Many Are Called - practice management

[erchess]

I had two appointments today with paying clients who had wanted me to call them at particular times. I'm normally pretty punctual with those but today I was fifteen minutes late with the first and eleven minutes late with the second. The first answered the phone but unforeseen events led her to ask to reschedule which I did. The second did not answer and I did call back a few minutes later.

As a matter of good practice management, should I bill for these calls and if so, how much and subject to forgiveness under what terms?

When I go to someone's home or office by appointment and they don't show up I add $50 to their eventual fee unless they have an understandable reason why it was unavoidable. This has only happened once and the client had rushed her mother to the ER and even called me on my cell to explain. $50 is too much for a phone call but each missed call cost me ten minutes of interruption in the project I spent most of today on so I was thinking between 10 and 25. I placed one call planning to do a F 433f and the other planning to spend an hour more or less calling the IRS to do an IA and in both cases I was going to charge $100. Of course I benefited by having extra time for the day's major project but I suffered in at least postponing income and as for the time, I will have another day that will be more crowded because of this.

[JohnH]

Clients don't care about our work schedule & time management, nor should they. To each his own, but when a client misses an appointment I just see it as an opportunity to do something else and bill that person instead. No real loss of money since it's all just billing opportunity, IMO. I figure the rescheduled time will find its way into my billing whenever it does occur, so it's money in the bank at some point. Now if I were going to their place and they missed the appointment, I'd view it somewhat differently (although I always call & confirm right before actually leaving the office on my way to somewhere else.)

If I were a client and were billed for a missed appointment, I'd probably find another preparer whose doesn't have a dance card so full that they can't be flexible.

I'm not saying you should do things my way, but just giving an honest answer to a sensible question. I'm sure others will have varying viewpoints on this and I look forward to their replies.

[geekgirldany]

I agree going to the office/home for a tax appointment and charging for not being there is different than a phone call.

I also look at it as now I have an hour to work on this other return which I had put off until later.

I tell you though after they cancel twice on me I tell them I am putting them down but I may schedule some other appointments during that time also in case they cancel again. I also ask to give me 24 hours notice if they want to cancel an appointment.

I had one cancel on me four times. He finally made it to the appointment on the fifth time. He said "I guess you thought I was never going to come by huh?" I told him "Well its not like you've been on my mind constantly and I have been sitting here waiting for you".

[taxmandan]

If I had other work to do and bill for that time, I would let one missed appointment slide. But future missed appointments would be billed at an amount that would get their attention.

[Lion]

Calls

For phone calls, such as your missed calls, if for continuing clients, I try to bill enough for tax preparation to cover the short questions, missed calls, general info I'm distributing to many clients, etc. If I feel I've miscalculated, I make it up in their next tax prep bill.

Now, for the hour consultation or the call the requires me to research in preparation or to perform calculations, or whatever, I would be charging my hourly rate when the call takes place. But, for the missed call, I've usually charged them enough for tax prep that I feel covered. If a chronic "no answer," I might send them a bill to get their attention.

[Peachie]

I agree

Clients don't care about our work schedule & time management, nor should they. To each his own, but when a client misses an appointment I just see it as an opportunity to do something else and bill that person instead. No real loss of money since it's all just billing opportunity, IMO. I figure the rescheduled time will find its way into my billing whenever it does occur, so it's money in the bank at some point. Now if I were going to their place and they missed the appointment, I'd view it somewhat differently (although I always call & confirm right before actually leaving the office on my way to somewhere else.)

If I were a client and were billed for a missed appointment, I'd probably find another preparer whose doesn't have a dance card so full that they can't be flexible.

I'm not saying you should do things my way, but just giving an honest answer to a sensible question. I'm sure others will have varying viewpoints on this and I look forward to their replies.

with John on this one. A phone call does not a bill make.

Peachie

[Uncle Sam]

Missed Appointments

I agree with JohnH on this subject.

But I had a client this tax season that really pushed me at the limit.

Mid tax season.

Client had an appointment for 10:00AM.
Her husband is an annual business client just down the road. The couple lives about 1/2 hour away and she travels up here to assist him in his dental practice.

On the morning of the appointment - she calls me from her cell phone at 10:15 to ask if 10:30 is okay because she's stuck in traffic. Ok - no problem - I usually alot 1 hour for her.
She only had to provide me with 5 documents of information for me to complete the return.. The W-2s, S Corp K-1 - I already had when I completed the S Corp return.

