With the right tax strategy and a suite of tax practice software, including compliance and data management solutions, at your disposal, you can work more efficiently during the busy tax season.
With tax time 2024 just around the corner, we've compiled a list of 8 handy tax time tips. These tips are designed to help tax accountants in Australia and New Zealand streamline their services and meet the demands of the evolving tax sector for this income year.
1. Switch from hourly-rate billing to recurring monthly billing
Agree on the scope of work upfront and build it into a regular monthly billing arrangement. Your clients will be happier because a budget for your services means no surprise costs.
With time and billing software for accountants, you can ensure maximum return on client work by improving efficiency and billing with flexible time tracking.
2. Payment negotiation with the ATO
A tax agent can negotiate with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) on their client’s behalf, setting them up with more affordable payment terms. This can help with cash flow and ensure your client retains your services.
3. Provide a cash-flow planning service
This additional advisory service can help clients feel assured with their choice of personal tax specialists, as you'll be able to identify busy periods of the year for their business and identify unique challenges they may be facing.
4. Work-life balance during tax season
Capacity planning and the ability to scale are essential when a ‘tax crunch' arrives. Build out timelines and assign hours as early as possible to avoid capacity issues. For example, a glaring capability issue can ultimately lead to mistakes (or worse) if someone available to work 100 hours per fortnight has 120 hours assigned to them.
With workflow software for accounting practices, your tax practice will boost productivity by managing jobs, streamlining processes, hitting deadlines, and reaching goals.
5. Think about your people
Review your strategic plan before every new financial year. Have you communicated this strategy clearly with your team? Are your clients aware of your plans? Have you achieved buy-in from your partners and associates?
Upskilling is the best way to futureproof your firm against industry changes. Consider what training your staff needs for the coming year, factoring in their strengths and weaknesses and what they could achieve with additional guidance or structure.
6. Review the privacy and security laws of your tax practice
Continue to review any new privacy laws or changes to how you collect data. It is the only way to ensure your tax practice stays compliant.
7. Check your tax software requirements
Is your tax software fit for purpose, or is it outdated?
If there is room for growth, set aside enough time to conduct due diligence around potential accounting practice software. You could integrate and get buy-in from senior management about how they will be deployed.
Remember to seek out training and education services that you can use to improve your practice's knowledge of the best software for accountants.
Small and large tax accountants use Access tax preparation and lodgment software to streamline their tax return process. View built-in validation for errors, and quickly navigate between worksheets and the main tax form. Automatic data flows from the worksheet to the leading tax form for faster progress and more accurate filing.
8. Get better insights on your tax practice clients
Your accounting practice software should be set up to provide valuable analytics on your tax accounting clients. With these insights, you can better serve their needs and focus on value-added tasks.
Combine your tax software for accountants' solution with our accounting practice data management and analytics software, which connects to all major small business accounting applications via API. Data management and analytics software collects, stores and prepares data for analysis in a data warehouse, giving your tax practice access to all client data in one place.
Deliver your best in a changing market this tax refund season
In our whitepaper, you will discover everything you'll need to consider for your tax accounting practice today so that you're equipped to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
Download our transform tax time for today and tomorrow whitepaper.
We also have a blog to help you get ready for tax time: How to really prepare your tax practice for tax season.