As the end of the fiscal year (EOFY) approaches, bookkeepers, tax agents, accountants, and financial consultants will be preparing for the busiest season in the finance sector. Effective strategies for interacting with customers, both people and SMEs, include bulk SMS reminders, two-way texting, and email to SMS.
Instead of organizing their papers at the last minute, everyone should ideally have all of their records and reports in order before tax time. Notifications are a fantastic approach to help clients with the entire tax return filing process by reminding them to organize their paperwork as soon as possible.
Inform your clients
Building and maintaining trust in professional relationships requires communication. During this hectic time of year, SMS is a fantastic way to get in touch with customers directly and break through the clutter. Additionally, preparing a tax return in the run-up to tax season entails accounting for expenditures and payments made throughout the previous 12 months. It can take a lot of time, and it’s simple to forget things or lose receipts throughout that time.
A few things to consider while creating a communication strategy are your audience, your message, and your goal.
Use contact lists, online messaging templates, and combine SMS to tailor your message to your audience—in this example, your clients.
The substance of your messages should be closely related to your clients’ demands.
Your message’s goal should be obvious and unambiguous, showing how your service benefits customers.
Who are your customers?
Being available for your clients is particularly crucial during the stressful period leading up to EOFY. The first step to gaining your clients’ trust and reducing their fears is to let them know you are accessible and have the knowledge they require.
Although they have different needs, SME enterprises and individual clients are both valuable assets to be mindful of, as they eventually comprise the majority of financial institutions’ clientele.
People
Although completing an individual income tax return isn’t very challenging, it does take a significant amount of planning, knowledge, and time. People can now easily file their taxes online without a tax agent’s assistance thanks to new technologies and improved online security. They might, however, lose out on some excellent chances to increase their tax refund or lower the amount of tax owed as a result.
Experts at covering all the bases, paying attention to the smallest details, and staying current with legislation are qualified tax accountants. This guarantees that people file their taxes legally and morally and get all the rewards.
SME stands for small to medium-sized business.
In Australia, 86% of businesses are classified as micro, small, or medium-sized businesses. The EOFY can be a stressful time of year for business owners. Getting and organizing all the pertinent tax information can be challenging, even if they have a bookkeeper with current records.
When filing a tax return, it is essential to comprehend industry standards and changes in regulations. It is required of certified tax agents to give their clients pertinent industry information and assistance in submitting paperwork on time.
Developing connections
Developing a good business relationship with your clients requires more than just offering them high-quality services. Even if your clients aren’t aware of it, anticipating their wants can help you surpass their expectations and, more importantly, establish credibility and dependability for a long-term partnership.
Making sure your clients are following protocol and are informed of important dates within the fiscal year (FY) is the first step in best practices. Raising awareness of what data your clients need to obtain can be considerably aided by following a checklist and learning from the previous year. You can use online SMS software to send customized messages, checklists, and appointment reminders to particular contacts and/or lists based on their requirements.
What are your customers looking for?
Solving problems is only one aspect of building a clientele and selling your company’s services. It also involves having sincere understanding, sensitivity, and insights about your clientele.
Modern technology is advantageous to financial institutions, SME enterprises, and individuals alike. All pertinent data is not only securely stored but also effectively arranged and made available by automation. Additional CRM services include bulk online sending, two-way SMS, email to SMS, and direct mobile messaging.
Customer service: establishing rapport, trust, and dependability requires quick responses to calls, emails, and mobile messaging. Connecting with your clients about how you can help them is facilitated by using language they can understand. Financial jargon can be intimidating, particularly at a stressful moment.
Specialization: It’s critical to let them know whether you or your financial institution have a specialty because it could inspire them to recommend you to others with related problems. You can charge more for specialized services if needed.
Services that are provided free of charge: If your company offers free services, it is advantageous to upsell these to current clients in order to maximize their satisfaction.
Information: By sharing blog entries and social media content, as well as by inviting customers to cutting-edge conferences and seminars, you can demonstrate to them your interest in helping them and their business grow and your awareness of the state of the industry. Additionally, this is a fantastic chance to network and establish a relationship with clients.
Financial advice on investments, super funds, and goods can be given to customers by accountants who hold an Australian Financial Services (AFS) license.
Partnerships: You can collaborate with a company that offers services you might not in order to increase non-competitive business relationships and get reliable recommendations. Legal counsel, hiring requirements, and technological services may fall under this category.
Remember!
Use a well-thought-out and educational SMS marketing campaign to inform, remember, and update clients as tax season approaches. Give your client fast access to checklists, important dates, and free services via direct mobile messaging as they approach EOFY.
Making a schedule is crucial.
