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Sunday evening

24th Mar 2013
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I took a flight from Edinburgh today and I am back in London. I left my Clients4life book on the plane! I had highlighted some key aspects I needed to reflect on. I will order another copy today.

It is a cold Sunday evening. I want this week to be far better than previous 3-4 weeks, Better from productivity and getting to the office earlier aspect.

For one reason or another I have been getting to the office about 10.30ish. When I am late the day is just not the same. I feel guilty and my productivity slumps. In addition it does not set a good example to my work experience person.

What's on the agenda for the week?

1) Determine what I have to do ie chargeable work.,

2) Plan the work

3) Been slipping on responding to client emails - respond on Monday! Clients are my business!

4) Plan for the next few months, work, practice management and marketing

5) Fridays for Practice management only

6) Gym at lunch time

7) Scan, recycle or action pile of post on my desk. I normally deal with this straight away. It has been odd few weeks.

8) Chase outstanding fees. Well only 2 clients. They are okay.

9) Need to make short term, medium term and long term plans.

Client work will take a priority this week. Everything else can be left to a later date.

I so hope I am able to cycle to work tomorrow and the rest of the week. It would just set me for the day.

What are your plans for the week?

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Replies (14)

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By petersaxton
24th Mar 2013 20:23

16 company accounts

I have to do 16 company accounts by Sunday night.

At least I should get good cash flow in April!

Aren't you signing up with TaxAssist this week? Don't forget that!

 

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Replying to Duggimon:
Man of Kent
By Kent accountant
24th Mar 2013 20:29

16!!!

petersaxton wrote:

I have to do 16 company accounts by Sunday night.

At least I should get good cash flow in April!

Bloody hell!!  Better get off here and get on with it :)

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Replying to Maslins:
By petersaxton
24th Mar 2013 21:36

It's not as bad as all that

Kent accountant wrote:

petersaxton wrote:

I have to do 16 company accounts by Sunday night.

At least I should get good cash flow in April!

Bloody hell!!  Better get off here and get on with it :)

I mean NEXT Sunday!

and three of them are at or near the TB stage already

and 4 others don't have a lot of transactions

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Man of Kent
By Kent accountant
24th Mar 2013 20:28

Plans

Set of accounts and CT600 to get across to client for approval tomorrow.

Need to get two other sets of accounts to review stage.

Finalise sole trader cessation accounts and goodwill valuation

Also reviewing new practice software this week - decision time.

 

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FT
By FirstTab
24th Mar 2013 22:01

Peter
How many hours do you work in a week? 50+ ?

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By petersaxton
24th Mar 2013 23:04

It's difficult to say

Maybe 60

It's a lot easier though because I can walk downstairs from my bedroom straight to my office

I may get up at 6 o'clock or even 4 o'clock but if I think I've overdone it I might go to bed for a couple of hours during the day

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By Sarah Offord
26th Mar 2013 21:41

Have you ever read...

How to be a productivity ninja? I highly recommend it as a way of managing workloads, scheduling etc.

My schedule for this week included three sets of full accounts, one of which my biggest client. I still haven't started as I have been faffing about looking at offices. Ho Hum!

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Man of Kent
By Kent accountant
26th Mar 2013 22:46

Working day

@Peter took a leaf out of your book yesterday, didn't get much done 9-5, sat down at 8pm managed to clear a load of e-mails and then got started on a set of accounts round about 10pm.

Fairly straightforward, I do the bookkeeping  and vat returns so know all the detail - by 2.15am draft accounts and CT600 in outbox ready to email to client first thing.

Felt good to get that done and dusted - client approved them today and I'll get paid next week.

If only it was like that all the time!

Next set of accounts is more time consuming, think I'll plan it tomorrow and get it done over the Easter weekend.

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By petersaxton
27th Mar 2013 00:28

Plan

Hopefully I will get all the company accounts done this week by 31 March. Then I will concentrate on annual payrolls for March and payroll year end plus about a dozen clients that need to be done soon. Then I will be chasing 31 March 2013 accounts and 5 April 2013 personal tax returns. I'll make more phone calls this year. Emails are easier to ignore. As soon as I get the data I will do the work and have a fast turnaround. This will mean:

No looking for paperwork or spreadsheets. I get it and do it!

