The seasonality problem
Practice workload is shaped by statutory deadlines, producing extreme peaks. Capacity planning around them is the defining operational challenge, and it is usually done from last year's experience and memory.
Predicting the work arriving in each week of a peak - by job type, by client, and importantly by when records actually arrive - allows resourcing that matches reality rather than the deadline calendar.
Records arriving late is the real constraint
The binding constraint is rarely total capacity. It is that half the clients send their records in the last fortnight, compressing work into a period no staffing plan can absorb.
Client record-submission timing is highly predictable from their own history - clients are remarkably consistent. That supports targeted chasing well ahead of the deadline, aimed at the clients whose lateness causes the most disruption rather than at everyone equally.
It also supports realistic planning. Knowing that a particular group of clients will be late regardless allows capacity to be held for them rather than pretending they will improve.
Predicting fee overruns
- Client's history of hours against fee on similar jobs
- Quality and completeness of records provided, where recorded
- Number of queries raised on previous jobs
- Complexity indicators - entities, transactions, schemes
- Whether the client is new, where estimates are least reliable
- Which staff member is assigned, which affects hours legitimately
Predicting overruns before work starts allows the conversation to happen at the right time. Repricing a job at quote stage is a normal commercial discussion; asking for more after the work is done is an awkward one that frequently ends in a write-off.
Client profitability, properly measured
| Measure | Often missed |
|---|---|
| Fee less recorded time at cost | The basic calculation |
| Unrecorded time | Substantial in many practices |
| Query and correspondence time | Rarely charged, often significant |
| Write-offs and recoverability | The gap between billed and collected |
| Partner time | Expensive and frequently uncosted |
Practices commonly find a meaningful share of clients are unprofitable once everything is counted, and that the pattern is not what partners expected. That informs repricing at renewal, which is where the analysis pays.
Keep it to practice management
This is about running the practice, not about the professional work. Applying models to accounting judgements, audit conclusions or tax positions raises professional and regulatory questions well beyond an operational project.
The operational side is where the return is available now, with none of that complexity, and it uses data already sitting in the practice management and time recording systems.
The client who always sends records late will send them late again. Plan for it rather than hoping.