Some firms have very slow summers irrespective of what I
1. If you have down time, you will be paying your staff in any event and they will not be working productively. So, any work you give them regardless of how they charge their time, is "free" work, i.e., whatever extra work they do for a client that is not part of your regular engagement should not be considered a cost for that client. The objective for you should be to have the staff perform services that might result in a benefit and value to a client. This work would either strengthen your relationship with the client, be on some speculative issues that possibly could be billed, be used to create added billing opportunities, or that will provide you with greater insights on the client's business that also could help you, and the client, at a later time.
2. You should try to work on as many tax returns as you can. Separate the individual from the business returns and divvy them up. Also make sure a reviewer is available to look them over quickly so there is not a disconnect between the period the return was worked on and corrected when necessary.
3. Call clients to find out what has occurred in their lives that will need to be reported on this year's tax return (to be done next tax season), and work on that now. This will fill up down time and also push work that ordinarily would be performed during tax season to your less busy summer period. This work can also be done more thoroughly and deliberately and can be reviewed now so it can be entered on the tax software when the return is prepared. The tax season preparation and review time would be reduced and so would the tumult that exists during tax season. When this work is done during an off time, it should be treated as a separate engagement and billed for it. It would normally be billed extra as part of the tax preparation since it was a special one-time occurrence. But when it is handled as a separate item, I believe more time would be put in to make sure the client benefits thoroughly from any potential tax savings. That way, it would add more value to the client and also generate added revenues for you. The client also has more time to gather whatever backup material they need to substantiate costs and basis, and there is less reliance on memories, generalizations and estimates of costs. It would also provide cash flow now that would have eventually been received after this year's return is completed next tax season. This looks like a win-win. Bonus to you: Any of this work that is done now would relieve the workload compression during next year's tax season.
4. With staff time not being fully utilized, review your larger tax returns for financial planning issues. This would include looking at the interest and dividend income, large capital loss carryovers, asking clients for their brokerage statements, including from their retirement accounts, and reviewing their asset allocation. With sufficient information, you can suggest a meeting with the client to present some ideas that might reduce their current taxes, make them more financially secure or provide them with insights into their investments they might not be fully aware of. If they say no to the paid meeting, the added work still did not "cost" you anything and you might be able to utilize what you uncovered at a later time.
5. I suggest looking over your clients' business returns for WOW! issues. This includes reviewing insurance coverage, their internal controls, horizontal and vertical trend analysis, cleaning up the balance sheet for dormant items, looking more closely at the client's aged accounts receivable and accumulated credit balances, and perhaps doing a "surprise" bank reconciliation. Also, worksheets can be prepared to perform a down and dirty valuation of your clients' businesses.
6. If you have multiple clients in a single industry, combine all the balance sheets and income statements to get an industry average that can be reviewed with your clients, showing them how they match up to your average client. Be careful to remove outliers from the averages.
7. For business clients, prepare a five-year projection using the previous five years' amounts. You can never anticipate what you might find, but it is a worthwhile project. The results could indicate a growing or contracting business or one that has flattened out. Each alternative could lead to added advisory services to your clients, especially when you look behind the numbers to see the causes or triggers.
8. You can break down your clients' income statements into product or services divisions and obtain separate profitability statements, along with margins and growth trends. If presented properly, this information could be very valuable to your clients.
9. Consider setting up a method for the client identifying key performance indicators and performance dashboards. These all work to assist a client with actionable information.
10. For clients that have salespeople, try to calculate the actual cost of each salesperson and the actual benefits from that person based on sales generated and the quality of those sales.
The ideas above will not cost anything extra but might provide substantial benefit to your clients. Use these as a memory jogger to come up with services that are applicable for your clients.
Remember, this is work that is being done with "free" labor, i.e., unassigned staff with nothing productive to do. These suggestions can also be proposed for year-round services to create added revenues for you and value for your clients.
You are running a business. Run your business! Also, enjoy the summer.
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