Conquering Workflows & Systems For Bookkeepers & Accountants | with Alyssa Lang (Workflow Queen)

Elevate Your Year-End Process: Tools, Tips, and Client Expectations

• Season 1 • Episode 95

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In this solo episode, Alyssa Lang covers essential year-end strategies for bookkeepers and accountants. Alyssa shares insights on differentiating year-end tasks from month-end obligations, implementing efficient tools like Asana and Content Snare, and setting clear client expectations, ensuring a seamless and successful year-end process!

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • How to differentiate between year-end and month-end tasks for efficient workflows
  • Why clear client communication and setting expectations are vital for timely submissions
  • How to use tools like Asana, Content Snare, and Notion for streamlined year-end processes
  • When to start 1099 preparation to avoid end-of-year chaos and ensure timely compliance

Resources mentioned in this episode:

🎙️ Listen to Episode 40: Uplevel Your Year End Client Experience with Serena Shoup

🎙️ Listen to Episode 2: Adjusting Month End Close Due Dates to Better Manage Client Work with Brooke Swan

⚙️ Alyssa’s tech stack at Magnetic Profits

💻 Elevate by Ambitious Bookkeeper

📝 Brooke Swan’s 1099 Filing & Prep Process

💻 Effortless Client Requests for Bookkeepers & Accountants (Content Snare program)

💻 Breakthrough for Bookkeepers & Accountants

💻 Kickoff with Asana for Bookkeepers & Accountants

⚙️ Track1099 (1099 filing software)

