Seth Fineberg Shares 3 Things Tax Professionals Need to Do Before Tax Season 

Tax season preparation is no longer just about meeting deadlines; it’s about readiness, efficiency, and minimizing last-minute disruptions. As client demands increase and workloads intensify, accountants must ensure their systems and workflows are well prepared before the busy season begins.  

Ace Cloud Hosting spoke with Seth Fineberg, an accounting industry consultant, content strategist, and speaker. With over 30 years of experience following the profession’s evolution, Seth has seen firsthand how firms are reshaping their services to stay relevant and responsive to client needs.  

Before founding Accountants Forward, he spent decades as a business editor and journalist, helping the accounting community understand key trends and innovations shaping the industry. 

In this insightful video, Seth shares three key things accountants should do before tax season to stay organized, reduce stress, and set their firm up for a successful filing period. 

Transcript

Hi, I’m Seth Fineberg here once again for Ace Cloud Hosting. We are, of course, coming up to the end of the year, so hopefully, those of you who are tax pros or have a tax-centric firm, you’re starting to think about how prepared you’re going to be for this upcoming season.  

Specifically, there’s a lot to consider from the regulatory side to the tech side, everything in the middle. So, in talking to accountants throughout the year, as I have, and even coming off some recent conferences, this is a topic that does come up. I do a fair amount of social listening as well. And so, I’m going to kind of just give you what I’m hearing as some of the top three things to consider before tax season really begins for you all.  

Number 1: And again, this isn’t in any particular order, I’ve just ordered these things, but number one is review your tech stack. I cannot stress that enough. There are probably some things that maybe you started to look at the end of the list this past tax season, maybe over the summer, you were sort of looking at things that maybe could be better connected or improved. 

But really, talk to the vendors that you already have, see what really could be improved, what really could be, just kind of help things for your own organization, for your own production.  

Also, anything that you know, you’re maybe looking to demo. That’s probably a good idea too. Something that you might have been putting off, like, hey, they just kind of maybe released this, over the summer, or people talking about, or maybe even this past fall. Take in that time schedule and that time before tax season begins.   

And then finally, find that like maybe one piece that might be missing in your overall tech stack, something again that you might have been looking to get around to. I’m not saying you need to completely re-evaluate everything, but just look at what you have, where you are, and really see if things are working the way that you need them to. And, you know, start considering, maybe some upgrades or some changes there.   

Number 2: Review your client list. Now I know every year you probably go through this; you have, you know, hopefully, maybe even assigned in your mind or maybe even somewhere else, a letter grade to your clients. Everyone wants to work with the A’s and B’s, but you probably have some C’s and D’s in there, folks who are maybe taking the most of your time or causing the most stress for you and your staff.   

Really just kind of, you know, cut that cord, as they say, or, if you maybe a more pleasant term, figure out who you can transition on, who is not really fitting your vision, who’s not really fitting in with your plan. 

They fight you too much on fees, where they take up too much of your or your staff’s time, whoever you need to assess and really transition on. Now is the time to do that. Maybe also on the other side, maybe start looking for some clients who are in your client list that might be ready for some level of advisory work that you might feel like they might be ready to take, kind of the next step in their business or in their financial lives. Something that you can maybe schedule some time in, or even just some basic tax planning. Now is the time to do that.   

Number 3: And in some ways, most important, is security. Cannot go into another tax season without feeling like you are on top of things. So first and foremost, and you know, this has been written about and discussed, but if you do not have a WISP, a written information security plan, get one, have someone put it together, get some advice from some of your colleagues who might have already done so.   

But definitely get that in order. Particularly, you know, again, if you’re preparing taxes or doing tax work, that’s something you really 100% need to have if you don’t already, and evaluate what’s in there if you do.   

Also, look at, you know, look into maybe some managed security services. You don’t have to do security all yourself. It’s just not something that you want to ultimately be responsible for. So hopefully a lot of you are already in the cloud, but you know, looking into some of the managed services that might be available to you to take on some of the risk or risk management.   

Whether you have some desktop products or you’re fully in the cloud, Data security cannot be taken lightly. And you know, also just making sure all of your systems, everything is kind of up to date. 

Now is the time for those, even on your hardware, on some of your devices, everything is up to date, and with your systems, hopefully, that is. Those are kind of my top 3 that I’m thinking of that everyone needs to consider, you know, really the top 3 things to evaluate and to take care of before tax season begins. Thank you.  

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