An accounting practice runs on a few heavy filing and audit seasons and a team that is stretched in some months and idle in others. Some months it is all-nighters and some months the juniors have little to do, and nobody has planned the year around that.
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Share your requirementsAn accounting practice looks after the books, returns and reporting of many small and mid-sized clients. The team is usually a few seniors, a layer of accountants and a larger group of juniors and data-entry staff, with the owner or partner reviewing the output. Work arrives in waves around month-end, quarter-end and year-end, and everyone is judged on deadlines the client cannot move. Juniors learn on live files, and the best ones are often hired away once they are useful. Many practices also run part of the work from home or from a second office. See also HR for professional services.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
Late nights and cancelled leave cluster in the same few weeks every year, and people who were fine in March are looking elsewhere by May.
Everything is checked by the owner or one senior, so the practice can only grow as fast as that person's calendar allows.
A trainee learns the software and the clients over a year or two, then moves to a larger firm or a company for a better title.
How a client's records arrive, what they always forget and which ledger is untrustworthy are known by one person and written nowhere.
Quick, reliable staff are given more files, while slower ones stay comfortable, and nobody has the numbers to show it.
Raises come when someone threatens to leave, and two people doing similar work end up on very different salaries.
Start with the topics that matter most here: HR Strategy and Workforce Planning; Retention and Attrition Management; Career and Succession Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a accounting practices business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A calendar of peak weeks mapped to who is needed when, with leave blocked or rotated early rather than argued in the week.
What this coversHideA calendar of peak weeks mapped to who is needed when, with leave blocked or rotated early rather than argued in the week. The HR strategy and workforce planning work builds it.
A checklist per type of work and a named senior reviewer for each client group, so the owner reviews exceptions and not everything.
What this coversHideA checklist per type of work and a named senior reviewer for each client group, so the owner reviews exceptions and not everything.
Clear stages from data entry to accountant to senior to manager, with what each stage must be able to do.
What this coversHideClear stages from data entry to accountant to senior to manager, with what each stage must be able to do. The role design work puts it on paper.
Due dates, how records arrive, known problems and contacts, kept where a colleague can pick the file up when someone is away.
What this coversHideDue dates, how records arrive, known problems and contacts, kept where a colleague can pick the file up when someone is away.
A simple weekly record of who worked on which client, used to even out load and to price the work honestly.
What this coversHideA simple weekly record of who worked on which client, used to even out load and to price the work honestly. Attendance and shift tools can carry it.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A plan that matches headcount and leave to the filing and audit seasons.
A clear ladder from junior to manager so people can see their next step inside the practice.
A look at when and why juniors leave, and what a fair counter looks like before they do.
Salary bands that reflect skill and stage, so raises stop being negotiated one exit at a time.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
6 min readRead article
Hiring decisions made one request at a time, in the month the pain is worst. What a workforce plan contains and why a twelve-month view changes what you hire.
7 min readRead article
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead article
A two-hour exercise that names the roles you could not fill quickly, who could cover them, and what readiness would actually require.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Plan it in advance. Know the peak weeks, add temporary help or shift lower-priority work early, rotate who works weekends and give time back soon after the peak. Surprises are what hurt most.
It is common, but you can slow it. A visible next stage, a fair raise at the right time and real responsibility on files give people reasons to stay.
Write checklists for the common work, train two or three seniors to review and look only at exceptions. The checklist matters more than the person.
Both are used. Whatever the arrangement, write the terms clearly and confirm the correct treatment with a qualified professional.
Start recording hours per client for a few months. Even a rough record shows which clients take far more time than they pay for.
We would talk through your busiest six weeks and who carried them, which clients only one person understands, and why juniors leave once they become useful. A sensible first piece of work is usually a junior-to-manager ladder, or a plan that spreads review beyond the partner. Scope, timing and fees are agreed in writing after that conversation, so you know exactly what you are buying.
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