⚙️ Content Snare

⚙️ Asana

⚙️ Canva

⚙️ Loom

⚙️ Notion

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Let me ask you, does the thought of year end make you feel a little panicked? Between 10-99 prep reconciling accounts and endless client requests. It's easy to feel like the year end rush will never end, but what if I told you it doesn't have to be this way and today's episode, I'm going to be sharing how to prepare for a smooth stress-free year end that doesn't leave you overwhelmed or scrambling for documents. We'll cover everything from how to differentiate between year end tasks from your month end work to creating a year in tax package that actually wows your clients and creates a better client experience. To using tools and automations to streamline the entire process. Plus I'll be sharing some year end tax package prep tips that my biz bestie Serena shoe, but ambitious bookkeeper had shared with me and also shares in one of her programs. I'm going to be talking about that here today and also how it will help you with unnecessary stress. And for those of you ready to elevate your year end game, I'll introduce you to some of our resources like kickoff of the sauna, my breakthrough program, and our waitlist for effortless client requests, All designed to help you save time, impress your clients and end the year on a high note. If you're ready to turn, year-end chaos into clarity. You won't want to miss this episode. You're in can really feel very chaotic for most bookkeepers and accountants from 10-99, prep finalizing your client's books, making sure you got everything that you need from your clients. And also client requests piling up it's enough to overwhelm anyone. But what if it didn't have to be this way today? I'm breaking down how to create a smooth stress-free year-end process that not only set your clients up for success, but also makes your life easier. I'll share a practical strategies for mastering year-end tasks, streamlining 10-99 prep, and also keeping clients on track with the right tools and systems. Plus, I'll introduce you to some of the resources that I've developed over the years to make your end a breeze for your firm. Let's go ahead and get started. So I know for myself, we all have some sort of a crazy chaotic story of what it's like to go through year end when we're missing documents. Chaotic workflows or maybe last minute requests from clients. And I just wanted to kind of share mine to kind of set the tone for today. So I've been doing this for quite some time. Now this is now my second. Go around with two different firms. And it just, I swear, over time it gets, it gets easier. I promise you the more you do your end, the more it gets easier over time. Every year I'm even tweaking ours. We have a pretty good process down, but every year we're always going back and looking at. What went right? What went wrong, stuff like that. And so at the very beginning stages though, no one really warned me about year end. I will be really honest. A lot of like the resources that program had that I took around bookkeeping. I didn't really prep me for year end. They really mostly focused on like month end. And just getting like reconciliations done, making sure that you had all the documents. And honestly, the process is very similar, which I want to dive into in just a minute. The processes are quite similar from month end versus year end. However, year end is just, you have like a very short window of time to get your clients closed out for the prior year. Making sure everything is in the tip top shape, ready to rock and roll that by the time that you get through that, it's like a lot of extra work just to get through year end. If you've been around for a while, then, you know, 100% what this is like. But for me, I. Used to go insane because like I hated that like throughout the year, How many of you guys, like I've had clients where maybe something that we ask them for throughout the year isn't necessary. Right. In that moment. However, we know that at year end, we're actually going to need those documents. So I'll give you a really great example of this. So for example, like I used to have some clients that would be on loans. And the loans we didn't really need to reconcile. Often. We also didn't have access to the accounts. They weren't like a type of business that actually needed their loans reconcile every single month, or like the interest split out every month. And however, At the end of the year, we'd always have to ask them, Hey, can you send us this loan documents? Hey, can you send us this? All these different things. So throughout the years, I always felt like we would be just compiling more and more things that we needed from the clients. That weren't needed in that moment during month end, but would be needed later on in the year. End. And then it just got chaotic. And so for me, like, I didn't really, I wasn't systematized when I first started my, from my very first one. I wasn't systematized, I didn't know how to stay on top of the documents and the worst of it too. Especially if like, you feel like this too. I had no freaking idea what documented information I actually needed. So that was like a whole nother battle that I dealt with is not only like having the system in place, but also like lacking the understanding and the know-how and what I needed to do in order to properly close out a client set of books. What does the tax preparer need? What did they not need? What so on and so forth. And so if you felt like that as well, just know that I hear and see you because it took years for me to understand what does a tax payer actually need? And so throughout the years, I really focused on making year-end a lot smoother and I have collaborated with so many different people in the space to see like, Hey, what are you guys doing? Hey, what are you doing? Just so I can build this thing to be more of a beast. And so now since implementing systems and also the