It seems that no matter how hard we try to get clients to supply all relevant tax return information in good time it doesn’t happen.

One of the talks I have been presenting to accountants around the UK over the last few years has included a section that addresses this point. And I have collated ideas and suggestions from the audiences as to what works well for them in this regard. So what are some of the more effective solutions that other accountants have tried? 

Some of these relate to the way they structure their fees. This is ideally something you would think about before you tell clients what their fees for the year will be.

Having said that, my guess is that you have plenty of clients who don’t know what you’re going to charge them this year. They probably just hope it will be no more than last year. Let’s think about how we can use this fact to get all the relevant information for their tax returns from them in good time.

If you want clients to let you have all the necessary information to complete their tax returns in good time, you need to incentivise them. What if you wrote to them along the following lines:

I would be willing to keep my fee to the same figure this year but I will only be able to do this if you let me have all the necessary information by the end of September. If you are unable to do this I will need to charge more – at the rate of £X per month. So if I do not have all the information until November my charges will be £AAA. If you do not get the information to me until January my charges will be £BBB.

Another way of handling this is to offer a money-off voucher. You would say that your charges are increasing this year but the client can avoid the increase if they use the enclosed money-off voucher. The terms on the voucher would state clearly that it is only valid if submitted by the end of October along with all relevant paperwork.

Another valuable idea is to check off all client data that comes in so that you can see immediately if there is anything missing. Many firms depute this work to a junior member of staff or even a secretary who calls the client to chase up whatever’s missing.

One accountant told me that his worst client eventiually sent in the missing information in November after the accountant’s secretary’s regular reminder calls became a nuisance.

Although email reminders are easy, phone reminders are far more effective. It seems that written reminder letters achieve very little.

There's loads more I could share on this topic but I'll pause here for the moment and see if there is any interest.