Stress and busy season go hand in hand — a natural part of life for an accountant. But accountancy is no longer in the Stone Age: Greater mental health awareness and new technology can aid how accountants prepare for the big grind.
Accountants need to think outside the box and dig deeper into their workflow to ease pressure during busy season. Here are a few unique strategies that those in our industry should consider to avoid burnout.
Recognize that clients feel the burnout too
You are not alone facing the looming deadlines. Acknowledging this is key to helping yourself through tax season stress. Clients feel burnout during tax season too, and being hunted down by an accountant is not fun for them or for you. This point of commonality can motivate both accountants and clients to work proactively to prepare for tax season and avoid the friction that causes burnout.
Aligning with clients on all information and documents is needed long before the busy season sets in, and it's important to remind clients that early action is the best way they can avoid unnecessary stress and chaos. To sweeten this interaction, consider sending clients a small gift — tasty treats or snacks are perfect; avoid calendars or anything with more numbers — to ensure your early request for tax documents is remembered with a positive association. This doubles as a client retention and relationship-building experience with clients.
Use deadlines and deferrals strategically
Particularly for larger teams and big firms, weigh the pros and cons of deferring filing taxes. There’s certainly a cost to this option, especially by creating a new set of deadlines and potentially a second busy season for the team. However, depending on the client, more time to compile documents may outweigh the downside of a longer season.
On the flip side, your team may be considering strategic tactics to increase benefits for clients, such as tax harvesting. If this is the case, long-lead foresight and airtight planning is essential to avoiding burnout. Plan these strategies and request the necessary documents before the end of the year and long before April 15 to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Find places to automate your process
When smaller stressors begin to accumulate, busy season starts to become unmanageable. The accounting profession still operates using manual processes, but in 2022, technology exists to help eliminate some of those smaller stressors. Automation is critical to reducing burnout in accounting.
This doesn’t necessarily mean overhauling your workflow with new software. Start small at first. Your email autoresponder, for example, can help set expectations and boundaries with clients about your availability. Set up an auto-respond message early in Q1 to introduce reminders to clients every time they communicate with you. This will set the expectation that you’ll become less and less available as April 15 approaches — you can even incorporate key document deadlines as part of this message.
Accountants can also get bogged down with requests for status updates — frequent calls and questions from clients add to the anxiety accountants feel during busy season. Consider creating an online portal for your clients that can automatically communicate to clients and manage their expectations, keeping you focused on your primary tasks.
Managers, take the lead
It’s also important to look at problems within your team if you’re starting to feel burnt out. Remember, a well-run team shouldn’t experience burnout and managers are responsible for ensuring their team does not burn out. Managers, take responsibility for your team’s mental health. Spend extra time with your team-building preparation and client document intake communications before the busy season starts to make sure everything doesn’t happen last minute.
Of course, every team has different needs; independent or smaller accounting teams may apply these strategies differently than Big Four accountants. Regardless of team size, thorough preparation will reduce errors, lessen your liability, and ensure the entire accounting machine runs smoothly and does not burn out.
