How Accountants and Tax Pros Can Survive and Thrive During Busy Season

You can. But it’ll take managing your limited time more efficiently.

Welcome to part one of our three-part series on exactly that. First up: January. New Year’s is the perfect time to start turning over a new time-saving leaf.

Saving Time in Your Personal Life

1)    Go for a walk. We’re not kidding. Research shows that even one 10-minute walk a few times a week makes workers happier and more motivated. Still more says walking makes you up to 60% more creative — and that probably means more productive. If you want to work efficiently, you don’t have the time not to take some time for yourself. So stop staring blankly at the Weather Channel to unwind and go walk around the block.

2)    Let someone else plan the party. Are you the consummate host? The party planner? The organizer extraordinaire? Don’t be. It’s perfectly acceptable to tell your friends that you can’t hold your normal killer Thanksgiving potluck or New Year’s Eve party because you need that time back to prepare for corporate audit season. This doesn’t mean don’t have fun; it just means don’t plan and host the fun. Ask someone else to do it, and let them. That’s a whole two days of setup and cleanup you get back.

3)    Talk to your family about the chores. We all feel obligated to help around the house. Everyone knows about that constant spousal dishes argument. But if you come to your family honestly and ask them to help you out because your job is really tough right now, they’ll be willing to pick up more or take over the harder chores. Figure out what’s fastest — taking out the trash, sweeping, whatever — and call dibs on it. You can take the dishes back over in May.

4)    Automate everything you can. You’ve probably done this for the bills. But what about cleaning the house? Or even getting groceries? We live in the internet age, and with a little research, all these things are available to you as automatic services. You’ll be surprised how far one regularly-scheduled house cleaning every two or three weeks will take you — just leave them the key and be done with it. And as for grocery shopping, many stores have curbside services. Call ahead with your order and go pick it up. Easy peasy.

Saving Time at Work

1.    Get out of your inbox. Email is a time-suck. Everyone knows it. Microsoft has found that on average, users spend about 10 minutes on email interruptions every time they happen. 10 minutes. Now think about how many emails you get (probably around 122 per day), and how many email accounts you have (for most of us it’s two) and do the math. It’s a wonder anyone gets anything done at all. So set a timer for half an hour or so, and don’t check your email at all the whole time. It’s hard, but worth it.

2.    Communicate more efficiently. You’re not going to be able to get out of your inbox altogether. But moving away from email and toward the cloud for document management and communication is key. According to Sholto Macpherson, a cloud accounting technology expert, the industry is in transition: cloud-based firms are growing at more than 40% per year.1 So if you’re stuck in Excel® and email land, check out cloud-based file sharing services instead. You’ll collaborate on documents with clients quickly and easily, avoid your inbox and limit versioning problems and mistakes. (Added advantage: your clients like the cloud. Private cloud adoption among enterprise businesses is up to the tune of 77% as of 2015.)

3.    Understand APIs. Speaking of documents, January tax audits bring tons of them. Inventory records, monthly accounting statements, receipts: these records come in a variety of formats, and you’re probably spending a lot of time organizing and systematizing them all. Remember that much of the software you’re using can be adapted to integrate with other software, even if it doesn’t come that way out of the box. How? Application Programming Interfaces. Ask your IT guy how to build yourself the perfect custom software functionality with APIs, and automate as much manual document recording and production as you can.

Whatever time-saving ideas you decide to implement, go ahead and get started now, so you’ll have a month to make it all go. Have conversations with friends and family. Talk to your tech team about APIs. If you do all your preparation sooner than later, you may just start getting home before 8:00 at night once the January crush comes!

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Jason Goldfinger is the Director of Corporate Sales, Accounting/CPA Division for Citrix ShareFile, the secure file sharing, storage and sync solution that is built for business and used by thousands of accounting professionals around the world. Jason’s specialty is helping accountants and CPAs streamline their workflows, meet compliance and security standards, and better serve their customers. He attended UNC-Wilmington and graduated with a degree in Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations.