and still have happy clients.
by ed mendlowitz
202 questions and answers: managing an accounting practice
question: i have many clients who always expect me to do extra work as part of our fixed-fee agreement. how can i get paid extra for work beyond the scope of our agreement?
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response: this is a recurring theme, and one that has many answers. one approach: don’t take on the extra work.
here is another approach.
my friend brian in texas has a small practice. he is a sole practitioner with nine employees, and he makes a lot of money. the description he gives of his clients is not impressive nor is his basic operational setup. when he gets a client he tells them he will do as little as possible and bases the fee on that.
his explanation is that he will only do what they absolutely need and nothing else, explaining that it makes no sense for them to pay for something they don’t need, and he fully understands that they need things for compliance purposes that are forced upon them such as income tax returns, payroll or sales tax forms and a possible compilation for the bank.
he goes through their needs, prepares a list with them, determines the frequency of visits or work performance, the deliverable, his availability by phone and an occasional meeting and sets a fee – a pretty low fee for this work (in his local area there seem to be more accountants than there should be and his fees have to be competitive, which they are), and they both initial the page the list was written on. does this sound familiar? it is similar to the value pricing model of ron baker.
whenever the client calls with a request outside that list, he tells them that this is no longer the “as little as possible” they agreed to, and there would be an extra charge – which he scribbles on a memo sheet and faxes to the client for their initial – ron baker’s change order! he usually charges what the service appears to be worth to the client – understanding that he is not competing with anyone else for this work.
every year about 8 percent of his clients need something extra – whether it is financial information for a college loan application, a financial statement for a bank loan, an asset or cash flow analysis for a divorce, an indication of value for a buy-sell agreement, assistance to a client where a relative died, installation of a quickbooks upgrade, a mediation of a fight between partners, a financial plan or asset allocation review, advising on setting up a sep, simple or 401(k) plan, a cost accounting or inventory system, or occasional fraud investigation or prevention engagement.
when necessary he will also do a review report or an audit. he is peer reviewed, has the aicpa abv accreditation and amasses about 100 cpe credits a year. you may have gotten the impression that he is some local yokel because i said he hand-writes a list of services and has the client initial it, or that he faxes his “change orders.”
well, he is one sharp guy. he attends aicpa national conferences, where i first met him two dozen years ago, uses state-of-the-art technology, and belongs to the boomer circle and an aicpa national practice group that meets quarterly. but his initial sale is for the minimum that a client needs for a price they are willing to pay.
the takeaway from brian is that it is absolutely essential to be clear up front what services you will provide and then be equally clear when there is a crossover into additional services that were not agreed on.
brian’s low-key style and method matches that of his clients and their appreciation of him being on their side. he has happy clients, little pressure, satisfied staff, low exposure and a very high income.
a key in getting paid for extra work is communication with the client before the work is performed. at that point it has the most value to the client and the least commitment by you.
p.s.: i just returned from the aicpa national forensic & valuation services conference and attended a session on billing and collections. a common problem is when work exceeds the agreed-upon services. this is so whether there is a fixed fee or time-based fee. it might seem that a time-based fee provides a greater leeway to spend the additional time, but all fees come with a client expectation of the total cost or range, and additional services go beyond that expectation. a technique that seemed to work is to immediately prepare an additional engagement letter and present to client when the need for the new services first comes up. an example in that area is when the engagement is for a business valuation and the need for a forecast of the business becomes evident, and the client does not have one, nor do they have the ability or desire to do it themselves, so they ask us to prepare it. well, that is not a two-hour job and a new engagement letter should be immediately prepared. ditto when working on a valuation for an installment sale to defective trust and an analysis of the cash flow needs to be done because the valuation amount turned out to be much lower or higher than expected.
one response to “do as little as possible”
martin eisenstein
good insight into how to use value pricing principles in client acquisition and lowest level compliance, and how the client might ascend the latter. profitable for the accountant either way.