Has the impending cold harsh reality of the dreaded self assessment period sunk in yet?
Are you anticipating yet another Christmas meal ruined whilst you mentally prepare for the onslaught of self assessment work?
Late nights, early morning and dreaded client chase up requests?
If not, then perhaps you are one of those highly organised accountants that already have a processed system in place to manage the impending self assessment period.
But if yes, then do not panic… We have a very simple process that you can emulate that won’t take long to implement at all.
Prepare
Open up a spreadsheet and make a list of all of your clients who will be expecting you to complete their self assessment this year. First Name in one column and email address in another.
Process
Create a free account with a site like MailChimp.com (or any email service provider that you prefer) and import the list.
Sound too techie? Then click here to schedule a call and we can help you out.
Plot
Write a 3 part message sequence to send to all the people on the list requesting the information you need to handle their returns…
For the first message just warn them that the self assessment onslaught is coming and encourage them to start getting their house in order. Keep it simple and tell them that it’s coming up and remind them of all the information that they will need to gather so you can do your job.
For the the second message however you should be a little bit more pushy… tell them that you need the information right away. The more harder you are the more earlier replies you will get back meaning you can plan your workload in nice and early.
And finally SCARE THE HELL OUT OF THEM in the final email. Tell them that you need all the information YESTERDAY and remind them that they will risk being fined by for late filing and you will also charge them extra fee for handling last minute requests.
Then load the three messages into the email service provider and queue them up.
You can schedule each email to go out on specific dates to the entire list. It’s very easy to do and the whole operation can take under one hour to set up.
Press Play
Press play, relax and make a cup of tea knowing that you’ve done the best you can to help your clients in an automated and time efficient way.
As soon as someone sends over their details simply delete them from the database and prepare their books.
If you need help to set up a process and other ways of automating your accounting world then contact us today.
