client

How to Tell a Client How the Fee Was Set

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Ed Mendlowitz CPA The Practice Doctor Q and ABy Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: I performed some additional services for a client and gave her a bill that she questioned and wanted to know how much time I had spent. I billed more than the time charges, but this client never gets time bills – everything I do is on a fixed fee so I never account for my time with her. What should I say now?

MORE PRACTICE DOCTOR Q&A: 18 Ways to Blow a Partnership Opportunity | When Experience Doesn’t Add Up | 8 Times When Hourly Billing Trumps Value Pricing | 6 Simple Steps to Impress a Prospect | Making Meetings More Productive | 5 Time Management Tips for an Overworked Accountant | Running an Accounting Business | 14 Ways to Switch to Value Pricing | Pricing, Billing, Costing: Don’t Blame Clients

RESPONSE: If a client is on a strict time basis, they are entitled to a breakdown of the hours and person performing the services.

Otherwise, when clients ask me how I arrived at a bill I tell them something similar to this:

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How Accountants Get New Clients

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Angry young woman, blowing steam coming out of earsWith client retention the top issue for firms, we go looking for the “secret sauce” for landing new business.
Join the survey; get the results

By Rick Telberg
CPA Trendlines

If you want some real answers for how to avoid losing clients, just start asking CPAs how they’ve managed to pick up new clients.

That’s exactly what we’ve been doing lately. Some of the answers are startling. All of them are instructional. Most of the time, accountants can blame the CPA that their new clients were abandoned. READ MORE →

The Case of the Client Daughter: Tread Carefully

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CPA TRENDLINES COMMUNITY FORUMThe lesson: Even the best can make mistakes; talk it with peers.

By CPA Trendlines

In his column Client’s Difficult Daughter Balks at Bill, Ed Mendlowitz fielded a question about a client’s daughter who asked for help with her divorce proceedings, and did not want her father to know what was going on. The work was rushed and difficult, and when the cranky client called the bill highway robbery, the accountant wondered if he should call her father.

Mendlowitz noted that an engagement letter and retainer should have been the starting point, then added, “I would tell your client that if she did not pay you in full, or work out a method of payment including automatically charging her credit card on a monthly basis, you will ask her father for payment and will lay out everything you did for her and the specific benefits she got because of your hard work.”

Readers were swift to disagree. READ MORE →

6 Ways to Move Beyond Compliance Services

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Dollar Concept, Financial Adviser Or Finance AdvisoryBecoming a ‘trusted advisor.’

By Sandi Smith Leyva
The Accountant’s Accelerator

Here’s a question: What portion of your revenues are derived from compliance work – e.g., tax preparation and IRS representation; bookkeeping; QuickBooks setup, cleanup and training; payroll; and audit work – versus value-added work, e.g., revenue improvement, business consulting, profit margin analysis and workflow improvement projects?

If you answered 100 percent compliance work and no value-added services, you’re not alone.  There’s a lot of lip service about moving from compliance services to becoming a “trusted advisor.” There’s an equal amount of confusion in how to get started.

Here are a few tips to help those of you who want to move in that direction. READ MORE →

5 Ways to Attract Higher-Quality Clients

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Arrow hits target bulls eyeFinding the sweet-spot for your target client.

By Sandi Smith Leyva
The Accountant’s Accelerator

Many accountants serve clients with extremely small businesses that gross six figures a year or even less. These clients are prone to being price-sensitive and often struggle with budgets and cash flow. If you’re serving these clients, you’re definitely meeting an important need in the marketplace, but you may also start to question your own prices, or worse, under-price your services. READ MORE →

Complaining Client? No Wonder!

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Ed Mendlowitz CPA The Practice Doctor Q and A

QUESTION: I have had a client for 12 years and until recently he has been a pleasure. For the last year he seems to be overly complaining about the fees and has fallen behind in payments. He is not hurting for cash so it is not a money issue. What can I do to get the relationship back on track?

RESPONSE: I spoke at great length with the CPA and it seems that the client has been taken for granted and the accountant has dropped the ball. Calls and emails were no longer returned quickly, an extension was filed this tax season for the first time in years, a long-term staff person left so was replaced, and since client started to complain the partner hasn’t been so anxious to interact with him. Also the CPA told me that the work has settled into a routine and nothing much has changed in years “so why should the client be upset now?” READ MORE →

8 Essential Ingredients for Your New Client Welcome Kit

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By Sandi Smith Leyva
The Accountant’s Accelerator

How you welcome your new client can set the tone for a relationship that could last for years or in the worst of cases, just days. Start out on the right foot by looking super-organized (because that’s part of why we get hired anyway) and making it super-easy for a client to get on board with you. The best vehicle for this is a welcome kit. Here are eight things that should be in your kit at a minimum: READ MORE →