Post-Busy Season Success: Important Questions Every CPA Needs to Ask Themselves During Busy Season

Welcome to the Busy Season In-House Review.

Let’s check in. Let’s learn what we experienced this busy season, and let’s see what we can do to take our knowledge and turn next season into what I call a non-event. It’s just another part of the year. There’s no stress. It’s just kind of working through. It might be a little bit busier than other parts of the year, but it’s really a non-event and really doesn’t affect your life in any way. And that’s something all CPAs and accounting professionals should strive for. It can happen with the proper planning and the proper expectations and the proper mindset.

I usually go through a list of about 30 questions that I go with my one-on-one clients when we’re really diving in deep and we’re looking at what we can do to change the process of our factory or you might call it a firm and how we can get everything to move through as easy as possible.

So let’s go through some of my top questions.

Number one: What is the best improvement from last year? Let’s keep it simple. Do you have a comparison? Did it feel like just like all the other years? Or was there a major improvement or was there a major change in the opposite direction? Think that through. Write it down.

Number two: Did your cycle or your turnaround times change in any way? Were you able to get through the return faster? Was your team working faster? Examine that. Perhaps find some bottlenecks and other things that you might want to examine and put into place. Do you need another kind of software tool? Do you need more people? Think that one through for next busy season.

Here’s probably the most important one of all. Number three: What was your rate of do-overs or restarts? How many returns did you have where it kind of just went right through the factory? One shot, you picked up a return and you kind of got it done, and yes, at the end there was some kind of review and you probably had to stop it there, but did you have to do what I call a do-over? And that means that you get the return, you start working the return, and now you have to stop. You have to go back to your client to get some kind of materials that you probably should have had in the first place, but yet you had to stop, and now it’s going to take another day or maybe weeks to get back to that return and back into the flow of that.

Number four: How do you use your extension management? Is it like a last-minute Hail Mary, or was it an effective tool for you to use to manage client expectations? Did you have even a deadline date? Do you force your clients to either get the materials done on time or by a specific date they go on automatic return? Or have to pay some kind of fee in order to make sure that you take the time to get their return in because it’s really gonna change how your factory’s being run?

And along with the extensions, this is probably something important because you’re gonna have to manage your like life work balance. How are you going to take all your extensions and not wait until last minute and turn it into another busy season somewhere in the fall where you gotta do it all last minute because you’ve been enjoying the summer. Now all of a sudden, hey, I never got to do my extensions. So how are you gonna manage that extension season?

These are just some of the questions you should be reviewing with you, yourself, and your team to make next busy season, a non-event.

I’m Bill Baylis for CPA Power and remember, create success on purpose.