Provisional Accounting Blog

Some love it, others dread it, but either way, the busiest season of the year for tax professionals kicks off on Friday, January 31. If you’re in the tax preparation business, it’s time to rest up now, as your schedule will be pretty hectic through April 15^th.

Whether your firm is relatively small or larger in size, it’s important to properly prepare for tax season, to keep your clients satisfied and coming back again next year.

Four Tips to Effectively Manage Tax Season
As a tax professional, you want your firm to be crazy busy during tax season. While the early mornings, late nights, and time away from friends and family can be frustrating, you know it’s only for a short period of time.

Surviving tax season can be a lot less stressful when you have an effective plan in place to keep the flow running smoothly. Here’s how to do it:

• Provide Proper Training: If you’ve adopted new forms of technology to handle this year’s workload or have added new members to your team, it’s essential to provide a training session to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing.
• Streamline Administrative Processes: Sometimes it’s okay for your staff to do things their own way, but during tax season it’s not. Create a set of processes and procedures your team must strictly adhere to with each client. This can include not starting work for a client until they’ve provided all necessary information, setting rules for handling missing information, and making sure same person who starts a return also finishes it.
• Assign Returns Appropriately: Put your most experienced staff members on the larger, more complicated returns. You don’t want to risk a mistake by a younger staff member or have your experienced workers constantly have to stop what they’re doing to help them tricky questions.
• Don’t Forget to Communicate: Proper communication between your employees and your clients and internally, within your staff, is imperative for success. Make sure you’re on the same page with client needs and expectations, as mistakes can be costly and time consuming.

Looking for temporary workers to add to your team during tax season? Contact Accountingpros Recruiting + Staffing. We have a network of skilled accounting and finance professionals eager to help out during your busiest time of the year.

Many CPAs have decided to add financial planning to the list of services offered to clients. It’s a great way to expand your horizons and differentiate yourself in the field. Your clients may already rely on you for advice on financial matters and some even prefer the assistance of their CPA over a Certified Financial Planner. In fact, a study conducted by CEG International found that more than half of wealthy citizens are likely to seek financial services from their CPAs.

Excelling as a Financial Planner
Clients won’t take financial advice from just anyone. If you want to sell yourself as an excellent CPA financial planner, it’s important to know what people are looking for. This includes:

• Trustworthy.
  Without trust you’ve got nothing. When it comes to money, if your clients feel like they can’t trust you, they’re not going to want you managing their funds. As a financial planner you have access to their private, personal information, so make sure people feel comfortable with you.
• Solid Team of Experts.
  Clients don’t expect you to know everything. In fact, they’re more impressed when you can admit you’re not an expert at something, but can easily find someone who is. When you surround yourself with a solid, hardworking team, people feel like you’re equipped to handle all their financial needs.
• Strategic Thinking.
  Having an ability to think outside the box really impresses clients, as this allows the possibility of coming up with a more efficient way of doing things. When you can make a person’s life easier or save them money, you’ll have one very satisfied client.
• Hard Worker.
  A good financial planner gets the job done, but a great one really takes the time to examine a client’s finances to make sure they’re maximizing their earning potential.
• Excellent Communication Skills.
  To keep a client on a long-term basis, one must be a great communicator. It’s important to really listen to the questions, concerns, and goals of your clients to make sure you’re leading them down the path they want to be on.

Working as a financial planner is a huge responsibility that comes with great rewards. Knowing you’ve helped your clients to reach their financial goals is a wildly satisfying feeling.

Ready to take on a new and exciting challenge in the accounting field? Contact Accountingpros Recruiting + Staffing. We offer guaranteed access to more professional accounting job opportunities than any other Northwest employment service.

It’s never been easy managing a team of accountants varying in age from early 20’s to mid-60’s and beyond. However, the generational gap between the aging Baby Boomer population and the emerging group of Millennials ready to take over the workforce has never been more apparent.

Younger workers grew up in a world of technology, where they never had to use an eraser or change the tape on their adding machines. These employees will never know what it’s like to wish there was a way to automate an accounting system, as doing things manually is now a thing of the past.

Three Ways to Bridge the Generation Gap

Helping older and younger accountants meet in the middle may seem like a somewhat daunting task, but it’s definitely possible to do so. Follow these three ideas to bridge the generation gap at your company:

• Promote Mutual Respect.
  There’s often a barrier between older and younger employees, even when the two groups want to find common ground. It’s important for younger workers to respect their senior peers for the years of valuable experience they’ve gained working in the field. Conversely, older employees must also respect the new, innovative ideas brought by younger workers.
• Allow Different Generations to Learn from One Another.
  The two generations really have a lot to learn from one another. The on-the-job experience a person gains from a long-lasting career is irreplaceable. Younger employees need older workers to serve as their mentors, guiding them to success. However, younger employees are extremely tech savvy and have a whole crop of fresh ideas to offer, proving there really may be a better method of doing things than how the company “has always operated” in the past.
• Let the Younger Generation Have a Voice.
  In the past, younger workers were intimated by senior management and were willing to silently do as they were told. This is no longer the case, as today’s crop of young people expect their voice to be heard. Companies that listen to what they have to say will build loyalty and a team of employees truly invested in the company, while those who continue to operate the old-fashioned way will likely not be as successful.

Getting older and younger staff members to work together as a team can help your company achieve its goals and create a succession plan. Accountingpros Recruiting + Staffing is here to help you build a successful team. One of the top Seattle employment agencies, we have a network of skilled accounting and finance professionals ready get to work at your company.

There’s no better time to start fresh than the beginning of a new year. Now that 2014 has officially arrived, you’re probably working hard to create a plan for success this year.

Starting the year off by hiring new employees is an exciting way to foster success. A larger staff can make your business more productive and allow for the generation of many new and innovative ideas.

Three Tips to Effectively Manage Your Workforce
Before beginning to add to your workforce, it’s important to assess your company to make sure you have a plan in place to effectively manage both your new hires and existing staff members. Use these three tips to better manage your team in 2014:

1. Create a Positive Work Environment.
   Your company is only as strong as the employees behind your brand. It’s important to keep them happy, so they value their jobs and enjoy coming to work each day. If you don’t already offer perks like paid time off and flexible working arrangements, consider implementing these changes in the new year. Managers also play a key role in an employee’s level of job satisfaction, so make sure everyone in these leadership roles has received proper training on effective management techniques.
2. Provide Proper Training.
   Make sure new employees attend a new hire orientation to get them acquainted with your company values and what you stand for. Additionally, it’s essential that each person is thoroughly trained on how to do their job. Not receiving proper training can lead to frequent and expensive errors, as well as levels high employee turnover. It’s also important to realize that training doesn’t end at orientation ─ workers should constantly be given the opportunity to enhance their skills, even those who have been in their jobs for years.
3. Open the Lines of Communication.
   People are more excited and engaged in their work when they feel like their opinion counts. Listen to what your employees have to say and work with them to set goals that encourage personal and professional growth. Showing people that you value their thoughts and are invested in them as a person creates asatisfied workforce.

Ready to start the new year off right by finding hardworking, talented staff to fill open positions at your company? Contact Accountingpros Recruiting + Staffing. One of the Seattle’s top financial and accounting employment agencies, we have a network of skilled professionals ready to join your team.