scaling for growth

It was ‘accountants galore’ on AdvanceTrack’s latest webinar, ‘Scaling for Growth? Building an Advisory Mindset and Firm’, which discussed the cultural and strategic approach towards making a practice invaluable to its clients.

AdvanceTrack MD Vipul Sheth started the conversation by highlighting the key challenges of changing how a practice – or any organisation – operates. These include altering mindsets, successfully adopting new technology and embedding change into the new normal.

“People are fearful of change, and will look to maintain the status quo,” said Sheth. “So leadership is required to change doubters to believers, and champions are needed to keep it all on track.”

Joe David from accountancy firm Nephos said that his background as an accountant in industry gave him a mindset that creating and analysing good data was key in supporting the making of decisions. This led him down the path of creating an advisory- and technology-led practice.

Clarity’s Aynsley Damery said that established firms have to go that bit further when it comes to driving change, particularly if ingrained in providing services based purely on clients’ historical information. “It’s about looking forward as a firm, and looking forward on behalf of your clients,” said Damery. He said that ‘champions’ within the firm, who will help instil that mindset while managing change projects, were vital. “They’re so important in terms of connectivity between management and the team – interpreting the vision and how it will work.”

Practice Ignition’s Trent McLaren said: “You must set out from the top, across the entire firm, the direction and why you’re changing. You also have to let them know about progression, or you’ll inevitably end up with silos of knowledge.”

Click here to access the webinar.

Understanding the value you provide as an accountant is the key that opens up opportunities to create a robust and clear pricing strategy. A key theme in AdvanceTrack’s recent ‘The Client Journey’ annual conference, Kevin Reed discovers the attitude – and action – required to increase your fees.

“Accountants, as a breed, are intrinsically embarrassed about having to charge and how much they cost,” states former Price Bailey executive chairman Peter Gillman.

It’s quite an opening gambit in the game that is understanding your value as a practitioner and charging appropriately for it.

There has been a bias towards conservative and “slightly introverted” people in the profession. Clients can sense this, and will leap on an accountant apologising for a cost.

Accountants therefore need to turn things around, and think from a client’s point of view as to what value they provide.

For example, bookkeeping has always been viewed as low value: a manual-intensive process that provides out-of-date information for compliance purposes only. The value comes from being able to produce timely and accurate financial information – data which can be interpreted by an expert to help the business make decisions.

“Can you help a client understand why costs are going up disproportionately to turnover? Can you do that? So many accountants merely shove the [basic information] in front of clients,” suggests Gillman.

This type of thinking is exactly what occurred to Paul Barnes, founder and MD of Manchester-based practice MAP.

“One of the first things I did [when MAP was launched] was list all the services I would like as a business owner – it’s about being in the client’s shoes and what solutions can be made available to them,” explains Barnes.

Then, with each line of service, no matter how small, Barnes set about putting a price against it – and considering how to differentiate it based on type/size of client or their requirement.

Barnes sees that accountants are “scared” about upselling services because clients “won’t pay more”. For MAP, there is a simple and clear message for clients: the cost of using MAP’s offerings is far less than hiring an in-house accountant or setting up a nascent finance function.

“One of the strengths and weaknesses for accountants is that there are so many clients, and it’s easy to win them,” says Barnes. “They’re coming in their droves because they have a fear of getting into trouble. So, the accountant has to break out of signing clients on their fear, and spend a bit longer thinking about what they need rather than what they ask for.

“You can then craft a package that helps the client mature as a business, rather than them clinging on with you at the bare minimum. Any firm can win business but going through the motions of selling the same simple stuff is not inspiring or rewarding.”

 

1. Walk before you run: Start with the basics (accounting and so on)

While most accountants are well-versed in the benefits of cloud accounting, the plethora of information and apps can be hard to navigate and make applicable for your own practice – particularly if long-established.

For Trent McLaren, global head of accounting and sales at Practice Ignition, it’s important that firms walk before they run. And the first step is to get a select number of clients onto the cloud – which creates an opportunity to produce monthly bookkeeping and reporting based on up-to-date income and expenses information.

“I’ll tell a lot of firms we chat to that it’s ‘too early’ for them: we can be the catalyst but they need to start with a smaller bucket of clients they want to work with more often and show them the extra things you’ll offer them, business goals support or regular KPI reporting,” says McLaren. “Then, your pricing revolves around that.

“You have to start somewhere and often it’s breaking down the yearly accounting to quarterly or monthly.”

And, as the practice itself is billed monthly to access tech subscriptions, “it forces firms to think differently about their own pricing” and consider regular client billing – not just waiting until a year-end ‘task’ is completed.