right tools, which I'm gonna talk about today, Honestly, our year end is just so smooth. It's just so nice. Every year we keep adding new and new layers that allow for us to create a better experience for the client, adding new, unique ways that we present their yearly financial stuff like that. So, which we'll talk about here in just a minute, but I just wanted to share with you that if you're feeling chaotic, there is a way out, but I will tell you that the most important key thing that you can do right now is to slow down as you were going into this new year end. I know you're in only what happens once a year, but it's important to remember to. To document this process to make sure that you have it on point. Do as much as you possibly can from now up until January to try to implement some sort of tools, softwares, or even processes. So that way as January kicks in and we start to do the close. It's really smooth. It's really easy. And it doesn't take months for the clients to get their information. So I just wanted to share that story and just like share with you guys that there is a way out. I promise. So let's talk about why it's so important to have a year-end process. So year end isn't just about closing out the books for the year. It's actually about creating a seamless experience for your clients. That actually builds trust and keeps them coming back year after year, a chaotic year end can actually lead to missed deadlines. Errors and unnecessary stress for you and your team, but a streamlined process actually helps you guys to become more accurate. Helps to keep the clients happy and even more referrals from your clients, nothing is going to make your clients more angry at you. Then you not getting your end done on time and then not being able to file their taxes on time. I know that this is quite frustrating for us. I used to think, like I said, a lot of these things, I had no idea what the expectation was. I thought that like I could take like three months to close out. Year-end like, I really honestly thought that four years ago, but now, like we strive for January end of January, just like we would close our normal set of books by end of January, the client is fully off our plate year-end is closed tax filing, everything is ready to go so they can hand it off to their tax preparer. And so I want you to know that you really have to start off with making sure that you have. A really good, clear idea in mind of what you want and what expectations you have for yourself. As you build out your ARN process. So it is seamless. There is no mess deadlines. There are no errors, anything like that. So the other thing too, and I know that this is a really big hiccup that most of us experience in this space is Haleigh. Suh. Unfortunately, your end is not my fault that it's behind. It's actually the client's fault because they're not getting us what we need. I would love for you to differentiate between what you actually need from the client order to close it out versus what is maybe a little bit of extra fluff. So for example, I was recently talking to one of our breakthrough students who, we do private strategy calls. It's 30 minutes and it's free for anyone who joins breakthrough. And during that strategy call, we were chatting and she was sharing with me that she requires her clients to send over receipts. And she's US-based I know in certain countries you are required to have receipts, but in the U S technically the IRS wants receipts. However it is not my responsibility. If my client wants to keep a receipt or not. Yes. Doesn't make our life easier because we can know what they purchased from target and Walmart. But at the end of the day, it's like, if the client doesn't want to provide it, then we just ask them questions about it. They can literally tell us whatever makes sense for them. We have it on record as an audit history of what they told us. It was, we put it on file, but anyway, so the reason I'm telling you this is because. This student of mine had told me, yeah, we require them to have receipts. I'm like, do you actually need the receipts? And she was like, well, it kind of is nice because then we can know what they purchase. I'm like, okay. And what else did she was like, But also like at the same time, we really don't need them that we really do them just to make our life easier to know so that we don't have to bother them to ask questions. Plus like the IRS wants them anyways. And I'm like, but at the same time, it's stalling your whole entire process by you forcing your client to give you all these receipts. Now you're six months behind because if the transaction doesn't ever receipt, you refuse categorize it. And I pretty much just like, let her know, like it is the responsibility of our clients to keep their own receipts. And so for me, I encourage it. Yes, we pay for Hubdoc for our clients. But at the end of the day, if the client doesn't give it to us, that's on them. So the reason I share this story is because if that is something that you're forcing to your clients, and then your end rolls around, you're gonna have a really hard time of closing things out. Rather, what we do is send a list of the clients and say, what are these transactions? If you don't know what it is, tell us what it is, or if you don't, we'll put it to shareholder, distributions or draws. Whatever makes the most sense. So I'm sharing this because a lot of times our year end will be stalled because of our clients. However, you have to set an expectation from upfront. And be very, very clear with your clients. What you expect, as far as their deadlines, we have this built into our contracts. We actually could charge our clients more if they don't get us stuff on time for year-end. Just make sure you have these things sprinkled in. So that way, like if maybe in December, you're sending out an email, letting the clients know, like, Hey, by the way, your end's coming right around the corner. It's so crucial