Is it just me, or do all of you spend half of your January answering questions like "have you included such and such on my tax return", "can you let me know the payment details", "when do I have to pay by" etc. (not to mention the unrelated "why have YOU charged me so much tax?"!). I've taken to just telling them to go and read the letter I sent them (very politely of course). Am I providing a rubbish service or is this what you all tell your clients in these circumstances?
"Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he can eat for the rest of his life...."
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Tee shirt
I am sure we can all empathise.
A partner informs clients when they ring or email asking these types of questions that they have already been answered.
Do the clients want an additional fee for duplicated service?
He has not lost business by this seemingly blunt answer
At the time the return is finalised a well worded letter and schedule of explanation is provided to clients in an attempt to avoid interruptions to work flow during January.
Clients do worry and the regular reports or information adverts in the press, can raise concerns in their minds. Isn't that the objective? So some communications are working!
So let clients know that a good professional service has been provided and that they should have confidence in their advisor.
Of course there is the old maxim
Tell them once
Tell them twice
Tell them again
By the end they could be brilliant fishermen. And apostles for your practice!
Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day
Teach a man to fish and you give him an excuse to sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
Some clients just can.t remember
Hi
I think some just work differently. I have client who responds better to instant chat on skype for example than email. I had a client today who sent be pictures of all the chq stubs by text.
I really don,t mind as it gets me the info.
I don,t get stressed about it. I just put down in my practice system which they prefer. I have many clients who send texts rather than email. They are the type that are always on the go.
So it could be that they don,t like letters and I sure there plenty like that around. Send the letter as an email and PDF it for your records and request a read receipt.
Texts
How do you keep copies of all the texts Sarah? My builder client texts but I still email since I need a trail.
If you're on Android, you can
Re Minnie136's comments about texts.... If you're on Android, you can get an app that syncs your texts with a Gmail account. I use SMS Backup+ and all of the texts (and phone call details - number and duration) appear in my Gmail inbox. The texts appear as a conversation all linked together.
Various apps
There are various apps - many of them free. I use "SMS Backup & Restore" on Android.
clients not reading letters
I called a client the other day to ask if he had received the company accounts and corporation tax return, which I sent to him at the beginning of November, with a covering letter explaining which copies needed to be signed and returned to me.
He said that he had received the accounts but had thought they were just for information...
A day or so later, he e-mailed to say he could not find the accounts or tax return, so I had to send the whole lot again.
I would understand if it was remotely unclear what action was required by the client, but I think some just never read the covering letter!
10 weeks and going concern review
Why wait 10 weeks
Put a clear action date at head of letter
My letters.... Email attachments in fact... Give clear time constrained dates for acknowledgement and action
I note these are company accounts
A going concern review is required 12 months beyond the approval date
This requirement itself should concentrate all minds
Back in the day when everything was by post , I would include a stamped sae with the accounts, this worked remarkedly, stuff would be back by return.
Simple techniques to reduce administration time were applied, clients pay our wages, but they can often be feckless with paperwork. We found simple ways to help them help us. We also informed them why documents were sent in a particular way and what we expected of them as clients . Fixed fees and competition concentrate the mind.
Indeed when advising clients on their own business efficiency and profitability we would cite our processes and systems, which they saw in action.
I
Just the Same
I was only reading a few days ago that if you carefully read all the terms and conditions - and revised terms and conditions - that suppliers send you, it would take around a month out of your life every year. So I can see from where clients are coming.
It's true
I was only reading a few days ago that if you carefully read all the terms and conditions - and revised terms and conditions - that suppliers send you, it would take around a month out of your life every year. So I can see from where clients are coming.
A generation ago, if you wanted to mislead someone you would give them too little information. Nowadays you overload them with too much.
iExporer Texts, Voicemails,call history, exp to client files.
Hi
I use an iphone but I am pretty sure android will have something similar. We keep a trail in the following way
We keep and export using iexplorer are texts , Voicemails , Call History and export them to client files. A 5 User Licence is £47.60 2 Users is £34 and one User is £23.80. It is worth every penny.
