What are your top 3 must-haves to survive and thrive during the busy season?

My top three tips for surviving busy season would be:

1. Staying Organized - keeping notes on what's open, questions, and upcoming due dates helps me keep track and prioritize items. 
2. Communication - Communicating with the audit team on priorities, status, and questions helps the team stay on track, and allows everyone to help if any issues arise
3.  Don’t Overwork - Although deadlines are tight and it may seem like there is no end in sight, sometimes it is better to close the laptop and revisit the next morning or after a quick break with a fresh set of eyes. Working when you’re burnt out can lead to a lot of mistakes that will take longer to fix, than if you revisit when you’ve had a break. 

1. Prioritize work with urgency

2. Quality of work should not be compromised

3. If asking for help can get the job done faster do not hesitate to do that. 

1. When working with multiple documents in data snipper, make use of folders to organize documents so that you can effortlessly move between documents. 
2. For greater accuracy when snipping, always use the OCR feature 
3. Using the Document Matching feauture can increase efficiency when matching samples to supporting documents. 

1. Set realistic deadlines - not everything can be completed with a quick turnaround, by managing expectations early on everyone stays happy.
2. Utilise resources and tools, what work can be done by more junior members of staff to free up more senior staff to work on complex areas where the bottle neck usually is.
3. Stay organised - knowing what is due and when.

This isn’t exactly what you’re asking but after nearly 20 busy seasons, this is my take on busy season: (1) I find that its usually more bark than bite - if you’ve planned well, then a busy season shouldn’t be all that awful (but to clear, I have had my fair share of bad ones), (2) stick to your flexibility needs - if you need that daily yoga to keep you balanced, then make sure you stick it (I could use my own advice btw!) and (3) you’re all in it together and usually you look back on a busy season and reminisce that it wasn’t that bad.