that in a month, I know it's the holidays. I don't stress about it. But in January, when we send you our normal requests of information , it's so key that you get it to us on time and that you do not miss this. If you do not get this to us by February 1st, we are going to charge you an expedited fee. Whatever makes the most sense for you guys. But it is very important for you to just set these expectations. And that way, the client knows what to expect coming into January and knows what type of fees they'll have to be paying if they don't get it to you on time. So I'm going to be sharing with you five different steps that you can implement a really smooth and successful stress for year end. So step number one is to differentiate your year-end tasks from month end tasks. Step two is to create a year-end package. Step three is to streamline your 10-99 preparation. Step four is implement efficient tools and systems. And step five is dealing with missing client information for step three, which is a streamline 10-99 preparations. I will say that if you do not do 10-99 prep, you can go ahead and just like skip past that part. However, it might still be really supportive for you. If maybe that's something that you want to offer or you do currently offer 10-99. Prep. If you're in the U S specifically. So step number one is differentiate your year-end tasks from your month end tasks. So like I mentioned before, and I told you, I promised that I would talk you guys through this, your end tasks and your end prep is different than month end prep. While they might be very similar and there is a little bit of crossover with them. They really genuinely are a little bit different. Your end is more around like the 10-99 prep loan reconciliations really. Tying everything up with a bow, making sure all the vendor names are on there, making sure all the details are there. There's nothing in the client to advise account or the unassigned transactions account, whatever that looks like. It's really just you doing a final look through and double check everything and checking everything. Getting every last minute thing that you need any last minute questions from the clients, any assets that need to be added to the books. That's the difference between your regular monthly maintenance tasks. So your regular month end tasks are typically going to be your regular reconciliations for all your regular accounts. If you do have certain clients that need loan reconciliations monthly, obviously you would do that. This is where you're doing your actual categorization. By the time you do your end, you shouldn't be really focused on like, Categorizing transactions from the very beginning of the year. Like those should already be categorized. However, you're just going in and making sure that you are. Tying everything up with a little bow and it's super cute and it's ready to rock and roll. It's ready to go to the tax preparer. So monthly maintenance is going to be different from your year-end tasks, but like I said, they will cross over a little bit. So my biggest key tip. That can make your year end. One of the smoothest year ends possible is to be consistent with your monthly bookkeeping all year. And so I know this sounds really straightforward because that's supposed to be our job, but I can't tell you how many times I've seen so many people in the industry. And so many of our own students who allow the clients to get so behind, or they don't have a process of like moving on. If the client doesn't get them, what they need to continue to do the work. Some people, pause the account. If the client hasn't given them something for us, we still categorize. We still do whatever we possibly can with the information that we have available. The client fills to get it to us. We just move on and just continue the whole process every year. So I recommend you implement something like this. I'm going to drop a link to an episode that I did with Brooke Swan we did one on adjusting your month end process. And this is really, really helpful for anybody who is feeling the overwhelm of like, well, the client's going to get me something, so then I can't complete it. This is great. If you want to adjust your workload. So I'll drop that below in the show notes. If you guys want to listen to that episode, it's great for like managing and staying on top of the month end tasks. So that way it makes life so much easier. But if you're staying on top of the consistent bookkeeping, However, my recommendation too, is that as you are thinking about the month end versus year end tasks. If our client didn't get us everything that we need all throughout the year. Well, number one, we have rules in, um, like things that are inside of our contract. That pretty much say that if the client is like, I think it's over three months, it's either two months or three months. I have to double check my contract either two or three months past due information throughout the normal year. If there are two to three months past due with information. Then we technically will start charging them a cleanup fee to go back and fix it. Once we get the information. Then I think it's after a certain number of months, if they still haven't given us information, we actually disengaged from them. And I know that that's not always ideal, nor is it something that a lot of you guys can manage if maybe you don't have a lot of clients and you're really banking on that cash. I totally understand at the end of the day, like I have a business to run. I can't care more than my clients do. And that's always what I recommend for anyone as you're doing these types of things. If your client doesn't care about your end, your client, doesn't care about getting you what you need. Then we can't care more than them. Unfortunately, I can only do so much for our clients and lead them to water. I can't force them to drink. Right. And so be consistent all throughout the year. This will really help you as you