“Once you have the monthly reporting or meeting with the client, then other services come into play,” says McLaren.

 

2. Make sure you have a decent proposal tool set up

What is the experience of an established practice looking to think about what constitutes client value, and whether that means changing both what they offer, and how they offer it?

For Wood and Disney, an Essex-based practice, a discussion at AdvanceTrack’s annual conference two years ago was a pivotal moment.

“We had a chat with GoProposal’s James Ashford,” explains Wood and Disney senior client manager David Rudd. GoProposal is a pricing and proposal technology launched by both Ashford and MAP’s Paul Barnes.

“Historically we used a spreadsheet that contained details of three different pricing models based on turnover and different offerings, but we’d got to the stage where it wasn’t working well,” says Rudd.

Wood and Disney started using GoProposal and since then has adapted the pricing to suit its needs.

“For example, we quote on accounts production a year in advance: they tell us what they’re going to provide us in terms of bookkeeping and then we also price dependent on turnover,” says Rudd.

Historically the firm “gave bookkeeping away”, admits Rudd, “without realising its value”.

“It’s actually the most valuable thing we do as it’s fundamental to everything else,” he says.

Building a quote requires face-to-face time with a client, prospective or otherwise, which drives contact and conversation.

A systemised approach also improves governance, with Rudd’s bosses able to check the pricing overview quickly. “We’ve created a system that’s fair to everyone, transparent and we can explain to clients why and how we do the job – they understand what you’re doing,” says Rudd.

The next, logical, step for the firm has been to move away from timesheets. “We’ve binned those off and now have an hourly average rate, which means we can track roughly the amount is coming in and how much time that will take,” he says. “The next step is for us to monitor capacity.

“We now understand we’re doing a job that helps people and we should value it appropriately. And we needed technology to help us do this in a systemised way.”

 

Vipul’s view


AdvanceTrack’s MD and founder gives his take on practices’ value

I’ve said to many practitioners: Don’t sell them bookkeeping…sell the outputs and the conversations.

Of course, in order to do that you will need technology and it helps if you’re doing the bookkeeping.

The moment it’s just about doing the books, then the client will immediately think of someone undertaking it at the kitchen table, rather than what you can offer: well-qualified and professional staff who analyse and interpret information.

You have to be brave and price on value. If you recognise the value you deliver and the client can see that value, it makes it easier to be brave in that conversation.

For AdvanceTrack, it’s about using technology with our skilled team in India to deliver the processing of data, which frees up your skilled people to undertake that analysis and interrogation.

 

A webinar featuring AdvanceTrack MD Vipul Sheth delves deeper into outsourcing: future technological developments; its impact on accountants’ skillset; and his approach to working with clients

A joint webinar between AdvanceTrack and Practice Ignition looked to deal with the important topic we’re covering in our main feature: What should you be outsourcing?

AdvanceTrack MD Vipul Sheth and Practice Ignition’s Trent Mclaren explored the future of outsourcing, while highlighting how practices are currently driving their business forward by using tools to help implement their strategy of growth through high-value services. Here’s a taster from the session. Make sure to listen to the whole webinar, which really delves into some of the most relevant details behind outsourcing strategy.

Trent Mclaren: How has outsourcing changed since AdvanceTrack was established in 2003?

Vipul Sheth: A big change is that outsourcing is much larger as an industry, and more professional. But the biggest game-changer is technology – whether built by us, or by [software providers] in the market. There’s a massive difference in how we put together accounts even from just five years ago. The way we access data and information from the cloud is very different to receiving an Excel sheet or backup file… we still get those sometimes. We’ll continue to change – we have our own developers because we want to be an efficient and reliable services provider.

TM: People say that technology makes jobs redundant, but it also helps to create more jobs as well…

VS: Outsourcing [and automation] creates an opportunity for firms. We see within these organisations a bunch of skilled people who have client relationships, and [tech] allows us to have deeper relationships. That’s where we come in – they can use the data from an outsourced provider to have those conversations. The challenge is that clients see a set of accounts as a transaction, something they have to pay for. In that sense they’ll look for the cheapest option. But what you do with that information will be the reason they keep coming back.

TM: Who is the ideal customer for AdvanceTrack?

VS: It’s not about size of firm, it’s about leadership of the firm – how invested are they in growing their business? Because then we’ll be talking about outsourcing for the right reasons. The work’s undertaken in a lower cost economy, which will help to save money, but is outsourcing a strategic part of your delivery? The leadership have to want to deliver more to clients. Then you ask: Do those below leadership level have the skills to not be the introverted accountant… can they talk to clients and advise them?

You can visit our Webinars page to view the recording of our webinar with Practice Ignition.