In Your Shoes - Steven Mearns

Happy New Tax Year!

It’s the first day of the new Tax Year and the third week of the COVID-19 “Lockdown”. My team are all now working from home across the North East of Scotland so my travelling days are over for the time being. We are fortunate to have an excellent hosted working environment so our computers and phones work at home just as though we are in the office.

I would normally be in Dundee on a Monday so a very different Monday for me, but busier than ever as I update clients on the changes to be aware of as the new Tax Year begins. New Minimum Wage rules and new Tax and National Insurance bandings mean all my clients have some changes to make and we want to make sure they are fully informed.

Board Meetings and Potty Training

This morning we used the technology at our disposal to conduct our monthly Board meeting. My fellow Director, Cameron Allan, who is based in our Aberdeen office met me via Video Call and Screen Share to discuss the financial performance of our business as well as a raft of other agenda items.

We have three children, all boys, aged 11, 9 and 2 so my wife and I are balancing looking after them with keeping on top of our busy jobs. As a small business owner struggling with the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown, my wife is incredibly busy trying to keep her business afloat so we are certainly juggling a lot of different tasks at the moment.

We couldn’t put off potty training James our youngest any longer so during some client calls I had to make a dash to help him. Who said we men cannot multi task!

Keeping the team connected

I was delighted to have some initial consultations with potential clients looking for our advice all the way from Inverness-shire and Moray. It just goes to show with these technologies for remote working we can advise clients anywhere.

We have implemented a team Coffee and Catch up at 2pm each day via “Zoom” video conferencing so the team who normally work together across our offices, can have a catch up while they work in isolation at home. It was great to hear how everyone is doing and some laughs were enjoyed.

The rest of my day was spent helping struggling clients make claims for loss of income on insurance policies and claims on the Coronavirus Business Support Fund. It is really important to ensure our clients are accessing all the support available to them and it is clear many don’t understand what is available and how to access it.

Furlough - Easy for you to say

Today we needed to get our 150+ clients who use us for payroll support educated on the brand new process for reclaiming wages for staff on “Furlough”. This required us to pull together yet another information update email to send to our clients. At TaxAssist we have a first class technical support team who help me get clear, accurate guidance to my clients when they need it most.

Despite HMRC information being patchy, we have to make sure our clients receive guidance from us on how the reclaim process will work and tell them how we can help them with it. This leads to many questions that I spend much of the day (and night) responding to.

I also need to spend time with my team and I find time to squeeze in an hour of client support training with our Banchory Business Services Manager, via “Skype Teams”.

Escape to the office!

It was a real treat to go to the Banchory office today to collect client records and print some urgent client documents. I really miss the office environment and the interaction with the team and our clients. As a Shop-Fronted accountancy practice, client interaction is a major element of our work and despite the technology there is no doubt we are all missing the face to face element of our work.

The week ended with further client support work around Business Interruption Loan applications and making sure we are set up to support Furlough claims.

My kids are pleased that I am going to take most of the next 2 days off for Easter. I am looking forward to spending some uninterrupted time with them. It has been another unusual week but we have done what we set out to do – supporting our clients whatever the circumstances.

Happy Easter

The weather was fantastic and the family had a lovely Easter weekend. Just a few hours of work for me on Saturday morning to keep on top of some urgent client queries around COVID-19 support. Although there is no end in sight yet for the Lockdown, we are in a strong position at TaxAssist to support our clients in the weeks and months ahead.