No stress. No work piling up!!

Good cash flow!!!

Relaxing December and January!!!!

I'll post how things progress here https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/group/client-management

I'd be interested in knowing what works and what doesn't work for everybody.

 

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avatar
By User deleted
27th Mar 2013 13:58

Every Monday at 8.30am ...

... I sit down with my week beautifully mapped out.

Every Monday at 8.45am some [***] phones/e-mails/texts and ...

... the best laid plans and all that!

Eek, where's the cheese!!

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By FreddieZonko
30th Mar 2013 14:02

Work plan

Hi First Tab

I always find myself more productive if I do a work plan for the following day before I close down in the evening rather than doing one first thing in the morning. I don't know why it works but it gives me a different mind set. For me it also works for the weekend social activities and chores.

BWs

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By petersaxton
01st Apr 2013 10:35

The result of having 16 company accounts to file in a week

I did have to do other stuff as well like payroll, meetings, emails and phone calls!

I also did amended the personal tax returns for the directors as well in the cases where I had to estimate the dividends.

The background: Because of computer problems in December combined with my own inefficiencies I found myself with a week to go before the tax deadline. I'd already moved the ARD one day to give me an extra three months but as this deadline loomed I moved the ARD another day. I stopped work at 10.30 last night.

The results were:

11 company accounts files at Companies House and also at HMRC.

2 small companies I had two or three queries with I filed with HMRC and I will resolve the queries and file an amended tax return and file the accounts with Companies House.

3 companies were just too complex to do in the time available. I couldn't do them justice so I will pay the £100 penalty.

Everything went well except one client who has two companies. He originally set up only one bank account and would pay all bills for the two companies from the one bank account. Luckily that company never traded but it has six figure losses. When the client came to me I advised him to set up another bank account and then carry out circular transactions between the two companies and him to clear all the large debtors and creditors. He tells me he has just finished doing that. I think he got carried away and transferred too much!

When I looked at his spreadsheets he had so many lists but not enough descriptions! He'd said he's made tax payments personally on behalf of one of the companies but when I checked with HMRC they hadn't received any money during that year and large amounts the next year but not the amounts he'd listed or the dates! When I talked to him it appeared HMRC had chased him for the money and he'd panicked giving them any bank details he had available. I then looked at his personal tax account and so he'd paid his own tax bill but was erroneously taking credit in one of the company accounts! He also wasn't able to take the right figures from bank statements to spreadsheets in the cases where he didn't have online banking. He also overdid the banking having opened up a second bank account for one company as well as extensive use of a credit card account.This work set me back a bit but I will be handsomely rewarded!

Two of the sixteen companies have already paid me but I will now prepare a lot of invoices before watching Manchester United v Chelsea - not as important as watching Hull City win at Huddersfield on Saturday!

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Man of Kent
By Kent accountant
01st Apr 2013 11:59

This experience

@Peter - has this weekend made you think about spreading client year ends throughout the year?

As you continue to increase your client base, won't this only get worse?

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By petersaxton
01st Apr 2013 12:56

No and yes

I think the 31 March is the best year end from the client point of view so I wont. Another point is that clients vary in the speed of sending in their records no matter how much I chase so they should be helping me to spread the load!

I plan to send a couple of emails asking for data and then I will phone. I think that is more effective.

I'm hoping to be able to increase efficiency to enable me to take on a certain level extra work. I seem to spend too much seeing what order I should do work. If I try to turn work round immediately it should be a lot easier.

I had a checklist of preparing accounts for companies but then Digita radically changed their software with the introduction of iXBRL. I am not trying to prepare checklists for ALL services and all other tasks. The checklist will go from chasing data right through to issue of invoice. I will also pad out these checklist to explain every little detail so they would be helpful if I decided to take on staff. I have bought FastFox

http://www.nch.com.au/fastfox/index.html 

and I am in the process of creating templates for every email I need to send that can be repeated. I will include in my systems notes the template and the short cut so it will be easy for staff as well as me. I am going to print out this checklists and have them at the front of files to record what has been done and what is outstanding. Sometimes paper can be better than computer!

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