get into year end. So, one thing I want you guys to do in this step is I want you to create a checklist of year-end specific tasks to make sure that you have nothing that you're going to miss. So for example, we have a project management system it's called Asana, which I will drop links to all the things that I'm referencing for you guys. But inside of Asana, we have a client project and each client's project also has a year end task lists. That you're in Tesla's pretty much is. Anything additional that we need to add onto regular month end at the year. End point. So like December close. We're kind of doing like a month end plus year end close. If that makes sense. So we have two separate tasks. And this has been really helpful for us. So just depends on what makes the most sense for use that way year end. You would have like an additional extra steps. To be added into that task. Whatever makes the most sense for you, but that's what makes sense for me. And so my recommendation is using these types of tools, which we'll talk about here in just a minute. So step number two is to create a year-end tax package. So as you've close out your year end for your clients, you're ready to rock and roll. This is where you can truly sprinkle in that client experience that I was talking about, because for me, that's one of my most important processes in my firm. As I want people to have a really good experience working with my firm. I want them to like, even if we fired them, go to people and be like, they were so incredible. And so Austin they're super organized. I like pride myself in that. So creating a year-end tax package allows you to really amplify and really change the way that you are creating this experience for them. So this is something that one of my biz besties, Serena Shoup and I'll drop her info below. He actually is really, really huge on as well. And so this is why I just love what she does and when it comes to teaching this piece. So she has a program it's called elevate, which also dropped below this. in the show notes. So elevate, she actually teaches how to produce a lot of this stuff that I'm gonna talk about here in just a second. But one thing that you're gonna want to do is as you are closing out your end and you're ready to rock and roll, the books are good. They're clean. You got everything you needed. Clients are good to go. We then download certain reports. Into a Google drive folder. It doesn't matter where you store them guys. Just do whatever makes, you feel good for us at my firm, it's Google drive. We upload all of the tax documents that they're going to need. So that means like, you know, their balance sheet, their P and L anything like their trial balance, like whatever makes sense. And a lot of times we are communicating with the tax prepare. And our clients. So usually when our clients are onboarded, we're introduced to their tax preparer. So that way throughout the year, if we need to flag anything or we need to ask them any questions. We can ask them. Cause some taxpayers I found don't want certain information. Some of them want access to the books. Some want the actual, like physical documents, some want to be able to poke around some don't even care about any of it and just want a spreadsheet filled out. It's really just dependent on them and about what we do for every client as we organize any of those important documents into a Google drive folder. Then we also include a financials comparison. Like presentation for each of our clients, which is really cool. And this is something that I totally stole from Serena Shoup and she teaches this inside of her elevate program. And I believe she also gives us slides. But yeah. Might want to double check with her. So anyways, this financial comparisons thing is really, really cool because it can compare against. Especially if you've been working with clients for quite some time. And even if you haven't, if they have a couple of years of financial data, You can do like a quick slides presentation. So you create like some sort of a template inside of Canva, which I love Canva. You can create some sort of a template inside of Canva that you just input your client's info. That just pretty much says like this year you did this much last year, you did this much. Here's the difference. Like I know that their financials can say that we can run those reports, but this is like a pretty version. And then we do a loom video with this and this loom video allows us to essentially film on screen as talking through this like presentation. So I don't know if you guys have ever seen like, Spotify wrapped, which Spotify wrapped, like at the end of the year. Like if you listened to the podcast on Spotify, will send you like, this is who you are listening to throughout the year. It's kind of the same thing, but instead for financials. So it's just like a really fun way to infuse that. Like, even if the client's on a consulting package, It's every one of our clients gets this and it's actually really fun. I want you to create templates to systematize any of your packages. Uh, India, the experiences, like I said, one big key component for our year end experience is we like to tell our clients, especially when they're onboarding with us that, Hey, we want to be the liaison between you and any of your financial professionals that you work with. These are the things that we will do in order to support them. These are the things that we usually don't. So for example, If the taxpayer's like, Nope, I don't want your trial balance and your P and L and your balance sheet. And I don't want access to the books, but I want you to fill out like a spreadsheet of a bunch of information, a bunch of questions. That's something that we, as the firm will not be doing for our client. Like we are not going out of our way to fill out another resource on behalf of our clients that is on the expectation of the client. So we just set that tone from the very beginning. Us