The End-of-Quarter Chase: Why Clients Need Reminding to Reconcile More Than Once
Why requesting records and getting clients to reconcile their accounts at BAS time rarely works on the first ask, and how automated follow-up takes the repeated chasing off your team's plate.
This guide is written for Accounting firms whose team spends end-of-quarter time manually chasing clients to reconcile accounts and send through records. It explains how the obligation fits into Australian public practice, how firms can plan lodgement deadlines before they become urgent, and how client reminders, workflow ownership and practice management routines can reduce compliance risk.
Key dates and timing considerations
Due dates are only useful when the firm turns them into a working system. Australian accounting firms need to know the statutory or ATO lodgement deadline, but they also need earlier internal workflow dates for record collection, preparation, manager review, partner review, client approval and final lodgement.
- Most clients don't reconcile their accounts or send through records after the first request — it typically takes three or four follow-ups before anything comes back.
- That chase repeats every quarter, client by client, and the time it consumes rarely shows up anywhere except a busier-than-expected BAS week.
- The problem usually isn't that clients are difficult. A single request, sent once, is easy to miss and easy to deprioritise against everything else running their business.
How to operationalise this inside an accounting firm
The most effective firms treat this topic as part of a wider compliance operating rhythm, not as an isolated date in a diary. A partner, director or manager should be able to open one view and see which clients are affected, which due dates are coming up, which reminders have been sent, which work is waiting on the client and which lodgements are at risk. That visibility is what turns a tax calendar into a practice management tool.
For public practice teams, the first step is to define ownership. Every client should have a responsible manager or staff member, and every recurring obligation should have a clear workflow path. That path normally includes information requested, information received, preparation started, manager review, partner review, client approval and lodged. Smaller firms may use fewer stages, but the principle is the same: the firm needs a shared language for progress.
Client communication
Client reminders should be specific, early and consistent. A useful reminder explains what the firm needs, when it is needed, what the client should do next and why the timing matters for ATO compliance or the relevant lodgement deadline.
Manager visibility
Managers need more than a list of dates. They need to know which clients have not responded, which jobs are unassigned, which obligations are approaching review and where workflow capacity is becoming tight across the team.
This is especially important when a firm is moving away from a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets can record due dates, but they rarely create reliable accountability. They do not automatically show whether a client reminder was sent, whether a manager changed, whether an email bounced, or whether a lodgement is still waiting for approval. A structured compliance workflow gives the team a better way to manage recurring deadlines without relying on memory or inbox archaeology.
The end-of-quarter chase every firm knows
The quarter closes and the team sends out requests: reconcile the last three months of transactions, confirm a handful of unclear items, send through missing bank statements. A week goes by. Nothing. A second email goes out. Still nothing. Eventually someone picks up the phone, and on the third or fourth touch the client finally sends what's needed.
Multiply that by every client on the books and the pattern becomes the real cost of BAS time — not the technical work of preparing the return, but the disproportionate hours spent re-asking for the same thing, client by client, because the first request rarely lands.
For a public practice, the operational risk is rarely the date itself. The risk is that no-one owns the follow-up, the client reminder is sent too late, the manager cannot see what is stuck, or the team is using a spreadsheet that is no longer trusted. TaxCalendar is designed to connect due dates, client reminders, workflow ownership and compliance visibility in one place.
Who's still waiting to respond
TaxCalendar's obligation list showing which clients are Not Started, Waiting for Client or In Progress, so the team can see who still needs a follow-up at a glance.
Staged reminder queue
TaxCalendar's reminder queue, showing the automatic follow-up sequence that replaces a staff member manually re-sending the same request.
Why one request is never enough
It's rarely that clients don't want to help. They're running their own business, the email arrives at a bad moment, and reconciling transactions or digging up a statement doesn't feel urgent yet — so it slides to the bottom of their inbox. Without a second or third nudge, it stays there until the deadline forces the issue.
This is a pattern, not a one-off. The same client who took four follow-ups last quarter will very likely take four again next quarter, unless the firm changes how the request is repeated rather than hoping this time will be different.
How TaxCalendar takes the repeated chase off your plate
The fix isn't a better first email. It's making the second, third and fourth follow-up automatic instead of something a staff member has to remember to send. TaxCalendar's staged reminders — for example at 30, 14, 7 and 2 days before the due date — repeat the same request on a schedule without anyone needing to track who's already been chased.
Each client's status is visible against their obligation, so a manager can see at a glance who's still waiting on reconciliation, who has responded, and who genuinely needs a phone call rather than another email — instead of the whole team relying on memory or a spreadsheet to know who's been asked already.
That turns the end-of-quarter chase from a manual, easily-dropped task into something that happens whether or not anyone remembers to do it, freeing the team to spend BAS week on the technical work instead of repeating the same request four times per client.
Recommended reminder and workflow cadence
A strong compliance process separates client communication from internal work allocation. Tax agents can use client reminders at 30, 14, 7, 2 and 0 days before the due date, while managers use earlier workflow dates to check whether records have arrived, preparation has started and review is on track.
This matters because lodgement deadlines are rarely missed for one dramatic reason. They are missed because small items stay hidden: a missing email address, an unassigned manager, a client who has not approved the work, or an obligation sitting in a spreadsheet that only one person trusts. TaxCalendar is built to make those issues visible before they become deadline pressure.
Where TaxCalendar fits
TaxCalendar helps Australian accounting firms turn compliance dates into a visible workflow. Firms can track clients, obligations, due dates, manager ownership, reminder status and lodged status in one place. That gives public practice teams a practical operating layer for BAS, IAS, ATO lodgement calendars, annual returns, client reminders and recurring practice management routines.
Related questions
Why don't clients respond to the first request for records?
Usually because the request doesn't feel urgent yet. Clients are running their own business, the email gets buried, and reconciling accounts or finding a statement slides down their priority list until a follow-up — or the approaching deadline — brings it back up.
How many times does a firm typically need to follow up before a client reconciles their accounts?
It commonly takes three or four follow-ups across a mix of emails and phone calls before a client sends through what's needed, and the same client often follows the same pattern every quarter.
Can follow-up reminders be automated instead of sent manually by staff?
Yes. TaxCalendar can schedule a staged sequence of reminders ahead of the due date so the repeated follow-up happens automatically, rather than depending on a staff member remembering to re-send the same request.
Does TaxCalendar show which clients still haven't responded?
Yes. Each client's status is tracked against their obligation — including Not Started, Waiting for Client and In Progress — so managers can see who still needs a nudge without asking around the team.