All Time Record

[Jim-from-Ohio]

24 and a half.. would have been 25 but one lady funded an IRA but has no earned income.. trying to get that unwound.. thank you intuit for your partnership. 

[Jim-from-Ohio]

update.. the half of lady just called.. she got fidelity to fix the roth issues.. so now, 25 and not even 5:15... tonight is payroll and setting up a new LLC 

[IRonMaN]

I'm at 29.  I'm shooting for 40 by the end of the night.  We are talking Dove chocolates aren't we?

[dkh]

 

[PATAX]

I finished three clients returns today. And I just ate three chocolate chip cookies, man they were good with that cold milk. Couldn't give any to Heidi obviously, but she's been eating biscuits wrapped in chicken with peanut butter treats. They sound good, I might try one.

[dkh]

so what @Jim-from-Ohio  is saying.....  he's rolling in the dough and would like to celebrate with all of us.    We just need to PM our address and supper order to him then he'll setup a DoorDash delivery for us.     

Isn't that nice of Jim.

[Jim-from-Ohio]

@dkh after tax season I would love to.. can you make it to Medina Ohio

[dkh]

Absolutely....  I'm your Hoosier neighbor.

Edit:...... but wait a minute.   does tax season ever really end? 

[PATAX]

But how much can he actually charge a client if it is only taking 3 minutes for him to do their return and they're sitting right in front of him?😉

[Jim-from-Ohio]

good question.. nobody really questions my fees that often but let's say i do a return in six minutes.. simple W-2 return or two W-2s,.. some interest income.. that's it. and they are returning clients.. I say.. welcome. and motion to the seat for them to have a seat without actually saying please have a seat (unncessary spoken words).. i say. let's see what you have this year.. they turn over their paperwork to me.. they look at their return being created on their own 31 inch screen facing them and them alone.. i talk through the return as i am working on it.. takes may be six minutes.. i have show them the results.. print it out. i say. refunds in about 10-14 days.. if they say anthing about the short time and i like them and they are nice people and they say.. wow.. how long did that take. less than 10 minutes. incredible. so if they are nice.. i say. oh it took six minutes.. sorry it took so long. i must be slipping.. they laugh and laugh and laugh. while smile and say. glad to do it.. 

now if they are nasty, which is rare but if they are nasty and they say x amount and it did not take you very long.. which is very rare for someone to tell me, i will give them a different shtick back.. well sure. it did not take very long but years of education and training, and experience goes into those six minutes of work.. 

like henry ford. his assembly line was shut down. could not produce cars. called in an outside service tech.. took about five minutes to fix.. gave ford a bill for $ 10,000.. and henry ford exclaimed. $ 10,000 for five minutes of work.. so the tech took the bill back and crossed out the fee and wrote.. five minutes time of work. $ 25, knowing just what to fix, $ 9,975

that is an old henry ford story and some of the facts above may be slightly modified to fit the author's point. 

[PATAX]

@Jim-from-Ohio that sounds good Jim. You have a different breed of people there in Medina Ohio. In my area here, we have many of the cheap @$$ breed of people. Just one of many examples: years ago one of them came to my office. A prospective new client. She had all her paperwork in a large stuffed manila folder. She asked me what the fee would be. I told her obviously I do not know since I haven't finished the return yet. She asked me: Will it be more than $20? I gave her her stuff back and said goodbye.

[BobKamman]

I hope you are up to date on all your vaccinations because at least one of those just came down with Covid, and I'm not sure about a couple of them who may be suffering from STD's.  

[Jim-from-Ohio]

though it is not a guarantee.. when i walk up to the lobby to welcome clients i make sure i have a folder in my right hand so not able to shake hands.. it usually works quite well. 

[PATAX]

@BobKamman 🤣👍

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

Dang, I'll only hit 11 by the end of the day....oh wait, I did 4 drop offs too!

[IRonMaN]

But in the rush to get things done, it sounds like your clients are dealing more with AI than a human. Since the start of COVID, the majority of my appointments have disappeared and I deal with more drop offs.  Sometimes it bothers me that I have lost some of that contact with my clients.  To each his own how they run their practice and if an assembly line works for you go for it.  But I have wondered about the quality control at the end of the assembly line.  If you are busy beating away on the keyboard and then tell the clients that return is ready to come out of the oven, do you ever sit back and review what you have done?  I am pretty good at data entry on a keyboard, but I am the first to admit that I am not perfect.  That's why every 1040 that goes out the door gets reviewed by IronWoman.  When I was still trying to learn the difference between a 1040 and an 1120 when I first started this business, there was always a second set of eyes looking at every return before it left the office.  Because of that upbringing, I would never feel comfortable just cranking out a return and handing it to the client.  If I was doing this all by my lonesome, I wouldn't let a return go out the door before I let it sit overnight and did my own "second partner" review the next morning. 

[Jim-from-Ohio]

all returns are double checked.. in all these years almost zero problem returns.. i enter the w-2s, interest income etc.. then i go back and take my calculator, if there are more than one w-2s or more than one 1099-INTs for example.. add them on my ten-key. compare to the screen. they match up then golden. i would never trust anyone to review my work.. all my clients know how it works.. they come in.. return is prepared with them there.. and they continually refer me to their friends. .. it is only 02.19 and flipped my voice mail message back to saying how i cannot take new clients... i agree not everyone's method of doing taxes but it works for me 🙂

[BobKamman]

Different strokes for different folks.  There is room in this profession for both @IRonMaN and @Jim-from-Ohio .  Well, OK, one room may have a more convenient rest room nearby for those folks who like to stay and chat awhile.  But tell the truth, how many of your clients compare their annual visit for tax return preparation, to seeing their dentist?  The people who want to get it done fast, can go for a quickie.  Those who want to linger longer, know there is a comfort station awaiting them.  

[BobKamman]

If @Jim-from-Ohio is our Macbeth

Macbeth, Act I, Scene VII
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly:

Then what does that make @IRonMaN ?

Our Falstaff, maybe?

[Frustrated-in-IL]

It took me 16 days to reach 25 tax returns.  I'm now at 36 total after 22 days.  Some days I can't complete any.  Tomorrow sales tax is due in IL and I'll be spending a good part of the day on that.  I really cannot imagine doing anywhere near what Jim and Lisa do in a day.

[IRonMaN]

We all have our own client base.  Some of us deal mainly with complicated returns and others deal with the easiest of easy returns.  Over the years because of deaths and the IRS making itemizing harder to do, my client base has turned into simpler returns than they used to be.  I'm not quite to the point of a revolving door of clients every three minutes but less time goes into the average return than I used to put in overall.