The economic climate of today is very troubled.  As such, CPA businesses are hiring professional developers to create professionally designed CPA websites to back their advertising initiatives. However, the value of your CPA website goes beyond just marketing, it can also greatly shrink your firm's overhead and also produce efficiencies in terms of your staff expenses.

One outstanding method of  shrinking your operating costs is shifting from using traditional newsletters through the postal service, and shifting to an email service. There are many available.  They will develop and send your electronic newsletters for your firm. This brings down the costs of printing, postage, and staff costs to label and fill your envelopes.  It also brings qualified leads to your website.

Another great use for your website is distributing tax forms. Using the postal service to deliver your tax forms to your client is resource intensive and expensive. Your firm has to bear the cost of the postage.  It also has to bear the cost of the staff resources, for which you cannot bill. A better idea is to create a document center on your website.  This document center can contain tax forms that your clients can download.

Each year, when tax time rolls around, the traditional tax organizer mailing takes time and money. Depending upon the size of your firm's client base, it typically costs hundreds of dollars and a substantial amount of skilled employee hours printing and collating documents, then stuffing and addressing envelopes.

Use your CPA website to host a PDF document instead.  This way your clients can download it and print it from their homes. Some modern CPA websites have their tax organizers posted as an online form.  This can be securely sent online directly via the website. This has the potential to save you and your client time and money.

Tax time is an expensive time of year.  This is particularly true for postage expenses. As the April 15 deadline approaches, clients sometimes procrastinate sending their documents, which is frustrating for both you and the client. You don't want to miss this deadline.  As such, you sometimes need to use overnight mail. If your website has a secure upload feature, it can be a great asset to your clients.  It will allow them to upload their tax forms easily and securely, without paying postage.

There are also several other ways that a CPA website can optimize your business. During the year, your staff answers a lot of calls that are not billable, which can add up to hundreds of dollars of labor cost. The labor cost isn't just the phone call itself.  The client call also needs documentation in the client's file. An interruption will also take your employee off task.  It takes them some time to get back on track.

A "Track My Refund" feature on quality CPA websites is a client favorite. It is very straight forward to set up this feature, which allows current clients, leads, and other website visitors to check their income tax refund's status.

The most significant purpose of a CPA website is surely advertising.  However, it can also trim your expenses, attract new prospects, and help you help your current customers.

Kenneth Marshall is an internet marketing consultant and former Vice President of CPASiteSolutions.com. His specialty is marketing small firms by taking advantage of first-class CPA websites. While using online social networking websites and Search Engines forms the basis of his practice he also stresses the importance of good, old fashioned network marketing and excellent customer service in helping CPA firms grow their customer bases.
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