boosting your bottom line could come down to better billing.
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research
one thing cpa practices aren’t complaining about is revenue. according to a thomson reuters survey conducted in the first quarter of 2024, 72 percent of 500 respondents say their firms’ revenues increased over the previous 12 months.
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average increase: 24 percent.
not bad, if you like money.
and the future looks pretty good, too. sixty-eight percent of respondents expect an average increase in revenue of 21 percent. only 5 percent fear a decrease.
a strong economy explains some of the growth, but other factors are working in the industry’s favor:
- more accountancy is being automated.
- firms are diversifying their services.
- many firms are culling low-value clients.
- many are aggressively seeking high-value clients.
- an increasing number are adopting new pricing models.
how best to bill?
that latter strategy – better billing – explains a lot.
traditional time-based billing is still the most common pricing model, in use at 66 percent of responding firms. but 22 percent have no plans to use it in the future.
almost as common now is flat-fee pricing, implemented in 62 percent of firms, though 30 percent have no intention of offering that option.
just over half – 53 percent – are shifting to flat-fee’s cousin, project-based pricing.
and 48 percent are figuring out how to use value-based accounting, with another 18 percent planning to do so.
other billing models are less popular but with disparity by size of firm.
- retainer pricing (24 percent of small firms [1-3 employees], 58 percent of the large [30+ employees])
- cost-plus pricing (19 percent vs. 35 percent)
- competition-based pricing (17 percent vs. 36 percent)
- market value pricing (17 percent vs. 36 percent)
the trick
the paradoxical trick is how to increase revenue while giving clients a break.
it turns out that clients are increasingly seeking predictable pricing rather than possibly less costly time-based models.
in the last five years, 51 percent of clients have shown no preference regarding time-based pricing. they could take it or leave it. however,
- 33 percent of clients prefer flat-fee pricing
- 24 percent prefer project-based pricing
- 23 percent are willing to accept value-based pricing
raising prices
client preferences certainly figure into decisions to adopt new pricing models, but ultimately, accounting firms are angling to increase revenue and cash flow, especially from new and nontraditional advisory services.
the choice of pricing model doesn’t appear to be impacting the raising of prices. firms are successfully increasing prices no matter how they calculate them.
- 72 have succeeded in increasing prices based on time.
- 72 percent increased prices by charging by the project.
- 71 percent increased prices based on the value of the service provided.
- 70 percent did so with flat-fee pricing.
- 70 percent did so as they charged by the hour.
and apparently the increases aren’t bothering clients.
- 78 percent of all respondents report clients paying bills on time.
- 83 percent of smaller firms see clients paying on time.
- 74 percent of midsize and large firms’ clients pay on time.
if clients are willing to pay a premium for predictability, and if they are willing to pay increased fees, and if there’s a variety of pricing options, cpa firms have every reason to reassess how – and how much – they charge.