PRICING, FEES & BILLING RATES Archives - Page 5 of 34

Aynsley Damery: Adding Value Is the Only Way to Stay in Business

January 23, 2023

Rethink the 80:20 rule, because the 80% are likely stealing from you.

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr for CPA Trendlines

Aynsley Damery wants accountants to think more deeply about their work. The CEO for Clarity said we need to think about what clients want and deliver it to them, but as simple as that sounds, the problem is he doesn’t “think many accountants truly understand what their clients are looking for.” Clients who have started their own businesses are looking for a combination of “money, time and freedom.” However, Damery said, we’re selling them dashboards, KPIs and cash flow forecasting without explaining why that’s important and what that’s going to do for them. “Clients are looking for an advisor who’s going to listen to me, understand my hopes, my fears, my vision, what the challenges are, and be able to be there to support me,” Damery said.

MORE: Erik Solbakken: Yes, You Can Work Less and Make More | Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a Mindshift | Jennifer Wilson: Empower Young Workers to Build the Firm Everyone Loves | Mike Whitmire: Re-Think Your Hiring and Training Practices | Hector Garcia: Success Strategies of a Quickbooks YouTube Superstar | Blake Oliver: Why Tax Work Yearns To Be Free| Private Equity Explodes in U.K. | Brannon Poe: The Status Quo Must Go | Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers | Disruptor: Jason Statts Shakes Up the Status Quo | Think Small to Think Big with Matt Wilkinson | When Financial Statements Go Extinct with Corey Schmidt | Can Geraldine Carter Save Accountants from Themselves? | Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson

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“Our clients don’t understand numbers, yet we give them plans with the numbers, and … it doesn’t help,” he said. Instead, Damery said CPAs need to help them understand what they need to do “to make a difference and move their business forward. And that’s not about giving them the answers. That’s about asking the right questions.”

Will My Clients Find CAS Expensive?

December 28, 2022

By Hitendra Patil

Provide a different value experience with CAS to stop price comparisons.

By Hitendra Patil
The Definitive Success Guide to Client Accounting Services

Have a CAS question? Get it answered here.

QUESTION: At our firm, we have been working on creating CAS capabilities. We feel that the cost of offering CAS will increase our services’ prices. We are worried that our clients will find CAS too expensive. Traditionally, it has not been easy for us to increase our prices. How should we go about our CAS pricing?

MORE CAS: Matching Your Tech to Your CAS Clients | The Tech Stack You Need for CAS | Yes, You Have the Staffing for CAS | Six Steps to Spreading CAS Awareness | Finding Profits in CAS

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A: There are two separate problems here. First, your firm has a cost-plus pricing model. You’d want to change it not just for CAS but also for other services. In general, cost-plus pricing emphasizes the features of your service. Your pricing should reflect the relevant benefits of your service. Second, you need to find out the different value that clients will experience from your CAS offering.

CPA Billing Rates Rise at 6.5% Pace

December 18, 2022

By Beth Bellor

The mark tops six months of steady growth.

line chart — Overall pricing at CPA firms, year over year

By Beth Bellor
CPA Trendlines Research

Pricing at CPA firms has been growing for the past six months, according to a new CPA Trendlines study, and the numbers are worth noting. August was the first year-over-year hike of over 5 percent, at 5.1 percent. From there, it hopped to 5.5 percent in September, 6.3 percent in October and 6.5 percent in November.

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Financial auditing at CPA firms was slightly behind, with annual differences of 4.9 percent in September, 5.5 percent in October and 5.9 percent in November.
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Yes, You Can Work Less and Make More

December 12, 2022

By Liz Farr

Erik Solbakken: Build the firm of your dreams.

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr for CPA Trendlines

Q: Why did the accountant cross the road?

A: Because they did it last year.

Erik Solbakken, a.k.a. “The Heavy Metal CPA,” is on a mission to free accountants from an oppressive business model. Solbakken spent 18 years working his way up to be a partner in a firm in Canada, but when the partnership fell apart, he was liberated to create a new kind of firm, where he and his staff never worked overtime and he made more money. Today, he acts as the guide he wishes he’d had when he started out, empowering accountants to create firms they love working in.

MORE: Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a Mindshift | Jennifer Wilson: Empower Young Workers to Build the Firm Everyone Loves | Mike Whitmire: Re-Think Your Hiring and Training Practices | Hector Garcia: Success Strategies of a Quickbooks YouTube Superstar | Blake Oliver: Why Tax Work Yearns To Be Free| Private Equity Explodes in U.K. | Brannon Poe: The Status Quo Must Go | Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers | Disruptor: Jason Statts Shakes Up the Status Quo | Think Small to Think Big with Matt Wilkinson | When Financial Statements Go Extinct with Corey Schmidt | Can Geraldine Carter Save Accountants from Themselves? | Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson

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How do you get away from the commoditization trap? Simple, deliver to the client the transformation that they want for themselves.

