Accounting Firms: Client Queries in One Queue

An accounting firm's client queries do not arrive evenly. They arrive in a four-month wall, and then they nearly stop. Any system sized for the average month is wrong for eleven months out of twelve.

That is the case for one queue rather than several inboxes - not tidiness, but the fact that the peak is four times the average and nobody can hire for four months a year.


The year in four numbers

Take a firm with 300 clients.

•  Peak season, four months: 600 client queries a month

•  Off season, eight months: 180 a month

•  The year: 2,400 + 1,440 = 3,840 queries

•  The average month: 320

The average is a comfortable-looking number that describes almost no actual month. Ten of the twelve sit at 180, and four sit at 600.

 


What a client query costs

Handled without a single client record, a query takes about twelve minutes:

•  Find the client file, and the last thing sent to them: 4 minutes

•  Check the engagement, the fee arrangement and the deadline: 4 minutes

•  Reconstruct what was agreed last time - reading notes, or asking a colleague: 2 minutes

•  Write the reply: 2 minutes

At the average month, 320 x 12 = 3,840 minutes = 64 hours a month.

At the peak month, 600 x 12 = 7,200 minutes = 120 hours a month.

That is the number that matters. A peak month asks for 120 hours of query handling from people who are simultaneously on filing deadlines - and 120 hours is roughly three-quarters of one full-time person, appearing without warning four times a year.

The same work, from one record

With the client, the engagement and the correspondence on a single record:

•  Find: 1 minute

•  Check: 1 minute

•  Reconstruct: 2 minutes, from the thread itself

•  Reply: 2 minutes

Six minutes. The average month falls to 32 hours, and the peak month to 60 hours.

 


The saving is 32 hours in an average month and 60 hours in every peak month - around 500 hours across a year, weighted towards the weeks when the firm can least spare them.

Why one queue and not four

Most firms already have the four: email, a partner's WhatsApp, a shared drive, and a phone that rings. The problem is not that any one of them is wrong. It is that a query landing in one is invisible from the other three, so:

•  The client who emailed on Monday and messaged on Wednesday gets two replies, occasionally contradicting each other

•  The partner who answered on her phone becomes the only person who knows what was said

•  Nothing can be counted, so the peak season is discovered rather than planned

One queue with an owner per client fixes the second problem and makes the third possible. You cannot staff a peak you cannot see coming.

What the peak month actually looks like

In a 600-query month, the firm answers about 27 queries per working day. At twelve minutes each, that is five and a half hours a day of somebody senior's attention, during the four months it is also filing returns.

That is not a queue problem. It is a scheduling fact that the other eight months hide.

The number to watch

Queries per client per month is the ratio that matters. If it holds while the client count grows, the service is scaling. If it climbs, the firm is heading into a peak season it has not planned for.

Three changes worth making

One record per client, not one thread per query. The value is in the second query, when someone needs the first.

Assign the client, not the query. A queue of 600 messages with no owners is a reading list. A queue of 300 clients with names against them is a plan.

Watch the ratio, not the total. When queries per client double, that is a service problem forming. When the total rises but the ratio holds, it is growth.

Frequently asked questions

Do we need to abandon our practice management software? No. It runs the engagements. What moves is the client conversation, so the answer does not depend on who took the call.

Can partners keep using their own phones? They can, but the conversation has to land on the record afterwards, or the firm learns nothing from it.

What does it cost? Free for 3 seats and 100 MB, then $15 per seat a month, with storage at $1/GB a month.

What it is

Onsites puts email, messaging and website enquiries into one queue with the client record attached, so a query answered from a partner's phone is still visible to whoever opens the queue on Monday.

Start free - 3 seats, no card required.

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