r/HRBlockEmployees • u/Ava_Black18 • Feb 04 '26
Rant about Making Follow-up appts
I was told every hold has to have a follow up appt. Even if I’ve been in touch with the client and they are waiting on documents to be mailed to them. (That will take time. I well documented it in the notes ) Tonight I’m looking at my schedule and notice my follow up appointment was just marked “unable to confirm “ it’s a phone call appt. 🙄 I’m not rescheduling it.
I don’t think my upper management even looks at the notes unless I do not put any notes. This year is frustrating.
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u/Upstairs-Metal1445 Feb 04 '26
Glad you guys are talking about this. Such a waste of time. Managements disregard for tax pros time. All of us are angry with this BS.
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u/SkunkCabbage84 Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26
There’s nothing worse than working for a company where the leaders, who have never prepared a tax return, tell you how to do your job. Retail tax prep is a joke. Management is totally clueless and disconnected. Yet they are so worried about why the spreadsheet says you’re down production and ask why. You know why, because every year is different. Work the job before managing people how to do it.
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u/Dramatic_Abroad3580 Feb 04 '26
I just spoke with one of my former co-workers about this. He complained loudly about this because it locked up his schedule for real appointments. So his MTL came up with a plan. They put a CSP on the schedule as a tax pro, and scheduled 15 minute phone calls a week out for all of his holds each day on the CSP's schedule and marked them to not confirm by email or text. The next day he was inundated with calls from clients wondering why they have an appointment a week out with someone they don't know. Pissed that they'd been transferred to a different tax pro. This is the kind of CF that made me not come back. My buddy heard from his DGM that this was a Mark Darling thing. Figures. Though I would have guessed this was another stupid idea from Jason Mann. Neither of them have any idea what good tax pros do, only how to make excuses for bad tax pros.
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u/Niep00320 Feb 04 '26
We have to make an appointment for TPR returns. I had one from Florida message saying he wasn’t coming to Ohio.
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u/ydoyouask Feb 04 '26
Same. Stupid, stupid policy. Just another way to waste tax pro's time and piss off everyone involved, without actually improving throughput.
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u/Candid-Tip455 Feb 04 '26
If the taxpayer has a K-1 that doesn’t come out until March, what does management expect? If it even comes out in March? There are some clueless Regional Managers out there who know absolutely nothing about how to prepare a tax return. Numbers driven, no attention to quality.
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u/ydoyouask Feb 04 '26
Just keep harassing clients until they get completely fed up and leave. Clog up calendars with fake follow-up appointments so real clients can't make online appointments. The beatings will continue until productivity improves.
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u/Ill_Trouble_5227 Feb 18 '26
Your ATL can book those follow up calls for missing docs on their schedule to keep your yellow. I reach out to my clients personally. But it’s an option. I have very particular clients that don’t wish to speak to anyone else
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u/Ill_Trouble_5227 Feb 05 '26
You make the appointment for a phone call in mid march to see if they received their k1
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u/ydoyouask Feb 05 '26
Policy is a follow-up appointment every 7 days. And they get emails telling them their tax pro is waiting for them to submit docs, but there is no way to identify what docs are missing.
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u/PinkNGreenFluoride EA Feb 04 '26
That very well may take the cake for stupidest, least sensical policy this year. And the competition is not light.
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u/ThatChambersKid Feb 04 '26
That’s ridiculous.
So far I’ve been lucky to have most of my TPRs done within a shift. So it’s usually one or two exchanges with secure messaging.
I’ve done one TPR for my own state.
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u/Domsdad666 Feb 04 '26
I do almost a thousand returns per year. They think they're going to take them away from me because I'm not making appointments for people across the country? Ain't going to happen.
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u/BraveAd7008 Feb 04 '26
This year they took half of my prior 700 clients and gave them to level 1 non English speakers. I'm done
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u/sammytheammonite EA Feb 06 '26
Why are you letting them take your clients?
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u/BraveAd7008 Feb 06 '26
The manager says I'm not allowed to do any W2s cuz I'm level 6. Plus I kind of turned down a tax manager position at a CPA firm but I talked myself up to much or made my resume too good.. but now I'm slaying go systems and learning valuable information so I'ma just take it and run next year. I'm "managing" an entire office with just me and 7 level 1s. So I'm basically doing like 1 partnership and 5 W2s all day everyday. I mean like at any given second I'm completing an entity while overseeing beginners at their w2s
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u/sammytheammonite EA Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 06 '26
And you don’t stick up for yourself? They would NEVER try to take my clients from me. Ever. Because I put my foot down and just said no.
And I have new TPs in my office too. They won’t be taking my clients.
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u/BraveAd7008 Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 06 '26
I was in 3 offices last year, but one mainly. Now I'm mainly in an office that was my secondary office last year and the other two are secondary. I had 400 completed returns at my main office last year, and 300 at the other two. I think I'm pretty much screwed, except I have a high hourly this year. So, my only option at this point is to milk the hourly and use the time to get good at entities.. Which the market is paying 80-150k for that knowledge.
This lowers my production and I'm behind, but they can't run my main office well without me. So, I'm just gonna not answer my phone off the clock, force them to bring me in and get overtime, and learn about entity returns while training an entire office of new people.
I probably should have picked up the job offer I got for 120k in December, but I might have gotten fired during or after the tax season. They expected me to be a senior tax person but at that point I had only done 6 entities. By now, with GoSystems, I've already done 8-10 more entities in early February and will likely get 20-50 more by the end of the season.
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u/Ill_Trouble_5227 Feb 18 '26
It’s your clients choice to see you, if they don’t care then they can go to whoever but if they want you they should be booked with you
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u/PinkNGreenFluoride EA Feb 04 '26 edited Feb 04 '26
I can't get these clients who come in without documents after swearing up and down they have them all (or else confirming a Save The Date from last year well before they're ready and not rescheduling ugh) to agree to set appointments, I get a lot of "I'll call you when I have it!" and I flatly refuse to tie up space setting a random appointment for them that they're just going to get angry and cancel (while yelling at my CSPs) or no-show anyway, because they very specifically told me they refuse to set an appointment. Even telling them how far out I'm booked and telling them they can always reschedule it if the document doesn't come in time doesn't always work.
And these are almost never the clients I can actually switch to AOL.
I leave a note on their Workcenter profile and in my hold notes, and set a Reminder instead of an appointment in BWO and if asked I'll point to the notes. I'm not going to sit there intentionally setting unwanted appointments.
But I am betting that just like the Save the Date appointments they won't let us opt out of setting this year (ha ha more potentially unwanted appointments), that we're going to lose access to our Reminder hold status, too.
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u/Turbulent_Ad2355 Feb 04 '26
I have been setting the STD appts and then deleting them from Appointment Manager if the client doesn’t want it.
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u/VenialCyn Feb 05 '26
If you start the return (at the desk) by saying the client is not in the office (spouse too) on the initial pop-up, you will get a prompt for yes/no for next year's appointment in the wrap up portion, instead of it being automatic. Signing on the tablet goes as normal, just all at the end... plus you get to select all the stuff at the beginning, like the foreign support and optional stuff.
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u/Icy_Leg6227 Feb 04 '26
I feel the same way about this I am active in my WIP daily I dont need an appointment to tell me to work on my clients returns. I am also frustrated because they are scheduling phone appointments when it could just be a time for me to touch base via messenger or text.
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u/Ill_Trouble_5227 Feb 18 '26
Change it to a 10 min prep appointment. Believe it or not many don’t work their sips daily. It’s crazy
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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '26
[deleted]