The Tax Season Reminder Email for Clients

The reminder most clients skim

Every February, bookkeepers and accounting practices send clients a reminder that tax season has started. Most of these emails open the same way: a greeting, a line about how fast the year went, and news about the practice.

The useful part comes later. What to bring, when it is needed and how to book sit in the fourth or fifth paragraph, under a seasonal photograph.

Clients read the subject line and the first two lines, usually on a phone, and decide the rest can wait.

Then it is the last week of April, the envelopes arrive in a rush, and too many of them are missing a slip.

What the first lines have to carry

A client opening the email wants four answers, and the first few lines should give all of them.

• What to gather, as a short list or a link to your checklist.
• The date you need documents, which comes well before the filing deadline.
• How to book or drop off, with hours, an address or a booking link.
• What changed since last year, one line for each change.

The second is the one most reminders leave out. Clients know the filing deadline; few know you need their papers weeks before it, so they treat the deadline as the day to start.

Your date, not the filing deadline

Most personal returns are due on April 30. Self-employed people and their spouses have until June 15 to file, though any balance owing is still due at the end of April.

Neither is the date your clients need. Yours is the day you must have their documents to finish on time, usually four to six weeks earlier.

Pick it before writing anything, use the same date in every message, and put it in the subject line: "Your tax documents, needed by March 27."

Some slips, such as those from mutual funds and other trusts, can arrive at the end of March. Say what to do then: send the rest now, and that slip when it lands.

What to gather, for this client

A general list of twenty items helps nobody. Clients scan it, decide most of it does not apply, and miss the one line that does.

You already know what each client needed last year. A landlord needs rent records and the property tax notice; a retiree needs pension and investment slips; a contractor needs income, expenses and a vehicle log.

Group clients into three or four kinds and use your email software's tags to send each group the list that fits, with a link to the full checklist on your website for anything unusual.

Booking and drop-off, made obvious

Give one way to book, as a button or a phone number on its own line, not buried in a paragraph. Give drop-off hours, the address, where to park and whether there is a slot for after hours.

If you accept documents online, say exactly how, and say what not to do. Slips carry social insurance numbers, and ordinary email attachments are the wrong place for them.

What changed, in one line each

Give each change that affects clients its own short line: new fees, new hours, a new address, a new way to send documents. Where a change in the rules touches many clients, add one plain sentence saying who should ask.

The explanation belongs on your website, linked from that line. An email is the wrong place for three paragraphs on a new credit.

A worked example

A bookkeeping and tax practice on an island reached by ferry prepares a few hundred personal returns each spring, mostly for retirees, small farms and tradespeople.

Its reminder used to go out in mid-March as a newsletter: a photograph of the harbour, news of the practice's anniversary, a paragraph on a rule change, and finally the drop-off details.

Clients read it as a newsletter and set it aside. Envelopes arrived in the last fortnight of April, many without a slip.

Last year it went out in the first week of February as plain text, with the document date in the subject. Below that came a short list for each kind of client, the drop box hours and the booking number.

One line covered the single change that year, the move to a new office, with a map link. The harbour photograph and the anniversary news moved to the website.

In mid-March a short follow-up went only to clients who had neither booked nor dropped anything off. The spring was no lighter, but more of the work arrived while there was still time to chase missing slips.

Send it early, follow up once

Early February is the right moment. Employment slips are arriving, clients have taxes on their minds, and your calendar still has room.

Sent in March, the same message competes with every other reminder and lands after many people have already decided where to take their papers.

Follow up once, three or four weeks later, and only with clients who have not booked or sent anything. Keep it to the date and the booking line. A weekly reminder trains people to ignore you.

Clients who paid you for a return within two years count as implied consent under CASL. Each message still needs your practice's name, contact details and a working unsubscribe link. That is the general rule, not legal advice.

Keep the layout plain, with short lines and a booking link large enough to tap. In Gmail, obvious newsletters often land in the Promotions tab.

The counter-case

A small practice whose clients all phone in January, or who see the same accountant at the same table every year, needs a reminder far less than one with hundreds of households.

Some clients will never read email, and a phone call or a letter suits them better. Complex clients, such as a company with a year-end, need a personal note rather than a group message.

And no email changes a client who leaves everything to April regardless. For most practices, though, a reminder with the four answers at the top, sent early, makes the season easier to plan.

Before you send it

1. Choose your document date before writing a word.
2. Put that date in the subject line.
3. List what to gather for each kind of client.
4. Say how to book and where to drop off.
5. Give each change its own line.
6. Send it in the first half of February.
7. Follow up once with clients who have not booked.

Step one is the date the rest of the email hangs on. A date chosen after the email is written tends to be the filing deadline, which tells clients they can wait.

Getting customers to commit before the rush works the same way as in booking next season during the off-season.

Frequently asked questions

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