Clients may feel stressed during tax season as they prepare their paperwork. However, no one is more stressed between January and April than your CPA and accounting firm clients. This is the busiest time of the year for them, when they generate up to 50% of their annual revenue. They can’t afford any IT complications.
This means the pressure is on for MSPs. We asked three MSP owners with years of experience working with CPAs how they prepare for this busy season. They shared what has worked for them in the past, insight into their client’s day-to-day operations, and other ways to support CPA clients tax season.
1. Plan Major IT Work for Q4
“We do [client’s] annual planning [in] August, September, October—maybe a little bit into November. That’s when we do all the heavy lifting: new servers, new networking equipment, new computer programs. Whatever it is that’s going to be changed, it’s all done in that quarter.”– Gary Tonniges Jr., CEO and founder of TriQuest Technologies (pictured right)
“For the larger clients, I usually have an in-depth QBR. I’ll have one or two technicians on that call. We try to get as much done as we can before tax season. IT’s very hectic between November and January.” – Dan Fusco, Founder of InnerPC
2. Pre-Season Dry Run
“Is all your software running: QuickBooks, Lacerte, Drake? Let’s make sure all of those are up to date and running well. We do a backup check because the last thing we want to have is a backup failure in the middle of tax season. It’s the small things that people don’t think about that can cause problems.” – Jonathan Fitzgerald, Managing Partner of GDS Technology (pictured left)
3. Stock Up on Supplies
“Have a couple of spare computers that you can rapidly deploy because the moment something goes down, you’re going to be getting that phone call from the CPA going, ‘I’ve got two employees down, they can’t work. What are you going to do?” – Fitzgerald
“Here’s a simple one: make sure [they] have enough toner in all the printers. Their print volume is going to start to increase in January because they’re going to start getting calls from people and might print 1000 tax extensions all in one day.” – Tonniges
4. Audit their Full Tech Stack
“We try to make a point to ask before busy season: ‘This is the list of things you told us that you rely on. Is there anything that’s changed?’ What we’re looking for is awareness. We’re not necessarily trying to be able to fix it, because if it’s an external system then they need to contact that support.” – Tonniges
“Lacerte does not work on Azure virtual desktops. Even when you ran the web setup, it would get stuck. So, we had to finagle our way and figure out the different tricks that you can do to get it running.” – Fusco (pictured right)
5. Build a Software Knowledge Base
“I think setting expectations is really important. We are MSPs and are here to help our clients. You absolutely need a knowledge base. [It] is what makes us valuable because there are very few companies that do this. We are the help desk for these companies and for the most part, know more than the software company.” – Fusco
6. Pause or Reschedule Updates
“In IT, one of the things that we love to do is automate everything. So, we have patches for Office, Windows, and anything that we get paid for so that we don’t have to do it manually. Well, when a CPA is working on Wednesday night at 10 P.M., and that’s the time there’s a maintenance window, I recommend a moratorium on patching or coordinating with the customer. [Ask them] ‘Hey, when do you never work?’ and move the patch window to that time.” – Tonniges
7. Ask Before You Remote In
“Take a moment to recognize that they’re working on highly, highly confidential things. Show that you understand that by asking the question, ‘Do you have anything open that is confidential that you’d like to close?’ Even if the answer is no, asking the question shows that you understand them and that’s a big part of customer service.” – Tonniges
8. Learn the Language and Ethics of CPAs
“I think terminology is important in understanding what they’re talking about. Just like IT, accounting has a different language. CPAs have a professional code of conduct and professional ethics they follow, so being familiar with that and how it impacts the decisions they make is important.” – Tonniges
9. Refresh Client Cybersecurity Training
“Do refresher courses but also [simulate] more impactful spear phishing style attacks. That way, it’s making them aware of what’s possible. CPA attacks are similar to a vendor attack; if they can get that set of keys or that information from the CPA, now they’ve got client social security numbers, corporate ID, tax stuff. When the attacker is be able to get all that information, then they can sell all that or utilize it for whatever means they’d like. It’s a lot to review because it’s always changing. It’s never going to be the same year to year.” – Fitzgerald
“We really enforce [our] cybersecurity stack, which includes email backup, password management, and cybersecurity training. There are many reasons you need cybersecurity training. Microsoft doesn’t let you know but they don’t back up emails. So, if you lose your inbox and somebody goes in and deletes everything, it’s gone.” – Fusco
“CPAs need really good IT people,” said Tonniges. “They’re good clients if you take care of them.”
For more ways to offer great customer service, no matter the client, see 9 Genius “Customer Experience” Touches that Cost Almost Nothing.
