We are approaching the deadline of records received by clients for our January self-assessment deadline and so I thought I’d use this as a nice chance to add some value to you as a poddie by sharing the full process, so you can copy & paste it into your firm.
What we actually do.
Records requests go out automatically from the day after year end, all scheduled directly from our CRM. We do this monthly for the first few months, then a break, then more frequently as the deadline approaches, then weekly in the final stretch.
By the time we’re in the run-up to the deadline, most clients are on it. The ones who aren’t get an email from me personally (they know they’re in trouble at this point..).
That email sets a deadline for records. It explains what happens if they miss it: an additional fee to cover the additional workload for our team. And it explains, plainly, how our business model works. Because clients don’t know that we can’t turn around a tax return in two days. They assume that as long as records arrive before the deadline, we’ll just do it. They’re not being malicious, they genuinely don’t understand how an accounting firm runs. So we tell them very clearly, and in writing, before they even become a client.
Every service line has a records deadline in our proposals. Their signature is on it. The engagement letter repeats it. The automated emails reinforce it and then in the run-up, I put my name on it.
Some clients disengage. A few do, every year. The first time I sent that email, I genuinely didn’t know what was going to happen. Now I understand that the ones who disengage over a reasonable, well-explained boundary were costing us more than we realised.
One thing worth doing after your next deadline, whatever that is.
Whether it’s January self-assessment, a VAT quarter end, or the first wave of MTD for ITSA submissions, block out half a day with your team afterwards. Not to catch up. To review.
Go through the clients who were late. Why were they late? Could you afford another year of it? Is this a client who will struggle when MTD requires quarterly records instead of annual ones? Because it’s coming. And the clients who can’t manage annual records are the ones who will break your team when the cadence changes.
That half day isn’t admin. It’s the most important portfolio work you’ll do all year. The clients worth keeping are the ones who make your firm sustainable, not the ones who keep you busy in ways that cost you more than they pay.
The full process, including the exact email we send and the timing we use, is inside the paid episode.. If you’re building up to having this kind of records process in your firm, this is where to start.
And if you read this and thought of someone who’s still accepting records the day before the deadline because they don’t know how to stop: please forward it. They’ll thank you in February.
Rachel 🫶🏻