Walks in 10:45 only to tell me that she didn't have anything for me because she left all the papers I needed at home!!!!!!

[MAJ]

To Bill or not to Bill...

.

As a matter of good practice management, should I bill for these calls and if so, how much and subject to forgiveness under what terms?

I don't - suppose I should but never have. Agreed - Time to do something else. Geez.. I know there's days I wish they'd cancel!! We've all had them!!

[S T]

Raises Another Question

Client provides you with the tax info to prepare taxes - can't get it all together, request andextension (of course which is provided as an estimate based on info furnished)

You as tax preparer provide the list! Get further into the return an find you need more info, there is an issue on reporting such as a 1099C (cancelation of debt) taxpayer disagrees with you thinks it should be non taxable, and you as tax preparer provide all of the necessary info outling that it could possibly be taxable, but further info could lead to insolvency to mitigate the tax due.

Cut to the chase, email comes through 6 weeks later (still on extension) and says thanks I had a friend assist me with the preparation of my tax return for 2009. !!!!

Question - do you bill and maybe hopefully collect from taxpayer (guilty feelings) for the hours that you had already involved yourself with preparing the return to that point (which obviously included hours of research on the 1099C issue? Could be as much as $400 - $500??

Not happy, but then I am not signing the return - and this return could highly be likely for an potential audit or CP 2000 notice - so guess I am lucky there , to have only spent the hours and not finalized and agonized for the next 3 years.

Sandy

[erchess]

For sure Sandy

I would bill the person and explain that if he wants the option of coming back to me in the future he has to pay the bill which would be the lower of my hourly rate for the time and what I was planning to charge for the return. The difference between me and some is that I would take him back even years from now if he pays that bill plus reasonable interest.

[S T]

I knolw what the issue is

He did NOT like my response to the issue of 1099 C (canc of debt) according to the IRS guidelines and Calif guidelines it does not meet the "exclusion" for primary residence - he thinks it does.

I could have produced the possible end result through the form 982 (insolvency) with a lot of information to prepare, but t/p is only reading "headlines" and cancellation of debt for personal residence. Refuses to believe it is a "Recourse" Loan and not any part of the original Acquistion Debt.

We will see if IRS is monitoring or going to let these issues slide. It has been a good $$ return in the past, but a lot of work - so I am inclined NOT to take the client back due to complications of multiple refinances - tracking loans, etc.

My inclination in response to his email will be nice, but also include a bill for the hours I have into the pre-paration of the return - none of which I am sure his "friend" is aware of ( as I have been tracking the "loans" on multiple properties over the last 5 years.

Sometimes one just gets these "stomach in the pit" reactions - so I am glad in one sense I didn't complete the return for 2009, but will miss the income and then I also just lost a client Probably someone with Turbo Tax??

Sandy

[WhiteOleander]

Sandy, There probably is no friend. He probably did it himself parroting off your proir year returns.
"Hey, what's so hard about this?" I bet he didn't even address the 1099C since "it's not taxable". Just like people don't report stock sales because they lost money.

You'll probably hear from him when he gets the CP2000. That's when I charged him. A Lot!

[JohnH]

I'm sypathetic to the idea of billing for time expended when the client decides to "go somewhere else", which generally means they're going to throw something together on their own.

But there's a problem.

If they later get a notice from IRS, they will want to blame you for THEIR mistakes. Assuming they paid the invoice, they now have an invoice for advice and a canceled check. But unless you went to the trouble to put the advice itself in very detailed writing, the client will be inclined to claim that you advised them to file the return in exactly the way they completed it. So now they're screaming "I paid you good money for that advice and you got me in trouble! You'd better get this straightened out." Heck, even if they didn't pay the invoice (highly likely), they might STILL try to blame you for giving them bad advice.

Except in very rare circumstances, I think rendering an invoice when there isn't a finished product could be a very risky proposition. As we discussed recently on the ATX Forum regarding another issue, sometimes it's a Kenny Rogers moment. "you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em"

Just something to think about...

[S T]

I just had to Vent

Thanks to everyone's posts and viewpoints. All info mentionned is well advised - so I will just have to sleep on this one issue on this one client and decide which is the best approach.

As usual Thanks - as there are so any different perspectives and approaches and that is what this "board/forum" is all about. Sharing Ideas.

Sandy