This post is the third in our series on how accountants and CPAs can capitalize on the client contact of tax season to build a business model that relies less on compliance work. By focusing your practice on monthly recurring revenue, you can partner with your clients to help them refocus their energy on the growth of their business, while you take care of the financial management. This time, we look at how to present the accounting value added services that can make all the difference to your bottom line.
If you missed the first two steps, you can catch up here:
You've determined your target for your additional revenue and broken that number into smaller bites for your monthly recurring revenue. You've calculated how many clients at each price point you'll need to realize your goal.
The next step is the services you'll be performing for those clients. In other words, we'll be taking the solutions you're already providing your clients and packaging them into bundles.
Most clients won't get that excited if you offer them bookkeeping services, but what if you were to bundle that with payroll processing, 1099 processing, and sales tax compliance? They'll likely realize that you'll do these accounting value added services more quickly, more accurately, and cheaper than they can do it themselves.
Here are some of the services you could provide (or may already be providing):
For the bookkeeping and payroll services, you may have some clients who elect to have your staff take over everything. Some may rather go the DIY route, however, consider tying in a fee for training the client, setting up the cloud accounting software, and periodically checking in to address any questions.
General ledger analysis, software consulting, 1099 processing, periodic accounting services, business advisory, and sales tax are all services you’re doing for your clients at some level. This means you don't need to reinvent the wheel -- you're merely packaging the services together.
You'll want to examine your current charges and base your packages off that. For instance, you may be handling the bookkeeping for a client for $350 a month.
You could bundle the business and personal return and make that $550 per month. Add in payroll processing, and now you're charging $850 in recurring monthly revenue.
Another tip: consider a base service that you'll require every new client to take so you're not reverting to single services.
By bundling these services, you'll streamline your processes, build value for your clients, and be on track for hitting your target additional revenue.
Our Tax Season Survival Kit is a helpful library of resources, including client checklists, step-by-step guides to using data to manage processes and battle cards to conduct client conversations, free for North American accountants and bookkeepers.
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