Solbakken said the profession has brainwashed us into believing three lies:

18 Ways to Boost Billings and Collections

December 4, 2022

By August J. Aquila

Daily timesheets, change orders and other ways to ease your load.

By August J. Aquila
Price It Right: How to Value Accounting Services

Is the phrase “effective billing philosophy” an oxymoron? I’m beginning to believe that it is. Analysis of the results of current billing and collection procedures and policies reveals that, for the most part, they aren’t working very well.

MORE: Get Clients to Accept Your New Pricing Philosophy | Getting Partners to Accept a New Pricing Philosophy | Ethics Question: Commissions and Contingencies | How Competitors Drive Pricing | What We Know about Pricing Strategies | When Hourly Billing Hurts Profits
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The fact is, they have not worked well for decades. While it is true that most firms have some sort of billing procedure and some even have a billing philosophy that is taught to each new biller, the fact is they are seldom followed. Hence, very few firms have an effective billing and collection philosophy.
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Ed Kless: Clients Don’t Want Outputs. They Want Outcomes

November 13, 2022

By Liz Farr

The Disruptors: Too busy? Raise your prices.

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr for CPA Trendlines

What do clients – or, as Ed Kless prefers, customers – want from their accountants? It’s not the tax return or the financial statement but the outcome for the customer, which is most often peace of mind.

To remain relevant in disruptions like online tax preparation and automated bookkeeping tech firms like Pilot, accountants need to consider other ancillary services they can provide above and beyond those basic services.

MORE: Seth Fineberg: Your Classic Business Model Won’t Allow Growth | Hector Garcia: Success Strategies of a Quickbooks YouTube Superstar | Blake Oliver: Why Tax Work Yearns To Be Free| Private Equity Explodes in U.K. | Brannon Poe: The Status Quo Must Go | Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers | Disruptor: Jason Statts Shakes Up the Status Quo | Think Small to Think Big with Matt Wilkinson | When Financial Statements Go Extinct with Corey Schmidt | Can Geraldine Carter Save Accountants from Themselves? | Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson

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“When you bill by the hour, when you have to measure your time, and when you tell the customer, ‘Pay attention to my efficiency because that’s what I’m going to charge you,’ then they start looking at your efficiency instead of your effectiveness, which is the wrong thing to be looking at,” Kless explained.

Additionally, Kless said CPAs who are “too busy” need to raise their fees.

He said, “One of the mantras in pricing is innovating for growth, pricing for profit. When an organization wants to grow, the focus has to be on innovating, creating new things to offer, not necessarily what we used to be called rainmaking, which is getting more customers.”

Kless maintains that accountants or CPAs should strive to be the first person called, no matter what the customer wants, whether it’s Super Bowl tickets or a recommendation for the best medical team in an emergency. But experimenting with adding additional services or converting to a subscription-based business model will not be possible for firms that remain wedded to the timesheet, which, Kess said, quoting Ron Baker, is cancer of the accounting profession.

Get Clients to Accept Your New Pricing Philosophy

November 11, 2022

By August J. Aquila

A client who does not contribute to your bottom line is not a client.

By August J. Aquila

Once your partners are sold on the new pricing philosophy, you will need to communicate it to your clients. There are five ways to get clients to understand and accept the new pricing methods. Each of these methods is discussed below.

MORE: Getting Partners to Accept a New Pricing Philosophy | When to Use 11 Alternative Pricing Methods | Make the Value Curve Work for You | How to Leverage Demand In Your Pricing | Make the Most of Your Marketing Mix
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Believe that clients will accept a new pricing method: If you don’t believe it, you can be sure that your clients won’t either. It is not unusual for physicians, stockbrokers and attorneys to change billing methods. Actually, most of your clients will understand what you are doing if you clearly communicate with them. There is a truism that good client relationships are based on trust. The clients trust that you will do the right thing for them. If they lack this trust, no matter what pricing method you employ, you will have problems with your client.
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Getting Partners to Accept a New Pricing Philosophy

October 28, 2022

By August J. Aquila

They have to be on board before clients.

By August J. Aquila

Once you have decided to adopt an alternative pricing philosophy, what do you do next? Changing your firm’s pricing philosophy is really a three-step process.

MORE: When to Use 11 Alternative Pricing Methods | 12 Subjective Factors for Pricing Your Next Engagement | How Utility and Value Affect Pricing | The Four Phases of Service Life | Marketing Orientation Is What Firms Need
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First, you need to consider several factors before suggesting a change. Second, you need to get your partners to agree that it is a good idea, and third, you need to educate your clients so that they accept and understand the new approach. The steps are not easy, but they are possible. And, remember, change does not occur overnight.

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