Tax season is enough to make anyone go off the rails, especially the last two seasons. Keeping track of clients’ documents, deadlines, custom reports, closing entries, and more can be overwhelming—not to mention the urgency of clients wanting everything done yesterday. Setting up a system that brings the bookkeeper, CPA, EA, CFO, client, and anyone else vital to the accounting team onto the same page is a game-changer. Tax deadlines force everyone’s hand, and we often wind up sending and re-sending requests and information again and again. Frankly, it feels inevitable—no matter how prepared we are, we’re still subject to last-minute workflow changes and whims of clients and their accounting team. It can be really discouraging. 

Kelly Gonsalves saw this unpleasant situation as an opportunity to better serve her clients around tax communications. What if the status as “last-minute messenger” is actually how we can make things better, for everyone? In this session, Kelly will review the issues surrounding tax time, particularly the communication and security issues she has solved in her practice. What’s required? What can be done more effectively? Where have we given up control? What are the benefits and risks of getting it back? At each step, there will be practical tools and advice on how to mitigate the impact others can have on the way you run your practice during the busy season and beyond. The best part: a more streamlined system for you usually means a better experience for both clients and their accounting team. And that is worth a lot—in goodwill and in gold. 

Learning Objectives: 

• Identify the typical barriers to workflow collaboration for accounting professionals at tax time


• Evaluate the relationship between how you work and the responses you get from others


• Recall the key points of friction that can be streamlined when you take ownership of the tax season narrative


• Outline the workflows that can help you act as a tax-time translator 


• Recognize how the right tools can make the implementation and facilitation of these changes much more efficient and effective for you and your firm