In this article, we cover three ways tax practices can leverage the Harness Platform to streamline operational expenses and enhance practice management:
- Reducing Marketing Costs While Increasing Revenue
- Controlling Admin Expenses as Your Tax Firm Grows
- Keeping Technology Management Costs Down
Key Takeaways:
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1. Reducing Marketing Costs While Increasing Revenue
According to the Association for Accounting Marketing’s 2023-24 Marketing Budget Benchmark Study:
- 100% of high-growth firms plan to increase compensation for their marketing departments.
- 91% of the high-growth firms include SEO investments in their marketing budget.
These high-growth firms grow at a rate of 5X more than their low-growth peers.
Getting found online is vital to growing your tax practice, but hiring marketing employees or an agency can be costly, especially for small and mid-sized tax firms. Managing marketing on your own can take valuable time away from serving clients. Plus, implementing an effective SEO strategy often requires specialized skills and experience that might not be the primary focus of your team.
But finding more of the right clients is a must for growth. According to the 2022 CPA.com & AICPA PCPS Client Advisory Services (CAS) Benchmark Survey, the top two sources of new advisory business are existing clients and referrals from existing clients. By increasing your referral business, you may be able to decrease the cost of attracting a new client and reinvest those cost savings into other areas of your tax practice.
Harness’s Marketing Solution
Knowing that marketing can be costly and time-consuming, we’ve created a marketplace for tax client leads for advisors on the Harness tax practice management platform. Through the Harness Marketplace, we refer high-value tax clients to your firm whose unique needs align with your interests and areas of expertise.
The Harness Marketplace won’t replace a marketing strategy, but it can help reduce marketing costs, providing your tax firm with an extra source of curated leads. If you successfully serve clients from the Marketplace, you may increase your likelihood of gaining referrals from those clients.
But like any marketing effort, your firm needs to be a good fit for the potential clients you are in front of in the Marketplace. To help gauge if your firm is a good fit for the Marketplace, here are the top 10 tax planning needs of Harness tax clients:
- Exercise Stock Options
- Planning for Having Children
- Tax Planning for Buying a House
- Tax Implications of Changing Jobs
- Secondary Liquidity Situations
- Equity IPO Tax Planning
- Tax Planning for Starting a Company
- Tax Implications of Getting Married
- Crypto Investment Taxes
- Taxes When Moving Internationally
(Bonus Guide: Marketing Strategies for Tax Advisors: A Practical Guide to Help Grow Your Tax Practice)
2. Controlling Admin Expenses as Your Tax Firm Grows
When managing your firm’s operations, admin staff expenses can be an area to consistently monitor. According to the practice management consulting firm Rosenberg Associates:
- 20% seems to be the sweet spot for a firm’s admin personnel as a percentage of the total headcount.
- At 15% or below, this means that tax practice partners and professional staff are likely doing admin work themselves, which can detract from the business.
- And when firms have admin staff that exceeds 25% of the total headcount, efficiency problems can start to show.
Monitor your admin-to-total-staff ratio year to year to help manage expenses. As you grow, consider options such as hiring new staff and outsourcing, which can be done seasonally or long-term.
How Harness Helps Control Admin Staff Expenses
The Harness Concierge team is here to serve clients on your behalf. Harness Concierge works as an extension of your team saving you time and allowing you to focus on high-value activities.
Harness Concierge can help streamline your firm’s operations by:
- Fielding questions from clients to help you stay focused.
- Providing support managing client billing and renewals.
- Providing E-filing support during the busy season.
- Coordinating and scheduling your client introductions.
For small to medium-sized tax firms, Harness Concierge may reduce the need to hire administrative staff, which can help control costs as the firm grows.
3. Keeping Technology Management Costs Down
Technology powers most—if not all—of a tax advisory firm’s operations. From client onboarding to tax filing and providing comprehensive advisory services, there is likely a piece of tech that needs to be vetted and implemented to serve clients and manage behind-the-scenes processes.
As stated in a recent article from CPA Practice Advisor, “…for a CPA trying to transition into an advisory role, technology is imperative. Being abreast of the latest technological tools helps them automate mundane tasks so they can focus on more critical processes.”
However, staying current with technology and implementing new technology takes time and resources. Outsourcing some or all of your technology procurement and management can reduce your firm’s operational costs.
The Harness Client Portal
The Harness Client Portal is our proprietary platform for client communication and engagement management that integrates with CRM, time tracking, billing, and eSignature platforms. From onboarding to tax planning to annual return filing, the Client Portal helps you stay connected with an individual tax practice’s clients while managing all of your client engagements within a single, intuitive dashboard.
Tax Practice Management Software Integrations
At Harness, we support tax practices through direct integrations with key software platforms, helping you grow your tax practice more efficiently:
- CRM: Harness integrates with HubSpot, a customer relationship management platform, to help your firm build client relationships.
- Time Tracking: Harness integrates with Harvest for time-tracking, billing, and invoicing.
- E-Signatures: Harness integrates with PandaDoc for e-signature on engagement letters and tax returns.
Tax Practice Management Software Managed Services
In addition to our three core technology integrations, Harness also offers managed services for a range of additional tax practice management technologies, ensuring you have everything you need to grow your tax practice. These can include:
- Tax Preparation and Compliance: CCH Axcess, Autoflow, and Xpitax for tax preparation, compliance, and workflow in the cloud.
- Income Tax Planning: BNA IT Planner for comprehensive income tax planning.
- CPE Training: Becker for CPE training and credits.
- Cloud Storage: Google Drive for cloud storage.
- Tax Research and Guidance: Checkpoint and MFPCO for tax research and guidance.
- Books Preparation: Tallyfor for preparing books for entities.
- 1099 Preparation: Track1099 for preparing 1099s.
As you manage your tax practice, it’s important to stay on top of technology trends, but your first priority is creating value for your clients. That’s why we work with you to manage your tech stack and provide your team with the training needed to leverage these tools effectively.
Want to discuss your tax firm’s operations?
Schedule an intro with Harness today to discover how our modern software, in-house concierge team, curated high-value client introductions, and professional community can help your tax practice reduce operational expenses and improve practice management.