A client is asked for his records. He sends a photograph of a drawer. The following month he sends nothing because he was not sure what counted, and the month after he sends three hundred items including his supermarket shopping.
He is trying to help. Nobody has ever given him a list.
The checklist
Publish this, send it monthly, and the chasing largely stops.
1. Bank data
Whether the feed covers it or statements are needed, for which accounts, and whether any account is missing from the arrangement.
2. Sales invoices
Everything raised in the period, including anything cancelled or credited. Clients forget the ones raised outside their usual system.
3. Purchase receipts
For what the bank feed cannot explain. Say plainly which transactions need a receipt and which do not, which is the ground in receipt and record questions clients ask all year.
4. Anything paid personally
Business costs paid from a personal account or card. It is the most commonly missed category and the one clients lose money on.
5. Cash transactions
Anything received or paid in cash, with a note. Small businesses have more of these than they admit and they are invisible in a feed.
6. Anything unusual
A large purchase, an asset, a refund, a loan, a grant or a transaction they cannot explain. One line from the client saves an hour of investigation.
7. New arrangements
A new supplier, a new payment method, a subscription, a finance agreement or a new bank account. Structural changes matter more than individual transactions.
8. Employment changes
A new employee, a leaver or a change in hours, where payroll is involved. It affects filings and clients mention it late.
9. What not to send
Duplicates of what is already on the feed, personal spending and statements already connected. Telling clients what to leave out is as useful as telling them what to include.
10. When to send it
A fixed date each month, with a reminder. The routine matters more than the method and it must be established rather than hoped for.
11. How to send it
One agreed route, chosen to fit how the client actually works. Two routes is fine and five is chaos.
12. What happens if something is missing
How queries are raised, in what form and how quickly a response is needed. Queries are the other half of the monthly work.
13. Why it matters to them
What incomplete records cost in fees and in what cannot be claimed. Clients respond to a consequence they understand, which is the fee relationship in bookkeeping included or extra and why it matters and fixed fee versus hourly accounting explained.
13b. Say what happens in a quiet month
Clients with nothing much to report frequently send nothing at all, and silence is indistinguishable from forgetting. Asking for a one line confirmation that a month was quiet keeps the routine intact, stops the chase starting and means a genuinely missing month is spotted immediately rather than at the year end.
14. Publish it as a permanent page
So it can be linked, revisited and sent to every new client, which is the value of a maintained source as in what a knowledge base is and why your chatbot needs one.
Getting started
Publish a monthly list with what to send and what to leave out, send it automatically on the same date and answer record questions at any hour. SpideyChat for accountants answers from your published pages. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about reminders on the features page.