Communication Policy

While we love to talk to our clients, (and generally love to talk about anything to anyone as we aren’t your normal introverted accountants), we communicate in a structured manner so as to maximize both the use of our time as well as that of our clients.  Communicating effectively and efficiently keeps our stress down and, probably more important to you, your fees down as we only have a limited amount of time to sell, once that time has passed we can not get it back.

This is what communications with our firm look like:

Phone

We check voicemail on a firm wide basis twice a day at approximately 10 AM and 2 PM Monday through Friday.  We respond to voicemails on a priority basis at those times. 

The nature of our business is such that there is rarely a true tax or accounting emergency – when there is, those calls are returned first. 

We next return phone calls when there is an upcoming deadline involved – things like additional information needed for a tax return which is up against a filing deadline, processing payroll for your staff, or a quarterly tax filing issue.

Other issues may be addressed by email or with a phone call in the next few business days as time permits depending on the nature and scope of a particular issue.

Email

There is a time and place for email.  It can either be a great tool and time saver when managed properly, or a giant time waster when it is not.  Email is not for urgent matters, it is for providing and sharing information which is not time critical - in other words something you don't need a response to right this moment.  On a firm wide basis, we check and respond to email once per day Monday through Friday.  Depending on the urgency of the subject matter and when your email was sent, you may receive an instant response or it may take us up to 48-72 business hours to respond to your email depending on the nature and scope of the matter at hand.  While it is possible that our staff may reply to email more than once per day, it is not guaranteed, therefore if you have an urgent matter which needs to be addressed, please call our office.

For purposes of information security, (and to help keep the heads of our IT professionals from exploding), we require all financial information be exchanged through our secure portal rather than emailed to us in accordance with our required written information security plan which we have prepared in accordance with IRS regulations governing tax professionals.  If you are providing any sort of private financial information, do not email that to us as email attachments are automatically stripped out for information security purposes.  Instead, please upload that to your TaxDome portal account or use TaxDome messaging to help ensure that your information is kept secure, private, and encrypted.

Phone Call and Video Chat Scheduling for existing clients

We make every effort to conduct verbal communications via telephone or video chats at designated scheduled times.  Existing clients have access to our calendar through their portal account where they can books meetings as needed.  We can often schedule a same day call with existing clients depending on the time of year and what our schedules may look like on any given day.  When we are up against a tax filing deadline, please be aware that it may take a few business days to return a phone call which does not relate to that tax filing deadline. 

Partners and managers are usually unavailable for a spur of the moment call unless they are actively engaged on a particular client project and that client is calling to provide information needed for the project at hand.

Phone Calls with prospective new clients

Are you in search of a new accounting firm?  Let’s chat.  We welcome the opportunity to speak with you. 

To schedule a new client consultation, please click on the 'Contact Us' link on our website and fill out as much information as possible regarding the kind of services you are searching for.  We will email you a link to our calendar so you can book an introductory phone or video call at a mutually convenient time.