2018 Tax Returns
A note from Paul
This year has been really strange for me in preparing for January and completing over 160 Tax Returns in one month. A Challenge that I was prepared for and it was 60 less than last year!
Today is 25 January and we have 9 left to do which hopefully will be down to zero by the end of today!
Waking up this morning I thought how on earth did we achieve this and how am I so chilled about it, I have come up with four key reasons that we have achieved our goals.
Practice manager
We employed my daughter Jade as practice manager during this year and next to Jenni, she is probably one of the only people that can sort me out. Jade said that I was not going to do all the returns on my own this year and that we have to spread them around the team.
Jade has also worked relentlessly on getting our systems into place and her devotion to getting Karbon into a great working tool has been second to none.
Jade split the returns and shared the work load with all of the team.
Jade has seen the stress in past years that I have put myself under and wasn’t going to let it happen this year. She is also in charge of onboarding and will not let the last minute “don’t want to pay” person take up our time. Filtering out the clients that just do not work for us has been a real challenge for me to say no, but Jade has done this so well.
Apprentices
Over two years ago we invested our time and faith in the apprentice scheme and this month I have seen both of our apprentices shine. They have both gained level 3 of their AAT and have worked hard and learnt a lot this last month.
The rest of our team have all stepped up as well and really worked hard to reach our targets whilst getting on with their normal work load, all managed by Jade using Karbon.
Systems
For anyone that knows me, whilst I preach about systemising your business and put robust systems in place for our clients, I am the best person to mess my own up and go outside the system.
Karbon has been such a great system for us and we can all see our own progress during the month with regards to our work load and Jade has already planned year end accounts to the end of July!
Four months ago we changed our Tax and accounts software and have really tested this new software to the limits, and it hasn’t let us down.
Some people said why not change this in February when demand is not high, however the decision to really use it in anger during our busiest period has worked very well. It is amazing how quickly a problem gets sorted out and we move on.
Business Coach
Yes we are business advisors and we do coach our clients as well as make there lives easier with great systems because life is too short to do your books.
In my opinion all businesses need a coach and we are no exception, I will write another Blog on our use of coaches and what to look for later; I did not think we needed our latest coach and she also thought we were well sorted by our very public image in our industry, how wrong we both were!
I use Heather Townsend of Accountants Millionaires (I am not one yet!!) and she has guided me in many ways, that until now (6 months later) I hadn’t really appreciated, sorry Heather.
Heather recommended our change in Tax and Accounts software, huge saving In monthly fees over £800 per month! Insistence of investing in a practice management solution (Karbon). Guidance on the issues of employing your daughter who is as strong headed and stubborn as me.
The guidance from her team and the ability to allow me to focus and empower my team is exactly what a coach should do.
Now looking forward to growing the business in 2019 and building on our fantastic dedicated team.
