Starting off on the Right Foot

Many of your clients you may come across have not worked with a tax preparer before and are unsure what to expect. The remainder have worked with other tax preparers before and may be running on old expectations. It’s important to have a preliminary meeting where you define the relationship and your expectations, taking special note of what your clients expect from you and what you’ll expect from your clients. You may need to negotiate some of these expectations so that both you and your client are satisfied. Here are some things to consider when defining those expectations.

Determine the information pipeline: How will information be exchanged? Do you prefer email? Does your client prefer fax? This is something that should be determined before your first official correspondence.

Methods and acceptable times for interaction: When you have your own business, it’s important that you not place yourself on-call 24/7. In order to preserve your own personal time, you should set up acceptable times for correspondence. If the client calls after 7pm and you’ve told them you’re off-duty after 6:30pm , he/she won’t be offended at being asked to leave a voicemail or call back during your business hours.

You should also make it clear what information you need from your client, what format it should be in, and when you need it. You don’t want to compromise your own work by reducing the time you have to do it in or by accepting confusing or faulty data.

Set boundaries and keep them: If you tell a client not to call after 6:30pm and you still take the call, you’re sending mixed messages. Set your boundaries and keep them. Also respect any boundaries your client sets.

Determine the services they require: Ensure that both you and your client understand the services they need. Do they just want you to file their taxes, or are they interested in having you file their taxes and give them advice on what they can do in the future to increase their deductions? Obviously, the more work you do the more you get paid; but you don’t want to assume your client expects year-round tax service only to find out later they just wanted you to file their taxes in April.

Be realistic: Don’t promise the moon. Be realistic when estimating the time it will take you to accomplish their requested services. Significant underestimation of time and cost will result in client dissatisfaction once the invoice arrives. Also be realistic in estimated deliverables. Don’t promise your clients twice their current tax return unless you have evidence that’s what you can give them.

Building healthy relationships with your clients depends on clarity: they should know what to expect from you, and you should know what to expect from them. Once those expectations are set you can work on fulfilling them. And fulfilled expectations make for happy clients. And happy clients make for happy tax preparers. And who wouldn’t want to be a happy tax preparer?

Click here to find out more about the Tax Preparation Courses at Universal.