Busy season seems to be swinging into practitioners’ favor.
Compared to last week, more tax pros and financial executives are reporting that their busy seasons are running “better than last year.”
So, How’s YOUR busy season? The polls are open all season. Click here to join the sample group and get the regular updates. (Or you may need to cut-and-paste into your browser: http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB2247MD58STC)
How's the busy season going so far?
Better than last year: 41% (up from 36% last week)
About the Same: 26% (versus 27% last week)
Not as Well as Last Year: 33% (down from 37% last week)
SAMPLE VERBATIMS:
unable to find trained and competent help
More referrals
I have another year of experience. Not as many new accounting pronouncements for non-public companies this year.
more new clients, more business, farther behind than last year
More work, less qualified staff. All individual taxes are electronically filed.
more work and less people than last year
Management keeps pushing up tax calcs.
Not enjoying the work as much.
efiling
Paperless on all individual returns
New director of taxes, at an owner experience level, coming in with no clients of his own. My workload should be split in two with him, but has stayed the same due to all the work that used to just be left on the table or not fully addressed. Scary that I can load 2,000 chargeables on to his shoulders, and my chargeables don't drop. Now we are both swamped. And this is at the only firm you have ever heard of where firm policy prohibits active marketing. We couldn't handle the results of good marketing. Still, even though we are both swamped, the nature of the stress has eased up a lot with an entire new person sharing my load, so it's much better. And the future should be better still. We are now 4 CPAs including 2 owners, plus an office manager and a write up/payroll person, 1100 separate annual tax filings, plus audits, reviews, writeup & special projects and consulting. About 10,000 annual chargeables..
I have not encountered many efile rejections.
more clients
clients are more unprepared than usual, they are more confused about taxes than ever. more are being hit alt min tax
Slow start on personal returns. Info came in later than usual
It seems we have plenty of work but the cash flow for this time of year isn't very good.
We are controlling work flow better
First, I came into tax season with projects that could not be completed last year due to slow cooperation from the client and/or attorney. Second I have picked up additional business that I have not been able to get to. However, the tax returns are turning around only slightly behind schedule. My top concern is being able to keep up the pace.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
BUSY SEASON UPDATE:
Signs of Improvement
