At first I felt a little guilty about going on a vacation for a week in March, as that’s the start of my busy season. However, my attitude changed in the last year about the idea. It’s been awhile since we’ve traveled for a family vacation, January of 2019 to be exact. As long as the work gets done and deadlines are met, why not?
I have been in the accounting industry for over two decades now. That’s half of my life which is kind of a scary thought. I started as a summer student, then did co-op placements, was then employed full-time as a staff accountant and then eventually a manager. I worked for small national offices and then small local offices.
In those early years I worked pretty hard. In March and April you could be working up to 60 hours per week. The reason being, the practices that I worked for had over 1,000 personal tax returns to prepare, not to mention all of the corporate tax returns and audited financial statements that needed to be completed in that short time frame.
We always had an end of April party to celebrate getting through another busy season. Those drinks and food were earned by all.
I have structured my practice in a way where I am not overwhelmed by personal tax returns. It really depends on who the return is for if I accept them as a client. I have mostly monthly bookkeeping clients that keep me busy year round.
In the last two years I have had multiple requests to see if I wanted to sell my practice and take on management positions within the purchasing firm.
A couple of these practices presented some interesting opportunities that would have allowed me to focus exclusively on growing their cloud operations. I am sure the money would have been great, however I would be sacrificing my freedom to do as I please. With a young family, flexibility is very important to me.
I am currently working some evenings and weekends to catch-up for my time off but to be able to enjoy a March break vacation with my family, it was worth it.. Last year I rarely worked during those times, and as I said it was totally worth it!