On a regular day, a working professional receives about 121 emails. A significant part of their day goes into reading and clearing the inbox. While the other way is to just oversee through emails and ignore most of them, communicating through emails is more complex than that. Professionals often struggle with the significant pressure of missing out on important emails and falling into a troublesome pitfall. That’s the first reason why you need email management strategies.
While this is the case for working professionals across the world, tax professionals have it worse. Small tax firms get overwhelmed, especially during tax season with the unbelievable amount of daily emails they receive. From clients, and vendors, to in-house professionals – with the number of emails they have in their inboxes, it is fairly easy to miss an email. This is the second reason!
Time is of key essence for tax professionals and losing so much of it on emails is simply insane. Most clients prefer paying the tax firms based on the hours they spend on completing a job. The above situation simply means that small tax firms are losing money, and a lot of it. If there was a way to dramatically reduce the percentage of time spent on stressing over emails, small tax firms would certainly be able to grow at a faster rate.
In this blog, Finsmart Accounting – trusted globally for outsourced bookkeeping services – will share ace email management strategies that will help save time and maximize productivity.
Why is there a problem with email mismanagement?
Tax firms often find it difficult to manage their emails because of a variety of reasons. Small tax firms often need more resources, which can lead to high mismanagement of several clients. All they need is a simple way to declutter. Before we delve into different ways to manage the overflowing emails, let us understand what leads to the mismanagement of emails:
- Recurring questions from new clients: Small tax firms are in a constant rush to acquire new clients. Not so surprisingly, most of them have similar questions. Most of these questions can be answered in the onboarding phase. The first step is to take note of the recurring questions and to make sure that they are answered. Such emails can be automated.
- Recurring questions from existing clients: It is not just the new clients who take up a lot of your time, it is the existing clients too. For tax firms, their inboxes are often flooded with recurring questions that take up a lot of unnecessary time. A simple hack to fix this is to prepare a FAQ page that answers common questions your tax firm receives. Alternatively, firms can also have an online help center on the website and the clients can be redirected there. This prevents time while answering the necessary questions.
- Flooding emails: Logging into work with too many emails can be stressful. What is even more daunting is to decide whether to ignore or act upon them. If the team members at a small firm are receiving too many emails, it might be a sign that they are managing several clients on their own. Make sure to calculate the amount of time you are spending on answering those emails. If that is too high, it might be wise to find a virtual assistant that can handle simple tasks like managing emails, prevent ignoring them and have a bad business reputation.
Recommended reading:
Tax software for small CPA firms planning to disrupt 2024
Discover emerging trends in accounting
NGO accounting and crucial practices
Accounting KPIs for financial success
How to keep your peace while managing emails effectively?
Email management is a complex affair. As the tax season approaches, it gets even more difficult for tax professionals to manage the huge pile of emails that demand constant attention. With the right strategy and planning, professionals can act on them. Here are some common tips to help small tax firms manage their inbox effectively:
- Choose a software: With a wide variety of email management software available, you can streamline communication between the clients and the team. Most software is a shared team-based inbox that retains client emails and autosaves attached files. The communication remains in the account. Tax firms can turn emails into tasks or skip them entirely through such software. Some of the email management software include Zendesk, Hiver, Brevo, SaneBox, and Front. A rather simple email management strategy but works like magic!
- Block time: On average, a working professional, checks their email 74 times a day. That is the amount of pressure professionals feel about pending emails. The best way to tackle an overflowing email inbox is by setting aside a dedicated time of the day to read and answer emails. However, it is on the individual to avoid giving in to the unnecessary pressure of answering emails as soon as they enter the inbox. By doing this, you can stay on top of communication and information without letting it interrupt the workflow.
- Create templates for your response: As a business, you know how often you need to send the same emails. The questions are repetitive and need almost the same response. For such situations, it is wise to create templates, change the name and minor details (wherever applicable), and click on the send button. Google has an option called canned responses that allows the creation of templated replies to be sent to the clients.
- Encourage client self-service: By giving clients access to several functions, you empower them to help you streamline. To enable this, you can secure a client portal that can access relevant documents, and updates, and submit information directly. This prevents back-and-forth in emails. Developing FAQs is another important step to empower the clients with all the necessary information, which they can read up on instead of immediate email communication. Alternatively, you can also set up automated responses based on the most common queries you receive.
- Bring in an assistant: At this point, you can decide whether you need to hire a virtual or a human assistant. Assistants are a great resource to tackle the busy parts of the day, without making you feel overwhelmed. In case you plan to hire a human assistant, make sure to invest in someone who can take the workload off and help you stay proactive. The best part of hiring a physical assistant is that they can do more than just handle your emails. They can even help with attending calls and completing simple tasks.
- Clean up the inbox: This might take a while, but the positive side of cleaning up the inbox is that it is a one-time thing. Make sure to take some time to go through the inbox, unsubscribe or block the email senders you do not want to hear from, and remove the spam emails. The last thing you want is for the unwanted messages to sit in your inbox and add to your anxiety. One of the simple email management strategies in this list but works like magic!
- Filter out those emails: Creating labels or folders for your emails is easier and it also helps in helping you find what you are looking for. Categorize your emails first and then create distinct folders for external or internal correspondence. By labeling, you can also segregate between what needs immediate attention and what can be prioritized later. By doing this, you can easily declutter your inbox and the organization brings you peace of mind. Do not forget to prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance
- Unsubscribe and declutter: No matter whether it is your personal or business account, leaders receive a lot of spam and junk emails daily. It is especially important to check the list of subscriptions. It is essential to dedicate a certain time in the week/month to do this. You can try using unsubscribing tools to help your mailbox automatically detect the junk in your list. It is important to prioritize subscriptions based on priority and relevance. After all, not everything that lands in your system is important.
- Archive and backup: Build a schedule to archive older emails. These are the ones that might not be needed immediately but need to be stored for a later time. Storing emails on the cloud enables the safety and security of critical data as well. This is a useful email management strategy for providing security against data loss due to unforeseen circumstances too. Taxation is a critical field and it is wise to be mindful of the industry regulations and compliance requirements.
- Delete the email app: Most business leaders receive hundreds of emails daily. Since most of the leaders have the email application on their phones as well, this means that the phones are receiving notifications too often. This can elevate the stress levels while distracting you. The best way to combat this is to delete the app from the phone and make sure to dedicate a specific time of the day when you spend time answering those emails. A nifty inbox management strategy if you ask us!
Email Management for Tax Professionals – End Note
Managing emails can seem to be a daunting task, but not when managed in the right way. When looking for ways to manage emails, it is essential to note what might work for one tax firm, might not essentially work for another. Mastering zero emails in the inbox is an ongoing commitment that helps professionals manage their workload and achieve excellence. The leaders of the firms need to tweak strategies that suit your client base and business requirements. It is essential to embrace modern inbox management strategies that help transform the way tax businesses work. With proper email management through the right strategies and effective email software, firms can provide top-tier service in the dynamic field of taxation.
Want to outsource your tax jobs for better productivity and quality? Write to us at connect@finsmartaccounting.com
Also, don’t forget to check out these services we are celebrated for:
Payroll outsourcing companies in India
Outsourced financial controller service
Maanoj is Co-founder & Director of Growth Strategy & Alliance at Finsmart Accounting. He is an Outsourcing Expert, a People Champion, and a Dynamic Leader with strong Business Strategy and Scaling-up experience. He has incubated businesses, sold & exited ventures; helped build strong enterprises in very diversified verticals like Fintech, HR & Consulting spaces in various CXO capacities over the last 20 years.