being the liaison between them and the tax payer. We're happy to communicate with the taxpayer Rappi to give them documents, give them information, but however, we're not going to fill things out for our client. If that makes sense. So that's part of my experience. So when you're creating this year in tax package, you're not only creating like an asset, like a physical thing that they can be handing off to someone, but also creating the experience around that, celebrating how they did that year. Sometimes they might not be, have done really well, but it's a great opportunity to celebrate these times. So step number three is to streamline your 10-99 preparation. Like I mentioned before, if you do not do 10-99 prep, you can just like either sit through this. I should take me only a couple of minutes. Or just skip this part to step four. So step three. So if you do do a 10-99 preparations, which we do in my firm, I know a lot of from owners that do. If you can. I know that this recording is coming out in December. I would, uh, next year, at least start in November to avoid any last minute delays. However, if you're starting a little bit late to the game, it's okay. If you start now, if you send out the emails to your clients, but I would start that process. Now start gathering those W-9's, gather what you need. Start automating that, gathering everything that you need in order to help you guys file the 10-99's. So, if you can, my recommendation is to build a system around tracking and preparing your 10-99's. Part of our tax year in tax package. is we also provide any of the 10-99 documents. So that, that way the taxpayer has access to that. So we use track 10-99 at my firm. I actually love track 10-99. I've been using it for years now. And I think a lot of people in the space also use it. I'll drop the link below the video, if you're unsure of what software to use for 10-99 prep. So a couple of things that I wanted to talk about in this area is as you're doing 10-99 prep, we obviously have to file by specific deadlines in order to make sure 10-99 are done on time. However, this is why you need to set the tone with the client ahead of time to let them know that, Hey, we're getting into year end. It's really crucial. You get us stuff on time. Plus we're also needing to file 10-99's. It's also in crucial for you to get it to us on time. Here's the deadlines and due dates that you can expect. A lot of the times, I see a lot of people like getting frustrated with their clients, but yet, have you ever communicated this with your clients? And also if you did it one time, they're not going to listen. You have to like remind people like so many times before they finally like, understand what you're saying. So just remember, like, if you sent one email, that's not enough. Sometimes you have to send multiple ones. So a couple of things that helped me throughout the years to automate our 10-99's. And to get a lot of this done is number one, content snare. So within content snare, we have a W-9 requests function that essentially we can request any of the W-9s, from our clients that they need from specific vendors. So essentially we just put in their content snare requests, we just put the different vendors that we need W-9 for, and then the client simply sends it off to their client or to their vendor. And then they just upload the finalized W-9 into that content snare requests makes it really easy for us. We're able to gather those documents, download it, put it into. Uh, Google drive. It's quite helpful. If you've never heard of content snare, then I definitely recommend that you check it out. I love content snare. I will tell you though. If you haven't already. My recommendation is to get on our waitlist because as of December 20th, 2024 almost said 2025, but we're in 2024. On December 20th, 2024, we will be releasing. Effortless client requests, which is a program that I'm co-creating with one of my favorite people in the industry, Brooke Swan. And it is a whole program and how we use content snare. We're going to give you every single request that we use, including our year end requests that we send to our clients. The emails that are automated that come with it. The schedule of emails, it's everything guys like our W-9 requesting. So if you're really interested in that and making your year end and 10-99's. Really smooth and I F feel free to put yourself on the wait list. You just go to workflow. queen.com. Backslash content snare that C O N T E N T S N A R E. So workflow queen.com backslash contents there. I will also drop that in the show notes for you guys to be able to get on the wait list, but we will be launching it in a couple of weeks. I'm super excited for you guys to see it. We have been building this thing out in the, behind the scenes. It's been so much fun. Plus it's taken us years to nail these requests ourselves. Now you guys are getting it and it's so fast to implement. It's insane. So step number four for year end prep and a smooth process is to implement efficient tools and systems. So my recommendation is as you're going into year end looking at what do you actually need to be successful with your year end? With your 10-99 prep, whatever makes the most sense. And this really goes for any sort of process that you're rolling out, what tools or what things will we need and resources will we need in order to make this successful. So for us for when it comes to your end, we have Asana, which is our task management system. Asana is going to allow us to document out all the different steps and tasks that our team needs to perform in order to make sure your end is fully processed. We also use contentsnare requests, like I mentioned before, this is for when we're requesting information during year end from our clients. So it might be like, Hey, please upload your loan statements. Please answer these questions. Is this an asset? Can you please give us a note for this? Like whatever makes the most