Discussion:Employees Working off-site
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Discussion Forum Index --> Business Growth Community --> Employees Working off-site
| 19 October 2009 | |
| Anyone have any non-preparer employees working off-site for your tax prep firm? What do they do for you? How is technology involved, if at all? Looking for ideas, preferably from someone who's tried it. Thought I read somewhere on here that one contributor has an employee (spouse?) who works remotely. I believe I can learn a lot from failures as well as successes. Comments? | |
| 20 October 2009 | |
| My wife works remotely from home during tax season.
office phone forwarded to her cell. I always have to call a client back this way. However, I do return calls quickly unless I'm in appointment. She schedules appointments on yahoo calender (viewable by both of us) She can send instant messages on AOL when I'm with a client. I get a pop-up on my screen. If needed, I can fire a quick response right in the middle of return prep. We use Foldershare for spreadsheet inputs. The completed returns are brought home to process and prepare to mail client copy. She gets the bank deposits together and makes the deposit. Now, if I had somebody actually in the office, I could get another diet coke without getting up! | |
| 23 October 2009 | |
| I have a bookkeeper that I allow to work remotely. She has a lap top that when she comes into the office she hooks up to a bigger terminal. You just really have to trust them.
I'm thinking about getting into cloud computing. I think it will help with the file sharing better. Right now I just have to back up her computer every time she take it home. I'm thinking about an online backup system to make this more convenient, but I'm just not fully trusting it yet. For now we just use a lot of portable files. | |
| 23 October 2009 | |
| I haven't tried this myself, but an IT friend of mine has a Drobo for mass storage (on the order of terrabytes) and continuous backup at home and PogoPlug for secure remote access. He came to visit and showed how he can access his Drobo at home and watch movies streamed from those drives on his iPhone. I haven't inquired into how secure the setup really is, but it's worth a look. | |
| 27 October 2009 | |
| I am curious how many firms do remote access for tax return preparers. Is this starting to catch on with small or big firms? | |
| 27 October 2009 | |
| My old firm had it available for partners but not staff. I use LogMeIn to work from home at times. | |
| 8 November 2009 | |
| The technology is wonderful. We take our daughter to Michigan two or three times a year for therapy for three to four weeks per trip. I log into my office computer and continue working. In full swing, I'm almost as productive as when I am in the office. I forward my office phone to my cell and clients don't even know that I'm all the way across the country.
One of my employees works mostly from her house on an internet-based system we use. I monitor her activity and hours. It's allowed me to keep my office overhead very low. | |
| 8 November 2009 | |
| Jb: One of my employees works mostly from her house on an internet-based system we use. I monitor her activity and hours.
Does that employee prepare taxes or do something else? | |
| 8 November 2009 | |
| Lynn, I would be extremely careful about letting client info go home with someone. For one thing, I would think that your liability for disclosure is increased tenfold. | |
| 8 November 2009 | |
| oops, I see now that you are asking about non-preparers. like what, the receptionist? | |
| 11 November 2009 | |
| Looking for ideas on ANY non-preparer work: phone inbound and outbound, scheduling appts, assembly (even tho we're hugely paperless e-filers), clerical stuff, thank you notes, handling mail, updating contact database, reminder calls (reactive AND PROactive), asking/e-mailing for loose ends to complete tax returns and probably 30 other things are not actually PREPARING returns. maybe not practical, but won't know if I don't brainstorm a little. I have 2 employees who work at home 2-3 days per week in tax season and those days for them are THRU-THE-ROOF productive. My office lease is up Dec 2010 and I am angling to SIGNIFICANTLY reduce my rental "footprint." and save $$$ in the process. Comments? | |
| 11 November 2009 | |
| oops. Didn't intend to mislead. The 2 PERPARERS who work at home 2-3 days per week are thru-the-roof productive. I want to work toward that are ohter office duties. | |
