One for the Accountants - Practice Management

[hgc services]

I am currently assiting managing a Practice (which I subcontract for) using IRIS Practice Management.

They have a number of Limited Company clients, that are not very good at meeting the statutory deadline, in fact some of them do not bother with their accounts until they are determined by HMRC.

Does anyone know of any software out their that can track the deadlines post statutory, i.e. 2nd penalty, 10% of tax - etc?

I am currently tracking these in Excel, but it is proving time consuming to update this spreadsheet? I would like something that would update the deadline automatically.

Any pointers would be greatly received.

Thanks

Chris

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

I do have any suggestions as I nag clients to get the accounts in on time. I hate if if anyone waste funds on paying totally avoidable fines.

IMO there is plenty enough time to get everything done in time - 9 months!

Sorry I am not very helpful here.

 

[hgc services]

I totally agree that clients should have adequate time to get their accounts done, but their are some people out there that getting their accounts done is just not their top priority. Someone has to act for these people and I think every accountant has someone or a few clients like this.

In todays market, you can't turn clients away just because they are a little late getting things done. I just want to be able to advise them Quickly and Easily of the penalties they could be liable too, without having to sit down and spend a age working out the dates everytime! And if possible, help them to beat the next deadline and save them a further penalty!

 

[elaine@cheapaccounting]

I don't think I said anything about turning clients away!!!!

We have many clients who come to us because they already have a penalty. We tell them what that is , get the late accounts out of the way and then work with them in the future through our workflow systems to make sure that they do not miss a deadline again.

We chase from the date the year end and start heavy 'nagging' as deadlines loom.

We pride ourselves on making sure no deadlines are missed once they have become a client.

 

[David Griffiths]

In todays market, you can't turn clients away just because they are a little late getting things done.

In the spirit of the panto season, Oh yes you can! I did it last week.

And it's more than a little late if they wait until the Revenue issues a determination.

People like this generally don't respond to letters, don't keep decent records (because they don't think it's important) and often resent having the work done so don't pay their bills. Note that I said Generally - there are very occasional exceptions.

I prefer to deal with people who do attend to their affairs on time.

Personally, I don't think that you can afford NOT to turn people like this away.

 

[hgc services]

We only take on a client in this position if they pay by SO or pay up front for the work. We would never take anyone on if we thought we wouldn't get paid, but I agree that they are not the best at keeping records or responding to letters.

These type of clients are actually happy to pay a premium for us to sort it all out at the last minute. Of course there are the ones that don't wish to pay to get their affairs brought up to date and we have turned clients away when they don't wish to agree to our terms. The practice I am assisting has built a strong reputation in the local area and is very profitable and these type of client makes up about 15% of our limited Company clients.

I don't disagree with either of your comments, but I think that their are practices out their that help these types of business there is money to be made from them.

Anyway, this is not answering the question I asked. Is their any software out their that would help to track these deadlines / payment dates which automatically updates once a deadline has passed?

Chris

 

[Alpha]

Chris

Whilst I cannot be absolutely certain I would suspect that logically the answer has to be no.

One of the purposes of practice management is to ensure that clients do not get to the stage where accounts/tax is late (Yes I know that it is not neccessarily correct in the real world but how many licences would you sell by saying 'we will let you know the amount of fines your client is about to get?)

 

[RAL]

I am currently tracking these in Excel, but it is proving time consuming to update this spreadsheet? I would like something that would update the deadline automatically.

Chris

There are ways you can include pentaly etc in spreadsheet as long as you have correct deadline and related penalty information.

Use various formula such as If, vlookup, time and value.

 

[Tom McClelland]

Have you tried entering a negative number of days before the reference date in Iris PM?

Mathematically this would work, so if Iris haven't blocked negative entries in the template definition it should do what you need. If the definition does block negative entries perhaps you should suggest to Iris that they permit them, as a tiny software change may bring big benefits in your situation.

(I was on the PM software development team a few years ago so my memory is slightly hazy about how you set up the templates, but this suggestion strikes me as one worth trying)

 

[accountancyextra]

On the odd occassion we do get a client who is late, we don't keep a rolling tally of the fines. We have already written to them warning that fines start at x and will rise to y after so long etc and we tell them the amount of time we'll need to get their accounts done once they bring their records in

Once they turn up with their records, it's fairly easy to commit to a completion date and what the fine will as a result of submitting at that point.

My practice management system just keeps a track of what's overdue

 

[hgc services]

thanks guys... i think based on the above, there is the potential to improve the spreadsheet further. I have spoken to someone that could improve it.

 

[accountancyextra]

If you need an excel expert, I know one I could highly recommend

 

[Arithmo]

I am involved in a practice that deals with over 3,000 sole trader reurns and 3,000 personal returns. All managed from one office in Stockport.

After searching for software that will help manage this number of clients and their deadlines we came to the conclusion that there is no software that will do this.

We have therefore had some bespoke software written, not cheap but a fantastic investement.

 

[SussexHazel]

In the spirit of the panto season, Oh yes you can! I did it last week.

And it's more than a little late if they wait until the Revenue issues a determination.

People like this generally don't respond to letters, don't keep decent records (because they don't think it's important) and often resent having the work done so don't pay their bills. Note that I said Generally - there are very occasional exceptions.

I prefer to deal with people who do attend to their affairs on time.

Personally, I don't think that you can afford NOT to turn people like this away.

I totally agree - it's a hard thing to do but it doesn't make sense commercially to spend time on clients who are not prepared to help themselves. You could be spending that time much more profitably by proactively working with your existing clients, advising them of current issues to generate additional work and marketing/networking to obtain new leads. If you have to spend substantial amounts of time chasing clients for information, chasing them for fees etc, they are just 'time thieves'.

 

[hgc services]

I think that there is a point to helping some of these clients. They are well aware that they are totally useless when it comes to responding to letters and getting their records in, but if they are willing to pay by SO and are willing to pay a premium for the service then it is worth investing some time in them.

How long does it take / cost to send a template letter £5? thats £60 a year? If we are still profiting out of the job taking that into account then it makes the time well worth while. As long as we have informed them of the deadline then there is no risk to us. That said, we would only do this type of work for upfront payment on SO.

We would all love to live in a world where clients drop their records in after the first letter we send, and they are nice and clean, it does not work like that. We get paid to do the jobs our clients don't want or have the time to do.

Chris

 

[SussexHazel]

If they are paying up front and paying a premium, there's no problem. It is those that don't that need to be turned away. Saying that, it's easier said than done!