Carrie C. Susz, EA

I have talked with numerous accountants/CPAs/EAs who have looked thrilled at the thought of “firing” a client. Usually, once business picks up, they will fire their problem clients. But the question you might have is–what if you’re the client who was fired?

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The straight answer to this is: no, probably not. But the good news is: they’re not outsourcing it like you fear. (Although, some CPAs will outsource outside of the country. On occasion, it’s even being outsourced to the tax-prep chain down the street.) Who’s doing your taxes, then? I hate to say it, but it’s people in the same position that I was in when I was an intern: the backroom.

You see, there are different tiers of folks out there who prepare taxes. Usually, in a medium to large office, there is a person who meets with you (a CPA), they talk with you, take notes, and tell you when to expect your taxes to be completed. As soon as you leave, though, they go back to their offices, and drop your taxes off along the way at the desk of an assistant. That person has the job of preparing your taxes. At that point, they might go back to the CPA for review, or they may go to a supervisor, who is not a CPA, but is a more experienced preparer, for review. He or she will look over the work that the the preparer has done and if it needs fixing (review notes) then it’ll go back to the preparer. continue reading this article »

In my office in New Hampshire we have a “paperless” office. Of course, that means that we have to scan everything and then place it in it’s respective folder, etc, just so we can get files put together. I’ve been asked about this a couple of times–so here are some pros and cons:

Drawbacks:

1. You sometimes can’t review off paperless, because it would require a second monitor to look at both the workpapers and the prepared tax return/financial statements at the same time.
2. The second monitor is expensive, as is the scanner and software. And don’t forget where to store all this data…
3. Half the time, you have to make notes on the documents, which requires either printing the document out, writing on it, and re-scanning (thus nullifying the “paperless”) or getting an even more expensive software so that you can “write” on the document directly using the computer.

Benefits:

1. Less storage of paper. Heck–it makes the office less flammable!
2. Easier to find work–it’s always where you left it.
3. Access your files anywhere. As long as you can establish a connection with your storage location, you can get to the work. It’s great when you’re on that tropical beach vacation and the client wants a copy of their financial statements *now*.

The firm I was with in Washington had an odd way of doing things at times. I’ve shared this with folks in New Hampshire and they just find it amusing. Likewise, I’ll do the same with the items in New Hampshire that were “odd” compared to Washington. Here’s a Washington oddity:

Odd item #1: Everything had to be portrait orientation
I mean EVERYTHING. So if you had a document, say a statement from a brokerage, which was normally a landscape orientation, it needed to be changed to portrait. Did this involve some trick with photocopying? No, they wanted us to staple the left side of landscape papers to a portrait-oriented blank sheet then fold the additional portion (which exceeded the 8.5″ portrait width) folded over neatly.

Why, might you ask?

The reviewers didn’t want to have to turn the file or their heads to look at the workpapers. *sigh*