5 Perks of Running Your Own Tax Practice

Practice ownership can have many challenges. To name a few, your income can be unpredictable – you are responsible for the financial well-being of your employees and the last one to get paid yourself. While others can mentally “check out” at the end of the work day, your brain is typically plugged into business matters 24/7.

However, with hard work you can overcome these challenges and make room for the amazing perks that come with practice ownership. Let’s take a look at just a few of them.

You make your own schedule and rules

If you are one of those practice owners that’s plugged in 24/7 then it’s time for some changes! One of the biggest advantages of practice ownership is the ability to make your own schedule working whenever, wherever. Owning your own firm means you are better able to balance work, family and play. To accomplish this, you need to have good procedures in place for your staff, your clients, and, yes, even for yourself.

Does your staff know how to best get a hold of you and when to schedule your client meetings? Do your clients know your policies? Do they expect to just pop into your office and meet you right away or do they know to schedule a meeting in advance? You will be able to take much better care of your staff and clients if you first take care of yourself.

You reap the financial benefits

While your income can be unpredictable, that’s not necessarily a bad thing if you are profitable. As a practice owner, you get to decide what you never would have been able to decide as an employee: how much of the funds to retain in the firm and how much to bonus out.  This means more money in your pocket!

You pick your own team

Your success as a practice owner is immensely dependent on your team. As an employee sometimes you can get stuck working with people that are not productive or simply not very nice. With ownership comes the benefit of choosing people that will fit the firm culture and will help it prosper. This is also very important in order to make possible all of the above listed benefits.

You pick your own clients

Although many practice owners don’t take advantage of this benefit, they really should and you are not limited to just picking specific industries. It is very important that your clients fit your culture, i.e., if you are a technology driven firm, you don’t have to accept clients who loathe technology and handle everything through paper copies. When creating a desired culture it is advantageous to accept only clients who fit that culture.  Detouring from that creates inefficiencies and disadvantages for you, your team and the clients.

You create your own vision

As a practice owner, you are also the vision owner. Do you want to have a virtual practice? Do you want to take a few days off in the middle of tax season? Do you want to be a multi-million dollar firm? The sky's the limit!  The key to your success goes back to setting rules, picking the right team, and the right clients. These things are not necessarily easy to achieve, but for a practice owner, unlike for an employee, they are very much possible.

All these perks have one thing in common: as a practice owner you are given the new-found freedom and opportunity to continue bringing change to yourself, your family, your employees, your clients, and your society.

Now that you're ready to take the leap to owning your own practice, here are dozens of ways to grow your business right away.