We use text a lot with our clients.
I use iExplorer from http://www.macroplant.com/ it transfers your texts, voice notes, voicemails and many other things to your PC or Mac so that you can keep a trail.
Here is a video for any one interested. I did get worried about the trail years ago as so many of my clients where using text.
I do find clients respond to our texts as a reminder to their emails. As you mentioned earlier some of bullding clients do nothing but text. It seems the only way they can communicate.
Video Link about how it works . There is a small fee but I think it is worth as I use my phone heavily.
http://www.macroplant.com/iexplorer/features/export-iphone-messages-voicemail-contacts/
Look at it from the client's point of view
I too, like the OP, get wound up by clients who don't RTFL.
On the other hand, Lionofludesch is right: they think they've got better things to do. We could say that accounts and tax returns are important, but so are my teeth to me and that doesn't make me any more likely to read something my dentist might send me (not an exact analogy, I know, but you get my point).
For certain clients, I think the best way to view a letter is not as a means of communication with them but as a form of indemnity where we can say "I assume this" and "Please let me know if this isn't the case" etc etc
Every time I buy a property…
My solicitor sends us the same set of letter that is 99% standard text that does not need reading and 1% that does! Somehow as the client I am meant to be able to pick out the 1% that is not the standard txt.
Maybe if accountant and solicitor letters did not contain so much “back covering” text, the important bits would be read and acted on.
Try adding action postit notes, that you sick on and just have a one line request of the action you wish your client to take.
Yes..
My solicitor sends us the same set of letter that is 99% standard text that does not need reading and 1% that does! Somehow as the client I am meant to be able to pick out the 1% that is not the standard txt.
Maybe if accountant and solicitor letters did not contain so much “back covering” text, the important bits would be read and acted on.
Try adding action postit notes, that you sick on and just have a one line request of the action you wish your client to take.
I'm sorry, you don't read what your solicitor sends you when you buy a property?! Well good luck with that!
When I send my clients a letter I want them to read it all - it is all important. Other than an engagement letter they are rarely more than two pages long, and I do now bold-underline-red the bit telling them how much to pay HMRC and when by, but I'm not keen on doing so since it encourages clients to think as ringi does, that most of what I've written can be ignored. I'm a bit more tolerant with personal tax clients, but in my view company directors should remember their responsibilities!
The issue is that there will pages about the need to insure the property, the same about different types of joint ownership etc. Likewise explaining the need for each search etc. All of this is information I already know. Last time it was about 1 inch of paper!
Out of this there would only be 3 or 4 sheets of paper that contains anything that is DIFFERNET about this property from the others I have brought.
It could be improved if the solicitor produced some standard information booklets that clearly shown the last date they were updated, and had a useful change history.
dog and bone
many moons ago - almost 30 years.. my old boss would send a sae with anything he wanted signing and sending back. It worked well.
These days we email pdfs to clients, but try wherever possible to phone them to let them know what is happening. That works well for 99% of clients. Then there are the odd few that wouldn't respond if you nailed it to their skull.
For the few that we post things to, as much as I dislike it, we put yellow stickies on the relevant bits.
When we used Drummohr one of the reports of standing data had the word 'blind' in the details that I asked clients to check. If they didn't query the word 'blind' I would ask them to check it a bit more thoroughly.
I am a bit loathe to include 'slept with your wife' in the notes to the accounts - as I wouldn't know if it should be tagged for ixbrl...
iXBRL tagging
Related party transaction? I am a bit loathe to include 'slept with your wife' in the notes to the accounts - as I wouldn't know if it should be tagged for ixbrl...
I am reminded of a (possibly fictional) story of a man who attended lots of Hollywood parties and wished to prove no-one really listened to anyone else at them. On arriving, he greeted the hostess with "Sorry I'm late. Strangling my aunt took longer than I expected." to which she replied "Not to worry. So good of you to come."
Roll over relief?
Related party transaction? I am a bit loathe to include 'slept with your wife' in the notes to the accounts - as I wouldn't know if it should be tagged for ixbrl...
