Top 3 Tips to Improve Your Practice This Season

Tax season has officially begun, and we know that means your schedule is heating up. We’ll keep these in-season tips brief and targeted on ways to help you save time, while offering stellar customer service to your clients.

#1: Go Digital. Some tax professionals worry that increasing digital processes might reduce their client contact and affect the client relationship. The truth is, going digital is one of the best ways to improve your client relationships. Phone calls and in-person meetings, for the transfer of mundane information and documentation, take time for you and your clients, and require one of you to accommodate the schedule availability of the other.

In the hectic days of tax season, this just isn’t efficient. When you enable secure digital file transfer and missing data reminders through a digital client portal, such as Intuit® Link, or you enable digital tax return review and signature with an integrated product, such as eSignature, you save time in several ways. First, you relieve yourself of manual reminders and meetings. Second, you can increase client satisfaction by providing clients the flexibility to respond at their own schedule from any device, anywhere. This frees you up to leave in-person client interactions for important service related topics, including strategic planning.

#2: Automate Reminders. Manual emails, or phone calls to request data, signatures and payment, are an inefficient drain on precious hours during tax season. Intuit’s integrated digital tools – Link and eSignature – can automate these reminders so that you can spend your time processing returns, instead of nagging. Intuit Link provides digital client checklists and logs items, as the client uploads the files. You can set reminders in the system so that Link requests missing items for you. eSignature can do the same for the post-processing part of the tax process. Once you have processed the return, you can send it to the client, through eSignature, to request signature and payment, and set automated reminders to ensure you get the file and payment back in a timely fashion.

#3: Improve Accessibility. With home mortgage interest rates expected to rise, clients are jumping on refinancing options now while the rates are low. In addition, February is the FAFSA deadline for clients who have college-age children. Inevitably, both of these items lead to a flurry of requests from your clients for copies of tax-related information, including previous-year tax returns. Save yourself the time and hassle of pulling the information for clients by using a tool such as eSignature, which not only enables digital signatures for the tax returns, but also provides a secure access point for clients to retrieve a copy of their return at any time. Clients will appreciate that they can have instant access to the information at any hour of the night, and so will you!

These processes are easy to implement and can save valuable time in your schedule this season. To learn more, visit the following links:

• Intuit ProConnect™ Tax Online users: Link and eSignature
• Lacerte® users: Link and eSignature
• ProSeries® users: Link and eSignature