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Well said Mike. This a question we keep getting asked by our customers as no one is quite sure how to increase their prices. I recently published another article on Accounting web that may be interesting to look at - How to increase charges for AE without losing clients
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My clients tell me its a "cheap is best" compliance headache, and largely a payroll issue.
So far I have done one in house for a micro biz with couple of employees who didn't want to be in the thing in the first place, and it wasn't that hard to do, just a bit of form filling, took about half a day over a couple of weeks waiting for stuff to come through. I only did that to understand the process and what all the fuss is about. Not much it turns out, follow the steps on the website and its just a bit dull.
Roll forward and in 5 years time, this will be a routine task, its only in the interim there is a bit of work as clients dont know what to do with it where I think accountants will have much to do with it (unless they offer payroll services, I dont do admin/bookkeeping type tasks) but the general view is this is just employers NI hike by the backdoor with some extra hassle on the paperwork, and much of that can be glossed over quite frankly.
There aint no "value" in it, just some paperwork to go away.
Thanks, that's valuable
My clients tell me its a "cheap is best" compliance headache, and largely a payroll issue.
So far I have done one in house for a micro biz with couple of employees who didn't want to be in the thing in the first place, and it wasn't that hard to do, just a bit of form filling, took about half a day over a couple of weeks waiting for stuff to come through. I only did that to understand the process and what all the fuss is about. Not much it turns out, follow the steps on the website and its just a bit dull.
Really usful to know. As I have avoided the whole thing so far it's nice to feel I could bumble through if a client insists they really need help with it.
Oddly enough, I've emailed our first to stage client this morning to bring processing forward a day or two, just to allow for any complications. We'll assess fees for everyone else based on the work and time for this client.
What does this closing question mean?
So how can you cease the opportunities ahead?
Having had experience of a couple of clients who have staged, I would not dream of offering a fixed price menu. The clients who have staged so far have many more employees than the micro employers coming up in 2016 & 2017 and they needed to be treated as individual cases because of their different complexities and problems. Perhaps later on in 2016, when I have done a few of the micro employers with less complications, I will be able to estimate a standard fee.
Theres a free cloud tool for flexible menu pricing for AE
Over the last two years I have staged in excess of fifty clients and think there is a way of offering flexible menu pricing for clients. They can choose to pay an up front fee for the set up or pay it over the first 5 months - from staging to declaration and then pay ongoing for just the monthly fee for the assessment and pension filing. I don't think this tool is being seen by accountants but its free to use and there are online training sessions too. The link is here :- corebenefits.co.uk. Its a bit hidden so scroll down to the bottom of the page. Hope this helps.