a dozen years, and people don’t get much smarter than he is. he drove from alexandria, virginia, to chantilly, virginia, every year. the drive is 20 miles and might seem like a 30-minute trip, but in northern virginia, it’s more like an hour.
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advisory & consulting

train your clients before they train you

taking unscheduled phone calls and meetings wrecks your bottom line and theirs.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

many of the behaviors you rationalize as good client service are just desperate measures to avoid losing bad clients.

more: why time tracking still matters | business owners face one of three exits | how small firms can win the talent wars | six ways to create a millennial-friendly firm | do you know your turnaround time?
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

however, clients are trainable – at least as trainable as jack russell terriers. that is to say they’re somewhat trainable. however, like jack russell terriers, you train clients or they’ll train you. somebody’s getting trained. here’s an example of how that works.
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management

why time tracking still matters

if your team dismisses timesheets as old school, you may want to rethink that strategy.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

because capacity is the denominator in the lean six sigma equation, and employee productivity is a big factor in capacity, employee productivity becomes a big factor in determining turnaround time.

more: business owners face one of three exits | don’t let clients dictate tax workflow | make fewer mistakes, increase revenue and capacity | how small firms can win the talent wars | easy ways to avoid ‘done but’ tax returns | six ways to create a millennial-friendly firm | do you know your turnaround time?
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

first, let’s dismiss all the consultants who tell us time tracking and productivity metrics don’t matter. for the most part, these consultants have never managed or owned cpa firms. rarely have they worked in firms for any length of time. they have never known the struggles of meeting payroll the first pay period in february, when employee hours are up but the tax season money is not rolling in yet.

here’s an example that shows why time tracking and productivity metrics matter:
read more →

management

business owners face one of three exits

expect to sell your practice? not if you resist change.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

in talking to firms from around the country, i realized there are three types of firms out there:

firms and practitioners that are sliding into retirement, whether they know it or not

firms that see the need for change, but don’t know where to start

firms that see a clear path to the future through better practice management

more: don’t let clients dictate tax workflow | make fewer mistakes, increase revenue and capacity | how small firms can win the talent wars | easy ways to avoid ‘done but’ tax returns | six ways to create a millennial-friendly firm | do you know your turnaround time?
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

since publishing my first book and launching my firm’s workflow and collaboration application, i have talked to practitioners from firms of all types and sizes. my cpa firm pursued a few acquisition opportunities. during the process, i learned there are a lot of practitioners who are either incapable of adapting to our profession’s 21st-century changes or unwilling to adapt. that’s okay, if you are making an informed choice to retire and don’t care about realizing much in value by selling your firm.

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management

don’t let clients dictate tax workflow

ask the right questions and stick to your processes.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

who makes the errors in your firm? staff obviously, but that’s half of the answer. clients are a major source of tax return errors. clients cause errors in three ways:

errors of omission

errors of commission

errors in attitude

more: make fewer mistakes, increase revenue and capacity | how small firms can win the talent wars | easy ways to avoid ‘done but’ tax returns | six ways to create a millennial-friendly firm | do you know your turnaround time?
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

every tax season, we finalize and deliver returns only to hear from the client, “i think i might have forgotten to tell you that we had a baby last year.” does this happen to you? this is a client error of omission. unintentionally, clients withhold important information.
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leadership

make fewer mistakes, increase revenue and capacity

tackle the four error categories.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

determining the workflow harm that errors cause should be second nature now. errors cause rework. rework adds to work in progress (wip) and, thus, increases turnaround time.

this happens in two ways: as wip increases, capacity decreases. it’s a double whammy.

more: how small firms can win the talent wars | easy ways to avoid ‘done but’ tax returns | six ways to create a millennial-friendly firm | do you know your turnaround time?
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

when a reviewer spots errors on a tax return and sends it back to the preparer, the preparer wastes at least 15 minutes, and probably more like 30 minutes, fixing the errors. the return then goes back to the reviewer, who spends another 15 minutes re-reviewing the return. we have added 30 to 45 minutes to the wip for this tax return. we know that adding to our wip numerator increases turnaround time.

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leadership

how small firms can win the talent wars

getting creative can bring in better talent and better clients.

by frank stitely
the relentless cpa

one afternoon, the partner group of our outsourced accounting practice met for a state of the practice meeting conducted by our director of outsourced accounting. our prior director left and we were looking for someone when one of our newbies asked if he could be considered.

more: easy ways to avoid ‘done but’ tax returns | six ways to create a millennial-friendly firm | do you know your turnaround time? | why hiring out of school works | leadership growth is a two-way street | quiet quitting: are employers culturally aware? | how to guide students into accounting | three strategies to keep emerging leaders engaged
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

the 25-year-old had one year of experience, and we were chasing a controller-type person. the whole outsourced practice was in shambles. revenue was nil and any clients we had were unsatisfied.
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