I often ask myself: “Are 'bookkeeping emergencies' really a thing?” I typically like to answer this question with a no. If we are communicating with our clients, and we have our procedures and processes in place, there should be no emergencies, such as a pressing bill payments, payroll submissions at the eleventh hour, or last-minute compliance filings.
I once worked as the bookkeeper for a small 12-unit condo homeowner’s association (HOA). The HOA had contracted to have a number of deferred maintenance projects completed, and there were several workers visiting the property in a condensed period of time. Each worker had a signed contract with the HOA for services rendered, signed by the HOA president.
However, no matter how often I asked, the HOA president failed to provide me with copies of the signed contracts in a timely manner, so I could not prepare the deposit payments or have a feel for when the work would be completed. The HOA president would call me and request that I print a check and mail it to her for the deposit, but when the work was complete, she would follow up and ask me to hand deliver a check to get a signature for the balance due—it was an “emergency.”
No matter how often I checked in with her regarding the status of projects, or even if I gave her some checks she could complete by hand so I could enter them in the books after-the-fact, there was always some emergency. This went on for the entire summer, with the client calling and emailing me regarding multiple bookkeeping “emergencies.”
I speak of this client in the past tense, because I resigned as their bookkeeper. If a client is not trainable, calls or texts me at all hours of the day or night or weekend, and never seems to have their act together despite my coaching and coaxing, they are not a good fit for my practice.
I hear other bookkeepers talk about how they bend over backwards to assist their clients, and all of the outside-of-the-box situations that pop up, which they handle. The Myers-Briggs personality test indicates that bookkeepers and accountants have “sympathetic and receptive personalities,” which I believe leads us to give more allowances to our clients than they sometimes merit.
I know that I would also often go above and beyond a signed scope of work to help my clients out, especially in the case of a true emergency, like the time one of my clients was hospitalized due to a stroke. Her husband called me, and I gladly went to their office several times to train their son to do the work his mother had been doing. This was a true emergency situation.
But I am no longer am willing to be at the beck and call of clients who always create a fire, and then need my help to put it out. When I find I’m lying in bed worrying about a client or about situations that they have repeatedly created, due to their lack of responsiveness to my inquiries or their own bad habits, then I know it is time to resign from the account.
If this assessment sounds harsh, I would re-frame it as just being realistic. I am running a business too, and I expect my clients to behave in a professional manner, the same way they expect me to do the same.
That being said, as small business owners we also need to look at our own behaviors, to explore if we are enabling our clients to have these emergencies.
Do we have documented workflows in place for our clients, to mitigate the onset of emergency situations? Do we schedule time each year to review workflows and explore procedural gaps to locate areas for process improvement? Do we revisit mis-applied workflows with our clients and/or review best practices when uncommon situations arise? If we don’t learn from our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them.
If you have clients who keep you awake at night, it might be time to ask yourself if the client is worth the trouble. In my quest for life-work balance, I prefer to work with clients who appreciate my work, value my time, and respond to my emails in a timely manner. Those are the ones for whom I will go the extra mile.
No longer will I continuously drop everything for a client who doesn’t appreciate the effort, and who falls into a pattern of always having emergencies. Will you?