Our VAT clients need to provide us with information every quarter. Just taking bank statements as an example, sometimes they hand them in, and sometimes they e-mail them to us as a PDF attachment. Occasionally they photograph the statements on their mobile phone and text them to us.
Pretty soon we get a collection of dribs and drabs of information. What we have started to do is to staple and tape two files back-to-back for selected clients. The front file contains our working papers. The back file, which we call the dribcatcher, contains client records. We hole-punch the client’s bank statements as needed and fix them together with treasury tags to build up one big bank statement which will be the lead schedule in the dribcatcher. Other information provided by clients goes in behind the bank statements, and when we see the client we can empty out the dribcatcher and hand it back to them.
The need for something like a dribcatcher is a feature of the electronic accounting age when documents can be e-mailed or texted. We aim to position ourselves as “MTD Specialists” and we do need to do something to avoid being overwhelmed by an assortment of data in a variety of formats.