A GST consultancy lives by monthly return dates, reconciliation of purchase data and replies to departmental notices. The team is small, the dates are fixed and the work repeats. This is how to keep it steady without one person holding every client.
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Share your requirementsA GST consultancy files returns, reconciles sales and purchase data, prepares refund claims and drafts replies to notices for many small and mid-sized businesses. The team is usually a principal, a few seniors who handle notices and advisory, a layer of executives who run reconciliations and portal uploads, and juniors who chase invoices. Every month the same dates arrive, and clients send their data late, in different formats, from different accounting packages. Portal downtime, a changed utility or a new notification can turn a calm week into a rush. Notice replies need drafting skill and patience, and carry hard dates of their own. Many clients are tiny, pay slowly and ring the executive directly. Staff who learn the portal and the client quirks are often tempted away by a company's tax team. 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.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in GST consultants. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Return days arrive whether or not clients have sent data, and the team works late in the same week, month after month.
Sales files, purchase registers and bank statements arrive in odd formats at the last hour, and the executive absorbs the delay.
Drafting a reply to a departmental notice needs experience, so a single person becomes the bottleneck and the worry.
When the portal is slow or a mismatch appears, the executive on the file is questioned first, even if the client caused it.
Passwords and registered mobile numbers travel on chat and sticky notes, and no one is sure who holds access to which client.
A changed form or utility means everyone must learn it at once, and the juniors learn from whoever has a spare minute.
A client paying little rings often, sends corrections after filing and expects instant answers.
After a year of portal and reconciliation experience, a corporate tax team offers a fixed desk job and regular hours.
Start with the topics that matter most here: HR Strategy and Workforce Planning; Learning and Development; 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.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
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.
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 GST consultants business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A shared board of each client's data due date, internal cut-off and filing date, with named owners.
A shared board of each client's data due date, internal cut-off and filing date, with named owners. Plan leave and weekend cover around it using attendance and leave rules.
Tell clients in writing the last day for data, and record when late data costs the team extra hours so fees can reflect it.
Tell clients in writing the last day for data, and record when late data costs the team extra hours so fees can reflect it.
A draft template for each common kind of notice, a reviewer for each client group and a tracker of reply dates, so no single person holds all of it.
A draft template for each common kind of notice, a reviewer for each client group and a tracker of reply dates, so no single person holds all of it.
One access register with who may use which client's login, handled under written rules.
One access register with who may use which client's login, handled under written rules. Hold it with your employee records.
A weekly half hour where a senior explains any new rule or utility change and the team notes the action.
A weekly half hour where a senior explains any new rule or utility change and the team notes the action. See learning routines.
Stages from assistant to executive, senior and manager, with the skills for each, so reconciliation staff see a route within the practice.
Stages from assistant to executive, senior and manager, with the skills for each, so reconciliation staff see a route within the practice. Review pay by stage.
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.
Cover and leave plans that fit the monthly filing dates.
A clear record of who holds access and who knows which client.
A steady habit of short sessions as rules and portal tools change.
Pay by stage so executives see a reason to stay past year two.
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.
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Put cut-off dates in writing for clients, share the heavy files across several executives and give time off soon after the peak. The rush may stay, but the same few will not carry it.
Start them on gathering documents and drafting parts under review. Keep a senior's signature on the final reply, and move people up as their drafts need fewer changes.
Agree a cut-off in the engagement letter, note each late case and discuss it at renewal. Repeated lateness is a pricing matter as much as a people matter.
Keep one register, limit access to named staff, remove access when someone leaves and avoid sharing through personal chat. Ask a qualified adviser about duties to your clients.
Show a ladder inside the practice, give responsibility for a client group early and review pay at fixed times. Regular hours are harder to match, so be honest about the trade.
Your heaviest filing days and who carried them, who holds notice work and client knowledge, and why executives leave. A filing-calendar staffing plan or a ladder for reconciliation staff is a likely start. Scope, timing and fees are put in writing after that talk.
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