sense. So we are using. ContentSnare for that. We're using Notion for notes and details. So a lot of people get confused as why. I use Notion plus Asana. So Notion is just for us to keep notes and details and information while Asana is for us to actually execute the work. So the tasks. So, and notion we have like a client profile for each of our clients that, uh, you know, list out their nuances, their year end prep. So throughout the year, our team is required to jot down anything that we want to flag or point out to the tax preparer. So by the time that we send out the year on tax package, to the tax preparer or to the client to send to their tax preparer. It essentially will also compile things that maybe for example, if someone is an S-corp and they are. You know, running their healthcare directly through their business account, but not through their payroll. We want to flag this to the tax payer for them to decide on what makes the most sense on the way this needs to be organized or where it needs to be reallocated to. And we're more than happy to do that. So throughout the year, we're compiling those notes inside of Notion. Plus inside of Notion, we're also tracking anything that's like past due the things that we're going to have to ask for the clients. Or from the clients through the content snare requests. So it's such a great resource for us. We actually teach Notion inside of breakthrough. I give my whole entire Notion set up. I just absolutely love , love, love, love Notion, but I'll drop the link to break here. If you're interested in that. Then what we use as Google drive for the filing storage. So this is where we're actually storing the tax package. This is where we're storing the presentation files. This is where we're storing the 10-99 backup information W-9s, anything like that. So that's what I've chosen for my firm. But you have to go with whatever feels best for you as far as what software makes the most sense. The other thing too, like I mentioned before, to decide if you're going to communicate with a taxpayer or not, this is really up to the client. If the client doesn't want us to communicate with them, that's fine. However, I always like remind them that like, we're literally here to make your life easier. We can only answer questions that are based off the business, but nothing beyond that. However, we are here to answer questions. And a lot of people ask me all the time, but Alyssa. What happens at the tax preparer keeps asking you a ton of questions. And now you have to answer all these things. And do you charge for it? No. It's part of being with our firm. It's part of the experience and that's what super important for me. If you're really curious about my exact tech stack that I use. the tech stack, I'm gonna drop the link for in just a second is going to show all the tech I use in my firm. Not necessarily only for year-end, but I just wanted to let you guys know if you want to see what kind of tech I use. You can go to workflowqueen.com/tech-stack, and then you can see my whole entire tech stack. So last step in creating this year end smooth process is step five, which is dealing with missing client information. So when you are sending out, maybe you guys do it by email because we did pull you guys. We did some market research when building out the program, effortless client requests. And in that. Survey, we asked you guys, how are you guys asking for your clients for information about 80% of you guys are actually sending physical emails. To your clients to remind them to send you documents. And so while this is great and it serves its time and place, it served me at one point, however, it's not sustainable. And it's not there for longterm growth. My recommendation is that you implement something that maybe automatically follows up with them to make sure to get information around your end around month end or, for whatever information you need. We use contents near for that. So content snare with each request. So we have like a year-end request. When we send that we can assign all of the year end emails that essentially will like automatically nudge the client if they haven't uploaded things. So there's no manual followup, they make our life so much easier. This is also part of our effortless client requests program. Once it goes live on December 20th, that will include all the email reminders that we use for year end. All of the other requests that we're also giving you guys as well. My recommendation too, is I kind of teased on this a little bit at the very beginning of this episode. But I want you guys to add somewhere in your contract, some sort of a clause around any delays and stuff like that. So if information is missing over a certain period of time, then you guys will charge an X fee. So we do that for month end year end. If they don't get a certain information by a certain date, they're going to have to extend their filing. Plus we're going to charge them late fees. And so I would recommend going back to your lawyer or whoever drafted your contract to make sure that they include those clauses so that's something that I had included this past year, actually, which is anything over a certain number of months, past due. We are going to charge them a cleanup fee when we finally get it, because now we have to go months behind the things that are previously closed. So, like I mentioned, consider late response fees, to encourage your clients, to actually get you everything that you need and to cooperate with you. This is where if you're setting the tone somewhere in December to get them ready for January, you're letting them know as well in that email. As a reminder, we need everything by X date. If you do not get us everything by X date, we are going to charge you a late fee of X fee. Whatever makes the most sense for you. It is something that will really help you. When you start as telling people you're gonna charge late fees, people start moving, people start