How to Make Tax Season Easier for Your Accounting, Administrative and Customer Support Teams

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It’s tax season—which means you need all hands on deck at your firm to tackle heavy workloads, meet tight deadlines, manage client expectations and maintain exceptional service levels. Your accounting team is under immense pressure, as are your administrative and customer support staff. The question is, how are you supporting them while they work hard for your business during this stressful time?

If you’re unsure how to make tax season easier for your accounting staff and your administrative and customer support teams, try applying the six strategies outlined below. They can help you boost workforce productivity and morale and prevent employee burnout during one of the most demanding work periods of the year.

1. Look to the past for insight on how to drive future improvement

Laying the groundwork for a smoother tax season starts with learning from the past. What challenges did your teams face last year, and have these issues occurred in prior years? For instance, were there bottlenecks in key processes? Did employees report feeling overwhelmed due to understaffing? Was there a lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities?

You can use this retrospective analysis to refine workflows and anticipate needs. You might also consider setting up tax season-specific key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor your teams’ progress and identify areas for improvement. An example KPI for the accounting team might be the accuracy rate, or the percentage of tax returns submitted without errors or requiring amendments. For your customer support staff, you might track the response time to client inquiries.

Creating playbooks for your accounting and administrative and customer support teams to reference during tax season can also be a valuable exercise. Document lessons learned, describe best practices for handling common problems and outline mistakes to avoid. Be sure to update these playbooks regularly to reflect relevant changes in company policies or compliance requirements.

2. Stay flexible about the ‘where’ of work

Increasingly, work flexibility is tied to employee satisfaction and productivity. It can also help you hire and retain the best available talent for your firm. According to research for Robert Half’s latest Salary Guide, employers that prioritize hybrid work and flexible schedules often have an easier time attracting the skilled talent their business needs to succeed.

Allowing employees to work where they feel most comfortable can help them reduce stress and improve performance. During tax season, specifically, supporting remote and hybrid work arrangements can:

Provide accounting teams with a quiet work environment where they can focus on accuracy when managing complex tasks like preparing returns. As accountants often handle sensitive data, providing them with secure remote access solutions—such as virtual private networks (VPNs), encrypted file-sharing platforms and cloud-based accounting software—is essential to protecting client information and maintaining confidentiality.

Help administrative and customer support teams improve service quality and raise productivity. Customer support staff often deal with time-sensitive client issues, so the ability to work off-site can help boost their response times. And administrative employees handling tasks like data entry and document management can benefit from a quiet workspace with minimal interruptions.

If your business is unable to offer remote or hybrid work options, consider flexible scheduling. For example, some employees may like starting work earlier in the day to tackle complex tasks when they’re most alert, while others might prefer staggered shifts so they can balance personal responsibilities.

Learn why a hybrid work model may be an optimal choice for your organization.

3. Align the right technology tools

Outdated or inefficient tools can turn tax season into a nightmare. Equip your teams with software and resources that can help streamline their workflows. For accounting teams, this might mean using cloud-based tax software that leverages AI to automate calculations, manage compliance and generate reports. AI and analytics capabilities can also help accounting staff reduce errors and speed up work.

Meanwhile, administrative and customer support staff may benefit from AI-driven customer relationship management (CRM) systems that track client interactions and resolve inquiries more efficiently. AI solutions can also assist with routing customer queries to the right team members and answering frequently asked questions, which, in turn, helps improve response times and client satisfaction.

4. Encourage team members to prioritize wellness

We already mentioned that tax season is stressful (not that you didn’t already know). Still, it’s important to underscore how unchecked levels of stress can erode your employees’ mental health and contribute to higher rates of burnout and turnover.

For accounting teams, intense deadlines, long hours and the complexity of financial tasks are often top contributors to stress. Regular check-ins with managers to address concerns or redistribute workloads can make a difference. Creating opportunities for team-building—such as a celebratory lunch after hitting a major milestone—can also help accounting staff stay inspired and motivated during tax season.

For administrative and customer support teams, the fast-paced nature of responding to client inquiries and managing logistics can easily become overwhelming. Allowing short breaks during peak hours allows them to step back, recharge and return with renewed focus. Initiating informal “pulse” meetings with these teams gives them a chance to voice challenges and celebrate wins—and helps them feel valued.

5. Focus less on time spent, and more on productivity and quality

It’s tempting to measure your teams’ tax season success by how many hours they devote to the effort. However, a better approach is to focus on overall productivity and the quality of work. That way, you are encouraging your team to deliver optimal results while also emphasizing the need to pace themselves and prioritize work-life balance.

It helps if you lead by example. For example, avoid sending late-night emails or promoting a company culture of “work until you drop.” To further support work quality over time spent, establish clear priorities and realistic deadlines. Help your employees break down large tasks into manageable chunks and provide regular feedback on their progress to keep them on track.

When it’s clear your accounting and administrative and customer support teams are feeling the pressure during tax season, give them space to breathe and recharge. And through small gestures like thank-you notes or surprise coffee breaks, you can celebrate successes and keep spirits high while further reinforcing your commitment to your employees’ well-being.

6. Be proactive about aligning reinforcements

If past tax seasons have stretched your team to the limit, don’t hesitate to bring in reinforcements now. Contract professionals can provide much-needed support when and for as long as you need them. Specialized staffing agencies like Robert Half can help you identify skilled candidates for accounting and administrative and customer support roles who are ready to hit the ground running.

Reinforcements for accounting teams might include seasoned accountants or tax preparers who can help manage complex filings, ensure compliance and handle financial reporting. These professionals can also take on time-intensive tasks like auditing records or reconciling accounts, so your core team can focus on top-priority work. Meanwhile, reinforcements for your administrative and customer support teams might assist with handling increased client inquiries, data entry, document management and more.

Supplementing your workforce with additional staff to meet seasonal demands not only lightens the load but also helps ensure critical tasks are completed accurately and on time. With thoughtful planning and execution, you can turn tax season from a time of stress into an opportunity for growth and achievement for your accounting and administrative and customer support teams.

Need to expand your teams for tax season?

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Robert Half is here to help. Learn more about our flexible staffing solutions, and how we work with you to find the best approach to meet your specific needs.

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