Despite having two years of advance warning, many businesses left their GDPR activities until a couple of weeks before the 25 May deadline.
Don’t make the same mistake when it comes to Making Tax Digital (MTD), particularly when it comes to communicating with clients and staff.
MTD Communications
Your MTD action points should cover the following:
- Keep your staff up to speed with the latest MTD statements from HMRC and how these will affect your clients.
- Provide training to staff on relevant cloud accounts packages and keep them up to date with the MTD steps the firm is taking with clients.
- Prioritise communications to your client base – who will be affected first and what steps do they need to take to make sure they will be compliant by 1 April 2019.
- Provide information to other clients who are unlikely to be affected by MTD (at least in the short-term), to give them peace of mind that they don’t have to worry.
- Promote your firm’s knowledge and expertise of MTD and how you can help local businesses make sure they are MTD compliant, providing training on the accounts software where needed.
- Decide which marketing methods you want to implement to communicate with clients and to attract new clients, e.g. your website, mailings, emails, social media, adverts, news articles, seminars, Google AdWords etc.
The MTD process is a great opportunity to demonstrate your client care skills and to guide them through these changes. The longer you leave this, the more likely other accountants will be targeting your clients.
MTD is also a fantastic opportunity to promote your firm as being the ‘go-to’ accountants for local businesses. You should focus on how you can help businesses have up to date financial records so they can make timelier, informed business decisions rather than waiting for 3-6 months after the year-end accounts are produced. The result will be improved performance and a more effective and profitable business.
So, don’t leave MTD until the last minute and start communicating the positive benefits of it now.
Help with your MTD Communications
For a comprehensive guide on what you need to be considering now (if you haven’t done so already) and who you need to be communicating to, download our Free MTD Communications Checklist here.
We are also offering a free MTD Marketing Review to help you plan what communication activities you should be implementing over the coming months. To book your free review click here and complete the online request form.