You can plan, schedule, and automate messages to reach your clients directly using a reliable and secure mobile messaging platform like MXT. Time can be saved and no-shows can be decreased by using gateway SMS technology to send a business text reminder to a client with an upcoming appointment.
Those who may require unusual hours owing to their work schedule can be accommodated and document drop-off and pick-up can be coordinated with the use of online appointment booking.
Mass SMS can remind clients to organize and file papers and announce availability for income tax preparation appointments.
Use automated reminders with information such as a list of things to bring in advance to avoid delays and no-shows.
Create an extensive database of customers.
By assigning contact details to demographics, lists for sending targeted promotions, news updates, and reminders may be created quickly.
After tax season, following up with clients by SMS can be a useful strategy for generating online evaluations and referrals that can draw in new business.
Even after the hectic season, outreach continuously improves retention throughout the fiscal year.
How can your customers get more value for their money?
Individual tax hacks
It might take a lot of time to gather important information for a tax return over the course of a year. Due to missing receipts or forgotten items, many Australians lose out on hundreds of dollars in deductions at that time. Give your clients the tools they need to take the deductions to which they are legally entitled.
This EOFY, keep in mind these ten under-claimed tax deductions:
Automobile costs
Claim 66c every work-related kilometer up to 5,000 km annually using the cents per kilometer approach.
Using the logbook method, record all business and personal travel for 12 weeks in a row, along with receipts for all costs (such as gas, registration, insurance, maintenance, interest on loans, depreciation, and other operating expenses). Then, compute the business-use percentage of all costs.
You cannot claim your commute to and from work unless you have to carry heavy equipment that you can’t leave at work.
If your employer compensated you for the same car expenses, you are not eligible to claim them.
Office at home
Set aside 45 cents each hour for operating expenses.
If you have identified and documented a usage pattern, you can claim the real expenses.
Travel costs
Make a claim for the expenses of any travel or lodging required for work.
Any allowance you receive from your employer must be reported as income on your tax return.
Keep a journal of all your travel expenditures and preserve all of your receipts.
Doing laundry
Get up to $150 annually for laundry costs if you wear a branded uniform to work and don’t have receipts.
Protection of income
In addition to your Superannuation Union and membership fees, you can deduct the cost of any income protection insurance.
If you belong to a professional organization or union, you can claim your registration fees.
Fees for accounting
You can deduct the cost of using a tax preparation service this year if you hired them to prepare your tax return the year before.
Books, magazines, and online data
Claim any paper or digital trade and educational periodicals that are directly connected to how you make a living.
Technology Claim your computer’s depreciation when you use it for work.
Declare a portion of your home phone and internet costs that are relevant to your job.
Equipment and tools (including safety gear)
Make claims for the purchasing and repairs of items that are necessary for your work.
This covers things like safety glasses, stationery, non-slip nursing shoes, etc.
Hooks for small businesses
The ATO reports that 95% of small firms who seek assistance with their tax and super employ accountants, making them the most popular tax professional. Furthermore, according to 76% of SMEs, accountants were “the first place they went to when seeking business tax advice or information”.
A tax accountant’s responsibility is to make sure their small business clients understand the state of the sector and their EOFY entitlements. For instance, if their customer is eligible for the government’s immediate asset write-off. The quick asset write-off has been raised by the government this year to $30,000 and is now available to enterprises with turnovers of more than $10 million but less than $50 million, in addition to SME businesses. Through proper planning and strategy, SMEs can fully benefit from the $30,000 write-off.
Since more than 85% of companies are categorized as SME, it is essential to comprehend the concerns of business owners in order to meet their tax obligations and build confidence.
being uncertain about their financial situation, their ability to pay taxes and comply with regulations, and their ability to make decisions regarding crucial matters like debt. Periodically experiencing growing pains can also result in increased work strain, such as juggling work and personal obligations and the growing demand for goods and services.
For this reason, communication is crucial; it builds a personal relationship with business clients and demonstrates your availability as their go-to resource during tax season.
What SMEs shouldn’t do: Ignore personnel demands; ineffective payroll, rostering, and hiring practices can cause more harm than good, particularly in light of the Fair Work Ombudsman’s recent emphasis on underpayment.
Remember Single Touch Payroll (STP): this year, the ATO is implementing STP uniformly for all employers. This implies that for every pay event, employers are required to submit the ATO employee salary and wage information, pay as you go (PAYG) withholding, and super information.
Avoid making dubious claims since the ATO can more effectively determine whether a company has been falsifying its financial statements thanks to new technology and strategies.
Avoid unpleasant surprises by organizing all the paperwork needed to file a tax return before June 29.
Bulk mobile messaging, online two-way SMS, texting APIs and connectors, and email to SMS are all components of iFlexsms’ powerful business platform.