Leaderboard

I too have had bad luck hiring preparers, and even bookkeepers and clerical help. Plus if I do hire someone, I'll be left with no work the second half of the year unless I market for MORE clients. I'm 75 and don't want more clients, even if half are prepared by an employee. I WANT to work all year. I just need to manage client expectations better. Each year I think I'm communicating better, but there's always one who calls way too much. This year it's a middle-aged woman who keeps calling about her boyfriend's return; I remind her I can only talk to her about her own return, which was already e-filed. Now the USPS keeps sending her folder away from her local distribution center, so she's calling me to have her return delivered before it gets stolen. Since 7 July I've talked to 6 USPS employees in 4 locations to try to get her package the last six miles to her house -- on the same street as her local postmaster! I have a short list of those I'm firing this fall, and she and her boyfriend are on it. Hers is a really easy return, but she's a very needy woman. I really do tell clients, when they're the 22nd client that uploaded their documents in the same week, when to expect me to be working on their returns. They call in a few days, anyway. Do that too much, and you get on my short/getting longer list.

That is simply NOT true. I've had many business clients change processors over the years, and it is a service they are paying for. When the client changes services, clients certainly DO tell the old processor what filings should be done, including the current 941, unemployment returns, and year-end filings of 940 and W-2s. This is especially important if the client provides the new service with the YTD figures so that duplications do not occur like happened with the OP's client.