Five Busy Season Survival Tips for Managers and Associates

Busy season is upon us, and just like last year, it’s guaranteed to bring unique challenges and a few unwanted surprises. If you don’t adopt strategies to manage the overwhelm, heavy workloads, tight deadlines, and endless client requests will derail your productivity. While there’s no magic wand to buying back your time or making it all disappear, these five strategies will make this busy season more manageable and less stressful.

1. Set Clear Boundaries

Establishing boundaries is the best way to manage stress and protect your productivity. Control your schedule by outlining when you are going to work, when you are available for meetings, and when you need time for uninterrupted work. Scheduling time away from work to exercise, rest, and socialize is essential to ensure you stay at the top of your game.

2. Reconnect with your Clients

Reconnecting with your clients is essential for building rapport, especially if time has passed since your last meeting. Attempting to meet with all your clients this time of year will consume you. Instead, try using video tools like Loom to deliver personalized messages at scale.

3. Communicate Expectations and Confirm Timelines

Creating an opportunity to confirm fieldwork timelines and ensure your clients understand your expectations will pay dividends. Providing clients with a detailed request list is a great way to communicate expectations. Ensuring it's personalized, complete with agreed due dates and delivered at least three weeks before your engagement, will give clients sufficient lead time to prepare and submit the necessary documentation in line with your expected timeline.

4. Monitor Progress

Starting an engagement without sufficient documentation can disrupt your flow, and picking up and putting down an engagement numerous times can cause overruns. To avoid these inefficiencies, agree that fieldwork will begin after 80% or 100% of client requests have been submitted.

5. Digitize the Workflow

Managing multiple engagements simultaneously during busy season is complex and demanding. Balancing the influx of emails, documents, and client communications can quickly increase your stress and workload. This is where a client portal and project management tool, like AuditDashboard, can transform your workflow. Centralizing your communication can help you communicate expectations at scale and monitor progress throughout your engagements so you can stay focused on high-quality deliverables.

Set Yourself Up for Success

Busy season will always be demanding, but with these five strategies – setting clear boundaries, reconnecting with clients, confirming timelines, monitoring progress, and digitizing your workflow – you can navigate its challenges without feeling overwhelmed.

Keep your focus on delivering high-quality audits by integrating modern tools into your workflow. With AuditDashboard, you can centralize communication, track engagement progress and manage multiple projects effortlessly – avoiding inefficiencies and enhancing your clients' experience.

Here’s to a smoother, more productive busy season. To learn more about how AuditDashboard can help you thrive and achieve success Request a Demo today!

‍

This article was written by Nida Butt, CPA, a customer marketer and audit transformation specialist at AuditDashboard. Nida has experience in public accounting, finance and investor relations.