Possibly 'Roll over relief'
Related party
Related party transaction? I am a bit loathe to include 'slept with your wife' in the notes to the accounts - as I wouldn't know if it should be tagged for ixbrl...Possibly 'Roll over relief'
Make sure you meet the related party definition before unnecessarily disclosing.
Not reading things properly...
... is the problem.
Most people simply don't read things, and don't expect to have to. They expect to be told what to do. I blame the parents. And the schools. But that's another rant.
I'm a bookkeeper, and in the course of sifting my client's paperwork, I see a lot of letters from accountants which have a page of 'what we've done and why', and then a line at the end of the second page which says what the client needs to do next.
People simply don't read that far, especially when the first page is full of technical speak.
I try to write to clients (email or letter), in the form of:
(1) Greeting (2) Action (theirs) (3) Reasons why (which they can read/understand or not as they think fit)
and to only include one action per correspondence, as they'd never get as far as the second one.
It's how they've been educated
You're dead right about not getting as far as the second one. Another thing that's winding me up this week is sending a client four simple questions in an email and knowing for sure that they will probably only answer one of them and definitely never ever answer all four. Why????
Nothing bad ever happens to anybody who doesn't do things properly at school so they have learned that it doesn't matter. They may complain that they don't get paid enough and respected enough at work but it serves them right.
The twitter effect
You're dead right about not getting as far as the second one. Another thing that's winding me up this week is sending a client four simple questions in an email and knowing for sure that they will probably only answer one of them and definitely never ever answer all four. Why????
Today, people are used to having everything dumbed down into tiny "bite sized" pieces like Twitter comments, so their brains are used to doing one little thing at a time. Add to that people read emails on their smart phones, so may not scroll down to see a second or subsequent point - again because they're accustomed to a short text or email or twitter comment.
It starts at schools. I'm constantly amazed at how they drip-feed tiny bits of information at secondary school. They must be setting the lessons and class progress to the lowest ability level. They don't even allow the more able kids to get ahead, as instead of text-books, they do handouts which means you don't know what's coming next and can't get ahead even if you wanted to. In sciences, the experiments they do are "simple" to say the least - spend an entire lesson doing just one simple thing and then spend the next lesson doing it again with a slight addition - when they could have done it, and more, all in one go!
I noticed it a while ago when emailing clients, I'd often ask a few questions and get a crazy tiny response such as "OK" - when I re-read my email, I saw that they'd just got as far as the first sentence and answered that only! Now I have to force myself to email or text in tiny chunks - ask one question, wait for an answer then send another question, etc. Sometimes it's the only way to get any sense out of some people!
Not just email though either. I often send a query letter to the not-tech-savvy clients, usually the older generation who'd have us believe were more thorough, but the same happens, you ask for a particular document and they send you something completely different, or you ask a list of questions and they write back answering half of them and completely ignoring the rest!
Quick start sheet?
I find that when I buy electrical stuff these days there is the full instructions, which sometimes have to be downloaded from t'internet and a 'quick start sheet'. Maybe solicitors and accounts could try a variation of this!
Care with email
We use texts to prompt for action. Email often fails in this regard. If you are explaining about higher rate taxes and payments on account etc, you need the length of an email to do this. However, it is obvious that with most clients it doesn't register.
Now I write short emails on one topic and start with the one item they need to do. From my example above. Tax Payment would be the email heading and the first line would be "You need to pay £xxxx to HMRC by 31st January to HMRC Shipley for Self Assessment". Subsequent paragraphs would explain the basis of the calculation and ask for confirmation when it is paid. We would then follow this up with reminder texts until we know it has been paid.
Exhausting, but it works!
No offence but ....
..... how many of us actually read everything that's sent to us by our suppliers ? Click on every link to terms and conditions sent to us ?
None of us.
The problem is suppliers trying to reduce their clients exposure to paying compensation.
I send out engagement letters because my Institute (pretty much) insists on it. However, I prefer to avoid being sued by doing a good job, rather than having exclusions to which I can point.