going, people start including information. They start answering questions. And so my recommendation is to really get clear on that, of what you want to do, and it's not nickel and diming. It's not rude. It's just guys, we have to do this stuff on time. I refuse to have our year end go into February. Like I will do anything to make sure it does not go on and on. I can't tell you how many people. Have entered into my world and told me that they sometimes don't close our clients till March. it's not because the client didn't get him something it's because they didn't finish their stuff up because they're so behind, they're dealing with so many clients. And if you truly want to a smooth. And especially if you're dealing with a lot of clients, you guys got to start hiring a team. But that's going to be for another episode for future Alyssa problem is what I like to call it. So a couple of objections that are going to come up for you or some misconceptions or some things that are gonna come up as you think through everything that I just shared, which was a lot of information. As you might be saying, I don't have time to create a year-end process. I understand this. I know that it's hard to stop pause and only comes once a year. However, I am going to highly encourage that this year. You just slow down just a little bit to document your year end process. This will make your life so much easier, especially as you're hiring a team next year will be so much smoother every single year that goes by at guys, like I said, I'm always adding new changes. Our team is always going back. My recommendation is to. Make sure to document some of your parts of your end. Then once your end is complete and you're fully out of it, all your clients are closed out. You're ready to rock and roll. My recommendation is to go back and see what went, right? What went wrong, things that you guys can improve so that we can build that into the process. So next year it's going to be even better. Another big thing I see and hear all the times my clients never respond on time. Like I said, you guys have to set this expectation upfront. I would encourage that. You tell them we're going to charge late fees. It is crucial for your success of the company. If you don't get it to us on time, we are going to close it as is like, whatever you have to do and say, in order for them to be able to do this, if you are having trouble with your clients, not responding on time, this is another reason why I love content snare. And I love their automated emails because I don't have to remember to go in and manually email all of our clients. To let them know that we stop and gathered info. What's still missing and said content snare does out on our behalf. So a couple of things that will help you through this process. As you start implementing your year end, I've kind of sprinkled in some external resources. So I, I mentioned, Serena Shoup with Elevate. She teaches how to put together a year in tax packages. I talked about. Brooke Swan, which I don't remember if I did this, but Brook Swan actually has a 10-99 filing and prep process that you guys can purchase. I will link that below in this video. So if you do do 10-99's, I will drop that below. But some of the resources that we offer here at Workflow Queen is I highly recommend that you get onto our waitlist for effortless client requests, we are launching the program on december 20th. If you want to join the waitlist, essentially, if you want to make your year end client requests easier. Then you can hop on, we're going to give you our exact content snare requests templates, email scripts, and the schedule that you guys need to make sure that your clients are on track. For not only year end, but also all the other requests within the company. And so it's going to be really helpful for you guys. You do have to pay for content snare separate from that program because we are not contents there. We're just having to teach. On that software. Another resource too. Is kickoff with Asana. So inside of my program, Kick Off with Asana I give you done for you templates for your project management system, specifically Asana. So it teaches you how to use Asana, how to set it up. Plus also includes all the tasks that you need in order to perform stuff, which also includes your 10-99 prep. Stuff like that. And also your year end included with everything that we're talking about today. The last resource that we offer as well as Breakthrough for Bookkeepers and Accountants. This is for deeper support and step-by-step guidance. We're inside of Breakthrough. We actually teach you how to map, document, outsource your year-end process. And we also help you with really building out the team to help you execute this stuff. So a couple of key points and takeaways from today is to differentiate your year end tasks from your month end tasks. Create a year end tax package to really wow your clients and create a better client experience. Start your 10-99 prep earlier rather than later, to avoid any last minute, headaches, use tools like Asana ContentSnare and Notion to streamline your workflows and also set clear communication expectations with clients to avoid any delays. I really hope that today's episode is going to be super helpful to get you geared up for year end. I know there's a lot to do when it comes to year end. However it doesn't have to be chaotic and it doesn't have to be overwhelming. And in the next episode, which we're doing a bonus episode, this coming Thursday. Is going to be episode number 96, which is all about why you should stop emailing your clients together information and do this instead with Brooke Swan. So we're going to be deep diving into what we used to do in order to gather info from our clients and what we do now. And how that's really amplified our success rate of actually gathering documents from our clients. So without further ado, let me know if you have any questions along the way and chat soon.