Art of Accounting: 15 ways to keep calm as tax season ends

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Tax season has about three more weeks to go. This usually is the most stressful period of the year for accountants. My experience has taught me that stress breeds stress and calm instills calm. I've always tried for calm. Here are 15 things you can consider doing.

1. Never appear to look or act stressed.
2. Never yell.
3. Never get angry. You can criticize bad performance but do it nicely and on point without expanding the scope beyond what was done poorly. And do it privately.
4. Do not push people to rush. Rather, encourage your staff to work slowly and deliberately. And accurately.
5. Create an atmosphere where everyone does what they say they will do and meets deadlines they agree to. Be nice but be persistent and do not let up or pass on any situations where they were negligent in this. If you ignore calling such a failure to their attention, then that is a decision to abandon that as a standard. 
6. Make error reduction a priority. Reduced errors reduce stress.
7. Do not shortcut a procedure. Some procedures you should insist on, regardless of the time of day, or day of the week, or availability of staff or other resources and full compliance with using checklists. Spend time double-checking something you weren't fully clear about or to double-check your work, correcting your own errors no matter how easy or convenient it would be for the reviewer to make the correction. Skipping a procedure means that procedure would never again be followed.
8. Return all calls, texts and emails as quickly as possible. If you cannot provide an answer, give a date and time when you can. And keep to that commitment.
9. When tax data or requested information is received from a client, someone should let the client know it has been received. Otherwise, you can expect a call to find out if it was received.
10. Call clients ASAP when you know there will be bad news about the return or the final result.
11. If a mistake was made, let the client know ASAP and also provide a reason for the mistake and a solution about how it will be corrected.
12. Stay on top of missing information with frequent calls to the client.
13. Schedule the work better and coordinate the schedules of people who will be working on the same tax returns. 
14. Prepare for all meetings, calls or interactions with a client. Besides being the right thing to do, it helps to avoid wasted time with rambling discussions and allows you to better guide or control the pace of the meeting.
15. Be on time for all meetings and calls.

There are plenty more, but this is a good list to work off of. Keep cool and stay calm. Enjoy the rest of the tax season.

Do not hesitate to contact me at emendlowitz@withum.com with your practice management questions or about engagements you might not be able to perform.