Clients no longer buy your time—they buy the value you create.
The most profitable, modern, and innovative accounting and tax firms have freed themselves from the billable hour. This change is no longer optional—it’s inevitable and is currently a massive competitive advantage that moves your firm from commodity pricing to increasing revenue.
Concerns with the Billable Hour
Growth is a battle against clients. When you charge by the hour, you put your growth at odds with your clients. Your core growth comes from spending as much time as possible on each client to maximize billable hours while clients want the fastest and most efficient solutions.
Penalty for using technology. Thanks to advancements in technology, such as marketing automation software for accountants and a client hub that breaks down communication silos, you would essentially be penalized for using technology. This is because technology saves you time and the less time you spend on client work, the less you can bill clients. Time gets saved but you’re still offering the same great service clients expect, if not better because your processes are now more organized and streamlined.
More hours do not equal better results. You could simply be taking your time on tasks so you can bill more, which is a waste of everyone’s time. Savvy clients want their problems solved in the least amount of time. Paying for more hours does not always equal better results.
Time tracking inefficiencies. Unless you have a tool that automatically tracks every email, text message, phone call and task, time tracking is a time-consuming hassle. No one wants to log every minute, so what happens is: firms end up not even tracking some time. That 15 minute phone call and a few text messages here and there that never got tracked can equate to a big profit loss when repeatedly not tracked.
Poor client service. Sending clients an itemized invoice noting how much time they are being billed for client communication and other tasks can leave a bitter taste in their mouth. They may not understand how it took you a certain amount of time to work on a certain task and may feel frustrated if they believe you are “nickel and diming” them for every communication (as you should on this model).
How CountingWorks PRO Helps You Implement Value Pricing and Say Goodbye to the Billable Hour
Helps you brand yourself to differentiate your firm.
People want to work with people they like and trust. Web Presence helps you build an online presence that shows who you uniquely are. Make yourself and your firm stand out.
Gives you access to a proposal and payment tool.
This type of tool enables firms to offer different packages and anchor pricing. Get started billing and collecting payments for value pricing and monthly recurring revenue, with ease.
Helps you showcase your expertise.
You’ll want to have an open dialogue with clients on what the scope of work is for their project and how your expertise, done your way, can uniquely meet the demands of projects. Having content to leave them with after the conversation can help support your rates—that’s where we come in. CountingWorks provides done-for-you blog posts, social media posting, and an automated newsletter that helps you showcase your expertise to back value pricing.
Equips you with a tool to save time and improve the client experience.
ClientHub allows you to truly digitize your client communication and build deeper relationships. Now you'll have a more productive way to stay in sync with clients. Respond faster and simplify all of your communication into one place instead of back and forth email strings that take days for closure.
Now when clients ask you how long it’s going to take you to work on a task, your answer can be: “We don't look at hours, whether it takes two hours or 100 hours we don't care. Our job is to come up with the right and best solution."
And that’s how to build a more profitable firm by saying goodbye to the billable hour.
For even more help building a more profitable firm, contact us to see how we automate client marketing without any writing or time required on your end. We’ll even build your website for you so you can expand margins by cross selling and upselling existing services, plus more.
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