Regardless of experience as an accountant, you might never say tax season is an easy time. It is always challenging to organize the entire year’s work in bulk within a few months. It makes tax accountants work longer days, give up on their sleep, and between piles of paperwork often taking a toll on even the most competent, most experienced, and skilled accountants.
Similarly, running a CPA firm becomes strenuous when the tax season rush creates tension between the accountants and business owners. It is often than not a race against time for professionals to meet deadlines, as tax return preparation may take a couple of days or even weeks to be completed.
Although, it often becomes stressful to chase clients and help them file taxes on time. As many crucial factors contribute toward the tax season services being hectic, let’s dive into the 7 tips for tax season that will ease out the rush for the next tax season.
1. Use Tax Checklists
While the tax season soon approaches, make a checklist for your tax preparation. If some records are still on paper, make sure you move them into your computer or accounting software. It will help you be more organized, and there are fewer chances of data loss.
Also, make a client list and update their details to your employees beforehand so that you don’t have pressure during the deadline. Also, asking your clients to tick out the tax checklist before scheduling a meeting with them will help in making the meeting more productive and will take less time.
2. Do the Bookkeeping as Soon as Transactions Occur
Second tip for tax season is to do bookkeeping regularly rather than doing it once a month. Of course, you can use accounting software for the same, but if you don’t have any accounting software make sure you prepare an Excel sheet for the same. It will ease the work, and you can save time.
Another way of avoiding rushes is to take pictures of all the receipts and send them to your accountant for doing his job rather than sending the originals. Again, it will help as you will have the record on both paper and electronically.
3. Use Tax Software
Use the latest tax software to ease the rush and burden during tax season. It will improve efficiency, reduce error, etc. If you are already using any accounting software, make sure you are using its newest version as the latest versions have improvements and will lessen the burden and issues in the older version.
For this, make sure your employees attend a virtual seminar, take a course, etc., to get them up to speed or act as a refresher.
4. Do Reconciliation before Tax Season Arrives
Whether you are the owner of the business or accountant for the company, make sure that the reconciliations are done for the bank accounts and credit card accounts before the tax season arrives.
If expenses are paid with personal funds, make sure you have that information too, and it is entered into the accounting system for the business before the start of tax season.
5. Make Smarter Business Decisions
The decisions made for the business are significant as they make the company’s future. A good business record will help the owners to stay financially informed and make logical decisions as decisions based on previous records are more practical. With proper data records, you could make an investment, marketing, and expansion decisions.
6. Ensure Security of the Data Provided
Data security is an essential factor for business owners and is crucial for tax season services. The accounting firms should handle the data with utmost care and security as it has the most confidential details. So for a business owner to trust an accounting firm, the firm should show its credibility to the business owners.
7. Be Aware of New Tax Rules
It gets difficult for CPA firms to prepare for tax season if they don’t update themselves with the tax reforms and new tax rules. CPA firms need to be updated on the tax reforms and new tax rules before the tax season. There are various resources available, like the latest IRS guidelines. These resources will help them to be prepared for the tax season beforehand, and they can also work more efficiently and effectively.
Conclusion:
The tax season always gets busy and engaging for accounting specialists and CPA firms. However, the tax season services shouldn’t be overpowering. With proper planning and preparation, the tax season could turn out to be easy-going. It is important to file taxes on time, or else you could face penalties. By preparing in advance, investing in the best technology, communicating with clients, and, if required, outsourcing tax preparation work to an expert team of professionals, the tax season can be free of troubles. Mercurius Advisory Services consists of a team of professionals who have been in this sector helping out clients from small scale to large scale for more than a decade. Outsourcing taxation work to us would mean avoiding these common mistakes and having a stress-free tax season.
