No one likes chasing clients for information but it’s necessary in order that your compliance team don’t get overwhelmed as deadlines approach.
And you have an obligation to ensure your clients hit their deadlines so they aren’t penalised, and don’t lose faith in your service.
Ideally you’d send multiple reminders, but the reality is, your time is under pressure. Looking through your client base, finding the clients that need a reminder and then sending the email… and another email…. This can become a dedicated role for someone.
iChaser for IRIS Practice Management automates this entire reminder process saving you the headache and hours of admin time! Let’s take a look at the cost of manually sending reminders…
- 15 mins a day looking through the client base to see who needs a reminder
(that’s 3,600 mins pa). - 2 mins to send an email reminder plus an average of 17 reminders sent annually covering personal tax (6 notifications), VAT, PAYE, etc.
(that’s 34 mins per client pa).
So, if you have 250 active clients, that’s
(250 x 34) + 3,600 = 12,100 mins
Looking at in another way, iChaser would save you 2 full days per month and help you keep on top of things.
Automatically send a series of reminder emails to each client when Job Stage due dates in IRIS are reached or surpassed.
- Initial Request Email
- 14-Day Friendly Reminder
- Overdue – Disclaimer
- Final Notice
- Information Received
- Return Filed
The above example is one of many workflows sending email reminders at specified times.
Automatically send a series of reminder emails to each client when Job Stage due dates in IRIS are reached or surpassed.
- Initial Request Email
- 28-day Reminder
- Disclaimer/Warning
- Final Notice
- Information Received
- Accounts Filed!
The above example is one of many workflows sending email reminders at specified times.
Example – 3rd reminder
“Just a reminder that we do not appear to have received your bookkeeping records for processing this month. Please try to send these as soon as possible so we can timetable this with the next months work now starting.”
Example
RE: VAT QUARTER END $job_periodend
The VAT return for the period ending [date] is due to be filed online by $statutory_deadline.
(Please note that where the 7th is a weekend the filing is due on the Friday before 7th).
Example
“Last year we completed P11D(s) on your behalf. If you have provided benefits to employees or directors, such as cars or medical insurance for example, a Return must be made to HMRC covering the year ended $job_periodend to report those benefits.
This Return must be with HMRC by $statutory_deadline to avoid a penalty.”
Example
“Please could you forward the payroll data to $job_service_assignee for the period ending $job_periodend.
The payroll will be processed and emailed to you for approval.
Please do not pay staff until the payroll is approved and filed online.”
Specialist Job?
CIS? Audit? Advisory?
Basically, whatever Job or Service you have in IRIS Practice Management, you can be sure that Chaser will do the chasing!
Technical Setup Requirements
iChaser works in the cloud and this means it needs a secure connection to your IRIS installation so that iChaser can read your IRIS Practice Management Job Stages. As part of the implementation, we will work with your IT department to organise the connectivity but typically a secure VPN between IRIS and iChaser will be created.
Additionally, in order to send email reminders to clients, iChaser will need to be connected to your email server (E.g. Microsoft Exchange server). Again, we will work with your IT department to set up an email outbox. Emails that are sent from iChaser can be sent either from a generic address such as a noreply@yourfirmsdomain address or, indeed, the emails can be sent as if they are coming from the partner or manager that is responsible for the client. This can include your own footer/signature block but do note, that your signature block might be automatically added by your current mail server so please check with your IT dept.
Tips for a Successful Reminder Flow
Before you push the buy button, it is important to check that your existing data in IRIS is suitable for automating reminders. The following tips will help ensure iChaser works successfully for you:
- Have a Main Contact designated in IRIS for each Client – There can be many contacts related to a business client in IRIS and you may not want every contact receiving the reminder. To limit the sending, use the ‘main contact’ checkbox in IRIS, as a designator. This way, the workflows in iChaser can be configured to only send reminders to the main contact.
- Have an email address linked to the main contact – They’re not going to receive an email reminder if they don’t have an email address! Check all contacts have one.
- Have a policy for updating the Job Stages in IRIS – Your practice will not look professional if a client, who has already sent in their books, receives a reminder email to send in their books! It’s important Job Stages are progressed onto the next stage, promptly.
- You may not want to chase some clients – We’d recommend using a Category or Attribute in IRIS to specify whether or not a client should be part of the chaser.
Configuring Your Workflow Reminders
Every accountant is going to want different content sent to their clients. And we’re also aware that accountants are busy delivering chargeable work. So, with this in mind, we have a setup questionnaire which you can complete and we will setup the workflows for you to test, before putting them live!
When it comes to each workflow reminder you will need to consider the following:
- Type of service to automate, such as a Personal Tax reminder or VAT reminder
- The particular Job Stage you would like the automation to run on
- The IRIS Job Stage due date, if applicable, when it should trigger (e.g. 14 days prior/after the due date)
- Who the email should come from (e.g. noreply or partner x)
- What the email/sms should say and how it is branded
- Who should/shouldn’t be included in email/sms chasers
Checking Reminders Are Running
A weekly email report will be sent to you confirming the number of reminders sent. You will have a login to iChaser where you can view reports and see what has been communicated to clients.
Getting Started
iChaser is £250+VAT per month payable annually upfront by direct debit. Setup and connection to IRIS is free. Each workflow has a one-time setup cost of £50 and will be invoiced once completed and signed off by you.
Before you push the buy button, it is important to check if your existing data in IRIS is suitable for automating reminders. We recommend you run a report in IRIS Data Mining to see how many records have a main contact designated and an email address attached to the contact and/or attached to the business. If you plan to send SMS messages then each contact in IRIS should have a designated mobile number too.
These checks are important because it can avoid disappointment and wasted effort and highlight the work you need to do internally to clean up your data.
Hit the Get Started button to complete the online form and we will send an information pack and contract to you to review and sign.
Our friendly team will schedule the installation and configure your workflows within a couple of weeks.
Start saving money! Free up your time!