Fee levels for additional accounting services beyond compliance

3 days ago
3 min read

Introduction

Compliance accounting is under permanent price pressure. Accounts and returns are increasingly automated, comparison is easy, and every practice in the area is quoting for the same standardised deliverable. A practice whose revenue is mostly compliance is competing on a service where the direction of travel is downward.

Advisory work is different. Forecasting, management accounts, benchmarking, planning and business conversations are not commoditised, cannot be compared line by line, and are worth considerably more to the client than the return that they are legally required to file.

Most practices already give this advice away in phone calls. Turning it into a priced service is the largest single revenue opportunity in the profession.

1. Fee levels for additional accounting services start with what you already do free

The advisory work is happening; it is simply not being billed.

Log the unbilled advice for a month

Every call, every question, every ad hoc piece of guidance. Practices are usually startled by the total hours, and that log is the service catalogue writing itself.

Name and price the things on that list

Once an activity has a name and a fee it can be sold. While it remains a favour it will continue to be expected for nothing.

2. Package advisory work rather than charging hourly

Hourly billing discourages the client from ringing, which defeats the purpose.

Sell a monthly retainer with defined content

Management accounts, a quarterly review meeting, unlimited questions. Predictable for both sides and far more valuable than the compliance fee.

Build three levels and expect the middle to sell

Compliance only, compliance plus reporting, and a full advisory tier. Most clients take the middle when three are presented clearly.

3. Price on value, not on time taken

The hours involved bear little relationship to what the work is worth.

Anchor to the client's own numbers

Advice that saves a client several thousand in tax or identifies a cash-flow problem is not priced by the afternoon it took. Say what it is worth to them.

Quote a fixed fee in advance

Clients dislike open-ended time-based bills more than they dislike the amount. A stated figure agreed beforehand removes the objection.

4. Choose the right moment to raise it

Advisory conversations land at specific points in the year.

Use the accounts meeting

The moment you present the figures is when the client is thinking about their business rather than their paperwork. That is the natural opening.

Watch for the trigger events

Growth, a first employee, a property purchase, a loan application, a poor year. Each creates a genuine need for advice and a reason to ask now.

5. Review the client list deliberately

Not every client should be on every service, and some should not be clients.

Rank clients by fee and by effort

The bottom of that list frequently consumes more time than it earns. Repricing or releasing those clients funds the capacity for advisory work.

Reprice annually and systematically

A practice that has not raised fees in three years has absorbed inflation for its clients. Set a date and apply it across the board.

Conclusion

Log every piece of unbilled advice you give over a month — the total will be larger than you expect, and that list is your advisory service catalogue already written.

Name and price each item, then package advisory work as a monthly retainer with defined content rather than billing hourly, since hourly rates discourage the calls you want. Offer three tiers and expect the middle to sell, price on the value to the client rather than the time taken, quote fixed fees in advance, raise the conversation at the accounts meeting and at trigger events like a first employee or a loan application, and rank your client list by fee against effort so the unprofitable bottom funds the capacity for the rest.