The chase is a queue, not a task #
Nobody in a practice has "chasing" in their job description, which is exactly why it costs what it does. A job opens, a list of required records goes out, some of it comes back, and the file goes into a waiting state. From that moment the work is no longer accountancy.
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Remembering who has not replied
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Deciding whether enough time has passed to ask again
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Finding the last message so the new one does not repeat it
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Checking whether the thing that arrived yesterday was actually the thing you asked for
Each of those steps is small. The cost is in the number of them, and in the fact that the number is invisible. A practice can tell you how many tax returns it filed. Very few can tell you how many reminders it sent to get them.
Why it clusters instead of spreading out #
The statutory calendar decides when the chase happens, and it is not evenly spread. Paper Self Assessment returns are due by 31 October and online returns by 31 January, with the balancing payment due on the same January date, according to HMRC.
A late return attracts an initial 100 pound penalty, then daily penalties of 10 pounds after three months up to 900 pounds, then further charges at six and twelve months. So the chase is not optional and it is not negotiable on timing.
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax adds a second rhythm on top. Qualifying sole traders and landlords send four quarterly updates a year, with deadlines of 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May.
Company clients bring their own dates: accounts are generally due nine months after the accounting reference date, and Companies House late filing penalties for a private company start at 150 pounds and reach 1,500 pounds once filing is more than six months late, doubling if accounts are filed late in two successive financial years.
Count it before you argue about it #
The argument about whether chasing is a real problem usually stalls because nobody has a number. It is worth getting one, using your own figures rather than anybody else's. Three numbers are enough to start:
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How many clients need to supply records for a given job type
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How many separate requests, on average, it takes before the records are complete
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How long one request takes end to end
Including finding the file, checking what is already in, writing the message and logging that it went.
Multiply the three and you have the hours for one job type, in one cycle. Then note how many of those cycles happen per year.
Practices are usually surprised twice: first by the number of requests per client, and second by the fact that the second and third requests take almost as long as the first, because most of the time goes on working out what is still missing. The cost of admin time calculator does this kind of arithmetic for admin generally, and the same method works here.
Which parts of the chase run on rules #
Almost all of the chase is mechanical, and the parts that are not are easy to name.
Runs on rules
- Knowing which records a job type requires (the list is fixed per job type)
- Knowing which of them have arrived (if arrival is recorded somewhere consistent)
- Deciding it is time to ask again (a date calculation against a deadline)
- Assembling what is still outstanding (a difference between two lists)
Needs a person
- Judging whether a document answers the question (that is review work)
- Deciding a client relationship needs a phone call rather than another email
- Deciding what to do when a client cannot or will not supply something (it may carry professional consequences)
The pattern is consistent: the bookkeeping of the chase is rules, and the content of the conversation is not. Most practices have it the wrong way round, in the sense that the bookkeeping is done by hand and the difficult conversation is put off.
What this does not settle #
Two things are outside the scope of a page like this. The first is your professional and data protection obligations, which stay with you. If client records move through any system, your practice has to satisfy itself that the arrangement meets its own supervisory and UK GDPR duties. Nothing here is advice that a particular approach is compliant.
The second is what to actually do about it, which depends entirely on how your practice already records what has arrived. A practice that logs receipt in one place has a very different problem from one where the record lives in four inboxes, and the honest answer is different in each case. That is the conversation the audit exists for.
Related reading: why January breaks a practice, and where the hours go in client onboarding, which is the same chase with higher stakes.