A tax consultancy handles a flood of small client files in a few months and a trickle in the rest. Hiring for the flood, keeping a core through the trickle and sharing knowledge from one expert are the real people questions.
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Share your requirementsA tax consulting practice serves hundreds of individuals, small traders and companies, often with one or two experts at the top who hold most of the knowledge. Below them are return preparers, data entry staff, a notices desk, client relationship staff who collect documents, and an office manager who keeps files straight. Work swells before filing deadlines and thins afterwards. Clients walk in, phone and send photos of documents at all hours. The practice needs more hands for a few months and fewer for the rest, and the experts become bottlenecks. 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.
Most queries land on one or two people, who spend the season answering instead of reviewing, and nobody else is trained to answer.
Extra preparers join for a season, learn the firm's way and leave in the quiet months, so every year starts again.
Clients send photographs, scans and loose papers. The staff who sort them are the least trained and the most blamed for delays.
A notice reaches whoever opens the post, and the response time depends on who is free that week.
Who checks a return after it is prepared is unclear, and errors found late are blamed on whoever touched it last.
Staff are pulled from file work to meet unannounced visitors, and the day's targets slip.
Short-term trainees are given live files and not much supervision, which worries the principal and frustrates the trainee.
Start with the topics that matter most here: HR Strategy and Workforce Planning; Organisation Design; Retention and Attrition 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.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
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.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
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 tax consultants business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Estimate the number of preparers, reviewers and desk staff needed in each month and decide who is core and who is seasonal.
What this coversHideEstimate the number of preparers, reviewers and desk staff needed in each month and decide who is core and who is seasonal. The workforce planning work covers this.
For each task that only the principal does, name a backup and run a few live sessions, so the season does not depend on one head.
What this coversHideFor each task that only the principal does, name a backup and run a few live sessions, so the season does not depend on one head.
A checklist per client type and one intake desk, so preparers start with complete papers.
What this coversHideA checklist per client type and one intake desk, so preparers start with complete papers.
A named owner, a log of every notice and a due date visible to the whole team.
What this coversHideA named owner, a log of every notice and a due date visible to the whole team.
A clear chain for every return with names, so accountability is plain.
What this coversHideA clear chain for every return with names, so accountability is plain. See the role design work.
Fixed slots with a front desk person who handles them, so preparers can finish files.
What this coversHideFixed slots with a front desk person who handles them, so preparers can finish files.
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 month by month headcount plan with core and seasonal roles, so you hire early and keep the people who matter.
A short, practical start for seasonal and new preparers, so they are useful in the first week.
Clear roles for preparer, reviewer and notices desk, with sign off points that stop errors sliding through.
Ways to keep your best preparers across the quiet months and bring back good seasonal staff.
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
A flat structure works until the founder becomes the only route to a decision. How to tell when you have passed that point, and how to redesign without a reorganisation.
8 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 articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Work it out from last year's file count and how many files a preparer finishes in a week. Add a margin for review and notices. Keep a record each season to improve the estimate.
Yes, if the work is broken into small repeated tasks with a checklist and a reviewer nearby. Give them a narrow scope in the first month and widen it as they prove accuracy.
Document how the expert answers common queries, assign a backup for each task and let a second person sit in on difficult cases. Do it gradually during the quiet months.
Give them defined tasks on closed or low risk files, supervised by a named senior, and a weekly feedback slot. Avoid placing them on live matters alone.
A steady workload of review and planning, learning sessions, a fair pay path and a role in the next season's plan. People stay when they see a reason beyond the peak.
We would ask how many people worked last season, which tasks only one person can do and how notices are tracked. A good first project is a yearly workforce plan with a backup list for expert tasks. Scope is written down for you to accept or change.
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