Client documents: how to stop the chase every month

If you measure where an accounting practice’s time really goes, the biggest category isn’t bookkeeping or filings. It’s asking for things: the missing invoice, the bank statement that never arrived, the contract they’ll “dig out”.

It’s work that isn’t billed, isn’t acknowledged and never ends — because it has no process. It has people who remember.

Why clients don’t send things

Almost never out of indifference. There are three real reasons, and none of them is solved by one more phone call:

• They don’t know exactly what you want. “Send me whatever you’ve got” isn’t an instruction anyone can carry out.
• There’s no date. Anything without a deadline always ends up last.
• There’s no consequence for being late. The client who sends everything on the 22nd and the one who sends it on the 5th pay the same and get the same.

A list per client, not a general message

Nobody reads the mass “don’t forget your paperwork” email. The only thing that works is a named list: exactly what’s missing from you, this month.

1. Build each client’s standing list once — what they send every month, in terms they understand (not account codes).
2. Every month starts from that list, not a blank page.
3. Whatever has arrived is ticked off; the reminder contains only what’s still outstanding.
4. One reminder at the start of the window, one two days before it closes. Not five.

The difference between “send your paperwork” and “missing: July bank statement, electricity bill, rent receipt” is that the second can be answered in five minutes.

The submission deadline is a term, not a favour

Set a fixed day of the month by which everything must arrive — the same for everyone, written into the engagement letter. And two consequences, also in writing:

• Material that arrives after that date doesn’t guarantee an on-time filing. That isn’t a threat, it’s the truth — and the client needs to know it beforehand, not afterwards.
• Repeated lateness is charged for, because it pushes your work into the worst days of the month.

In practice the charge is rarely applied. Its existence is what changes behaviour.

Take control of the channel

Documents arriving through four channels — email, two messaging apps, photos, an envelope dropped at the office — create a second job: working out what you’ve already received. And they give rise to the most thankless conversation of all, “but I sent it to you”.

• One announced channel for receiving documents.
• Anything that arrives elsewhere is forwarded to it before it’s processed — no exceptions.
• Every receipt is logged with a date on the client record. That way “I sent it to you” has an answer backed by facts.
• Photos of documents are accepted only if they’re legible; a blurry invoice is an invoice that wasn’t sent, and you say so straight away.

The three clients who won’t change

Every practice has two or three clients who, whatever you set up, will send everything on the 23rd. That isn’t a failure of the process — it’s a cost that needs to be billed.

Measure how many hours of communication you give them, include them in their annual fee review and have the conversation with the figures. Either the fee goes up or the behaviour changes; both are acceptable outcomes.

In TaxPro, the list of what’s missing lives on the client record together with the period’s obligations, so the reminder goes out by name with exactly what’s outstanding — instead of one more generic message nobody reads.

Conclusion

Say exactly what you need, by name. Set a submission date and a written consequence. Keep one channel and log every receipt. The chase won’t disappear — but it becomes ten minutes’ work a month instead of ten hours.