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How to survive January

23rd Dec 2015
Brought to you by
ICPA

ICPA is a professional organisation for accountants in practice.

Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

Tony Margaritelli has some top advice on how to survive the January filing deadline

As we enter December two things begin to occupy our minds. One is Christmas, the other is the January filing deadline. One is enjoyable (hopefully !) while the second is another thing altogether.

I’m often asked for tips on how to survive the January meltdown and my best advice is to work throughout the year, targeting the usual suspects who are always late with bringing in their records. With these clients who can ‘bribe’ them with promises of a far better and more relaxed service, or ‘threaten’ them in relation to your fees and the upward direction in which they might go. However, all of that goes out of the window as soon as January comes, because what success this approach has had is history, and we are again faced with most likely our busiest month of the year.

So what are my tips for surviving? Here they are, and remember they are driven by the desire to get as much work completed and filed in one month as possible. But you may well think some will be good to implement throughout the year. So, as they say, in no particular order…

• Prepare a list of all clients with outstanding tax returns at the start of the month and make sure that you have a valid email address for the. If you don’t, phone and obtain one, and if they don’t have one point out that must get one. If they chose not to, then consider letting them go.

• Decide early on whether you are going to request upfront payments from these clients – and stick to your decision from the outset. If, under normal circumstances, your terms of business are to allow a period of grace from invoice to payment, but due to the circumstances you will insist on full payment by return or before lodging the files with HMRC, make sure this is fully detailed to the client.

• If you have decided to request full payment by return, and this has not been done when the return and accounts have been returned to you, then send a further email to the effect that the return will not be lodged until payment has been made. Remind them that if this takes place after 31 January then penalties will ensue.

• No correspondence concerning tax returns and/or the accounts to which the return relates to be undertaken by post – you simply can’t afford the delay and the possibility that Mr Postman may not deliver. It’s email only at this stage – and point this out to the client.

• Book no appointments to discuss or finalise accounts and tax returns in person in January. Make sure this is fully explained to the clients in email correspondence.

• Accounts and tax returns should be sent by email only via a secure document facility with an e-signature portal.

• Accept no new clients requiring accounts and/or tax returns for filing by 31 January in the month of January.

• Regularly check your email spam folder.

• Be specific as to when answers to your queries are required; point out that failure to respond by the given time will result in the work stopping. You have other clients. Remind them you will be invoicing them for the time spent to date.

• Always make the point that such deadlines are necessary as a direct result of their tardiness in providing you with their initial records, and that if they were only quicker…

Some of these may seem harsh; some of this may seem perfectly fair, but they have a place in January – it’s not a normal month, is it?

• Tony Margaritelli, Chair, ICPA

This article is taken from “Accounting Practice” the ICPA quarterly magazine. Dedicated to supporting and promoting the needs of the general practitioner. You can find us at www.icpa.org.uk or email [email protected] or by phone on 0800-074-2896.

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