Maybe I'm just a bit old-fashioned .............
There's a difference
between reading every bit of terms and conditions (or any of it) and reading a letter or email which is obviously asking questions or asking you to do something.
Well, I think it's different. Some people might not!
A Fair Point
between reading every bit of terms and conditions (or any of it) and reading a letter or email which is obviously asking questions or asking you to do something.
Well, I think it's different. Some people might not!
Fair point. I do try to tailor my letters to my audience.
However, I do shy away from
"Dear Simpleton
Sign this where the X is.
Do not confuse the X with your signature.
Do not confuse the X with inappropriate familiarity"
as I believe this could offend.
One good format is to use two columns.
In the left hand column are “one line” summaries and required actions. The right hand column contains all the details of the “whys and what iffs” that relate to each one.
So for example if someone need to pay £650 on account, the left hand column will say pay HMRC £650 before the 30th Jan, and the right hand column will explain why and how to make the payment.
Make also put a icon next to each action item.
This is the problem
You would get the best responses if you tailored each communication to the individual client.
That would mean you would have to categorise them through the spectrum from idiots to sensible!
Indeed
You would get the best responses if you tailored each communication to the individual client.
That would mean you would have to categorise them through the spectrum from idiots to sensible!
Ha ha - you're right, Peter. I'm going to call it the Saxton Scale.
ixbrl
ok, so that's 'related party transaction' in the accounts - although will probably to include some numbers for the period under review. - and 'roll over relief' in the comps. all sorted.
a week
You haven't been on this site a week.
Nobody cares what you say.
You obviously are unhappy if you get your thrills like this.
Yawn, not again.
To me every time a client phones me it's like a cash register bell ringing
That's the voices in your head.
Your clients
Really this an a honest question. Why do most of you treat your clients as idiots when they ask stupid questions or do not read what advice you give them. To me every time a client phones me it's like a cash register bell ringing because they want an answer and I can charge them for giving the answer no matter how stupid the question is.
I really hope that at least one of your clients stumbles across this thread when searching for "accountant overcharging" (or similar) and reads some of your comments.
Is it unreasonable to expect clients to read?
Why would you think like that? I always believed that an accountant must share reasonable and useful information with cilents.You chose the mode of communication always which suits you and your cilent.
I have a client who is such a pain (i must insist) that he would easily get on anyone's nerves (i am sure its not just me) In our initial meeting,I remember him saying ''I am an MBA.Could you guide me in how to prepare my company accounts and tax return? I replied to him that ''I wish I could give you some tips BUT do bear in mind that it can be dangerous.Its like I ask you that I can do your job simply tell me few bits and I am ready to go ! He bursted into laugh (i know he was embarrased).Anyways,I did give myself another thought before i signed him up that if i am taking a student on board rather than a client.I believe now that i was correct with my gut feeling.
Since than,he has always bombarded me with new questions and queries almost every day now.I do feel sometimes that he is in more contact with me than his wife.
He sent me following email last year:
I am fine to submit my tax return and tax credits myself for 2013-14 but need your help to fill out blank (?) items. I would like to know how you calculate my net income and how much Child/Tax Credits I am eligible for.I am happy to pay you £50 for this service as I also need to pay you again for self-assessment/Corporation Tax and VAT.
I had to write such a long reply to him later on.
Competitive
He sent me following email last year:
I am fine to submit my tax return and tax credits myself for 2013-14 but need your help to fill out blank (?) items. I would like to know how you calculate my net income and how much Child/Tax Credits I am eligible for.I am happy to pay you £50 for this service as I also need to pay you again for self-assessment/Corporation Tax and VAT.
That's a very competitive fee.
.
He sent me following email last year:
I am fine to submit my tax return and tax credits myself for 2013-14 but need your help to fill out blank (?) items. I would like to know how you calculate my net income and how much Child/Tax Credits I am eligible for.I am happy to pay you £50 for this service as I also need to pay you again for self-assessment/Corporation Tax and VAT.
That's a very competitive fee.
The best bit is the client setting the fee.