As a Financial Insight Accounting (FIA) Firm, we are committed to providing the appropriate time and attention to each of our clients. To ensure that all of our clients receive the highest level of service, we take great care in planning and scheduling our work.  This lets us work at a pace that makes sense and allows us to have balance throughout the year. If you have ever spoken to an exhausted accountant in April, you can easily understand why we would not want to work like that!

To achieve an even, steady workflow throughout the year, we think of our schedule as a heartbeat. Most of the time, we want it to have a consistent rhythm. Sometimes we will need to speed it up and other times we will want to slow things down to rest and recover. The way that we maintain the highest quality output is through scheduling.

There are three key areas that we strive to manage in a way that serves this commitment:

1. Tax preparation is a two-week cycle that includes detailed procedures for ensuring that we manage all data, questions and projections that are needed. Clients are assigned an appropriate cycle between February and October. There is no tax season. There is no frantic rush for the April 15th You can read more about our
Tax Preparation Cycles here.

2. Routine check-ins are scheduled based on client needs. For businesses, the routine is either monthly or quarterly. For individuals, including self-employed individuals, the routine may be monthly, quarterly, or semi-annually. You can read more about our Frequency of Contact here.

3. And, of course, we want to make sure that there is always time in our schedule for the time-sensitive consultations.
You can read more about our Collaborative Communication here.

Quality tax preparation begins with a thoughtful scheduling plan. This work requires an understanding of both the documents being processed and the taxpayers themselves. It is our focus on collaboration that provides clients with the best services.

If we attempt to file as many returns as possible by April 15th each year, our attention would be on quantity and not quality. To achieve the highest standards of care, our tax preparation process includes the extension of the April 15th due date to October 15th for most of the people that we serve. This gives us the time we need to collect all the accurate, final documents and we have time to connect with you throughout the process.

The criteria for filing prior to April 15th excludes nearly all of our clients:

• The taxpayer must not have any investment accounts. Brokerage statements are issued later each year and the ongoing corrections of the statements are often issued as late as May.
• The taxpayer must not have any investments that report on Form K-1. Having ownership in a Partnership or S Corporation means that a K-1 is issued to the taxpayer. Those forms are issued on or after March 15th.
• If the taxpayer is self-employed, all business records would need to be submitted by January 31 and they would need to confirm that they are not planning to contribute to a retirement account.
• The taxpayer is not impacted by any current year tax law changes. Late changes to the tax law cause delays in the availability of forms and the opening of efiling with the IRS.