9th April, 2021
With the switch from E-File in April, Leech & Partners moved quickly to anticipate changes and training required to migrate their clients’ tax work online.
Earlier this year, Inland Revenue made the move to switch off the E-File system that had enabled advisors to lodge tax returns on their clients’ behalf, switching to a new ‘Gateway Services’ system.
The new system means tax can now be managed and returns lodged from within the software of service providers like MYOB.
Recognising the need to get ahead of these changes to enable a smooth transition for their clients, the team at Leech & Partners in Canterbury quickly signed up for MYOB Practice Tax and began educating their team on what the required data migration ahead.
Debbie Crawford, client manager for Leech & Partners recently spoke with us regarding the process her firm undertook in upgrading to MYOB Practice Tax.
According to Crawford, getting involved early in the MYOB Practice Tax release process allowed Leech to become actively involved in the product development journey.
“It made it less stressful in anticipating the migration and change to the new platform, as we were able to see what things would look like, and begin to incorporate those new ways of working,” said Crawford. “And it’s been great to be able to make requests for changes and enhancements to various parts of the product, and then see the MYOB product development team make those changes come to life.
“There are still challenges we’ll need to manage, but our operations team have had plenty of time to put systems and processes in place for our team, so that when the change occurs, no-one is blindsided by them.”
And key to ensuring nobody is caught unawares, Leech & Partners worked with MYOB to deliver a best practice stream of communications to generate awareness and educate their team on the change ahead.
“Keeping our team informed has been absolutely essential to this change management process,” said Crawford. “That includes making training on MYOB Practice Tax available in the form of online videos, and having our ops team write the systems and processes the whole team could use from the outset.
“We thought the training videos from MYOB were particularly helpful, as they do a fantastic job of answering the questions and concerns we had at first glance.”
READ: Seeking practice growth with efficient tax workflows
So far, the process has been going smoothly for Leech & Partners as they prepare to migrate their client base to MYOB Practice Tax.
And the team members that have already begun using its new features have plenty of praise to offer.
“Everyone loves the new Tax Notices,” agreed Crawford. “The layout and look is much better for a client to read and understand what they need to pay and how to do it. The total at the top is fabulous.
“The Tax Summary layout, when you look at it from a client’s perspective, I believe it looks really good. I like how the transfers are showing at the top before the final tax to pay/refund total rather than at the bottom, giving more clarity to the client as to their final amount to pay/refund.”
Another feature Crawford highlighted is the ability to make transfers of overpaid tax to multiple entities, as well as to multiple tax types, as a standard feature of online tax returns.
“This has always been a challenge in the past, but it works really well, so this will make lives a lot easier,” she said.
Time to get your own tax workflows up to speed? Learn more about MYOB Practice Tax and book a call with one of our sales specialists today.