Software to manage deadlines?

Didn't find your answer?

Just wondering does anybody know of any software of how they manage deadlines for year end accounts, confirmation statements, sole trader accounts, RTI deadlines etc for all their clients?

Or what do you all use for your client list? Excel?

Currently we are manually checking it but some sofware would really help us

 

Any advice would be appreciated!

Replies (14)

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Little Miss Accountant
By Kajutka26
19th Feb 2018 09:48

Dear Anonymous,
I would suggest Inform Direct or other system adapted to your company needs.
We use both :)

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By SteveHa
19th Feb 2018 09:58

I can see why this question is overly sensitive requiring anonymity.

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By andy.partridge
19th Feb 2018 10:02

I have an answer for you but it would blow my anonymity so I'll just have to keep it to myself.

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ALISK
By atleastisoundknowledgable...
19th Feb 2018 10:47

We have all of our jobs planned through Glide, which has both every deadline and target date.

Whatever software(s) you're using for each of the different things should raise the deadline.

For example, TaxCalc tells me when accounts/tax returns are due, Moneysoft tells me when RTIs are due, Xero with VAT Returns and I'm about to sign up to Inform Direct which will tell me about CSs

NB this isn't the sort of post that require anonymity, it will just get some people's backs up. We've all asked plenty of questions about software before - me about 6 in the last 3 months! Anonymity is for something sensitive like "I think I've broken the law", "Am I helping commit tax fraud?" or "I'm buying a / selling my practice..."

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Replying to atleastisoundknowledgable...:
James Byrne
By jamesbyrne
20th Feb 2018 12:44

AccountancyManager manages all your deadlines automatically once you have completed the initial set up (with a little help from the Companies House integration).

You shouldn't need to monitor all your deadlines through 4 different software packages!

Not only that, but it automatically reminds your clients of deadlines, when to send their records, what records to send, when to pay their taxes and how much tax to pay (and much more).

If you are looking for a comprehensive software in which all new developments are driven by customer feedback, AccountancyManager is the solution.

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Replying to jamesbyrne:
Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
20th Feb 2018 13:58

James - it's best in these sort of posts that you declare an interest.

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By free-rider
19th Feb 2018 10:58

Previously I used Inform Direct for all Ltd clients to track year ends, CSs etc., but have now changed to Work tool in QBO for Accountants. Now use ID only for a few clients whose CoSec side involves more than just CS01 and dividends paperwork.

QBO allows you to set up projects, tasks and requests for the clients and also set a recurrence intervals so does the trick very well! The only downside I can think of is that Work tool is not available on the app (not like I use the app often anyway).

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Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
19th Feb 2018 11:47

Whilst I use and love Taxfiler & Informdirect, which both have built in features to help you keep track of deadlines and the state of play on some compliance work, I use Trello as a generic planning, management and deadline watching tool.

I've looked at lots of accountants' management apps, which are great, if you can find the one that best fits how you want to work but apps like Trello allow you tailor them to exactly how you work, plus have loads of links to other apps that you can use, so, in my case, it links to my gmail and calendar.

Another plus over accountant designed apps is that it's free and I used it as such for several months, till I wanted to add some more stuff and so I now pay £5 a month I think.

Just thought, I could have posted this question as Anonymous, to avoid all the dipsticks having a go about how stupid I must be not knowing this at my age, but then I face similar from another (or even the same) bunch...ho-hum

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Replying to Paul Scholes:
By chewmac
20th Feb 2018 21:05

Hello Paul, you've got me very intrigued by Trello. I've been looking at YouTube reviews etc - I just wonder if, briefly, you might outline how you set-up your boards, cards etc.

If possible I'm looking to manage client lists by fee list, admin like LoE's, AML admin, on-boarding etc. Also, things like recurring accounts / VAT or payroll tasks - eg. requested info, processed payroll, emailed client, submitted FPS etc.

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Replying to chewmac:
Teignmouth
By Paul Scholes
21st Feb 2018 09:15

Hi chewmac - as I said, you decide how you configure it and what add-ons (Power-ups) you enable. Other than having boards with lists of cards on them, the rest is up to you.

The way I do it is to have one board per clients and to have cards on the board that match what I do for them, so I have a list of cards for Accounts work, another for tax returns, bookkeeping/VAT/Payroll, resources and general.

The main accounts prep & tax return cards have a checklist of stuff and are colour coded so I can quickly see all Accounts or tax returns currently on the go on my "all cards" screen.

Other typical cards are the annual AML checklist, Client take on, Statutory, TAX/Divs reviews, Engagement/Invoicing. Every card can have any number of checklists and a due date and mine create calendar entries as well as email prompts. They can also record all emails, folder-links, attachments, websites etc etc to do with that topic.

Any card can be archived or copied (I do this annually for the main cards) and you can drag and drop them onto other lists or boards or just move them up their list.

Any task that arises say from an email that you want to keep a separate track of (ie a tax question from a client or accounts info collection that's got a life of its own) can be created from the email and you can set a due date and colour code from the email as well.

I also run a couple of boards for my own admin and resources for things like annual quotes, software renewal/support issues and GDPR.

Although I've only done it once with one client, you can also build teams of people and share boards/cards and discuss stuff by including their @name in a comment on a card. This would be great if I still had staff.

It's also how Trello builds groups of collaborators over new features and power-ups, ie discussing how they use them and extra features and you can become a member of as many as interest you.

With regard to getting lists of cards (ie tasks), other than a screen of my cards in date order, I don't need them as I now have so few clients but you could if you wanted set up your Trello to make lists easier plus there are lots of Power-ups that enable you to create lists, add to-from dates etc etc. There will always be a power-up out there to enable you to use it as works for you see https://blog.trello.com/

Similarly, even though I don't need it (my clients are well trained) you can get power-ups to send auto prompts and reminders to people.

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By Matrix
20th Feb 2018 21:25

If you just want to monitor deadlines then I also recommend Glide, it covers all deadlines and is inexpensive and can be tailored to your requirements. We also use it to retain basic client data so everything is in one place.

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By chewmac
21st Feb 2018 11:34

Very interesting and helpful Paul, thanks. I'll have a go as suggested. I've been looking for a more centralised system to take over from my spreadsheets.

Thanks too Matrix - I had a quick look but at £39pm Glide is simply too expensive for me as sole-practitioner.

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By Georgina Rollings
21st Feb 2018 19:39

We use Inform Direct to track deadlines for confirmation statements and statutory accounts and come to that to manage the majority of our Companies House filings. Their customer support is excellent.

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By RAE Business
22nd Feb 2018 09:42

Hi, At RAE we use Inform Direct to track all company secretarial deadlines, and accounts filing deadlines and as we always file corporation tax returns at the same time as the accounts, then corporation tax as well. We now have over 160 companies that are monitored by Inform Direct. The team at Inform Direct are always very prompt at dealing with queries, and we get a great service.

For RTI we use a spreadsheet, but we don't do many payrolls so it is sufficient for our needs.

Internally, as back up, we do have an excellent Access database of all our clients deadlines, but we're lucky as one of director's is a bit of whizz with Access.

Self assessment is monitored by spreadsheet, which again is adequate for monitoring when we send out the information request, when we have the information returned, and the date we file the return. We use both tax filer and the HMRC software for filing self assessment returns, so the spreadsheet keeps an overall check on all our self assessment clients.

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