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How to increase value-added services across the board in your firm

25th Jun 2018
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futrli sage
Futrli is the all-in-one forecasting and reporting platform that helps business owners and...
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Time was that billable hours defined success. The more money you brought into the firm, the better employee you were considered to be. What billable hours doesn’t factor in, though, was efficiency.

Let’s say you have two employees working on client accounts. One works slowly while checking social media and the other completes the tasks quickly and efficiently. The former would look best as they’d have higher billable hours than the latter.

But with advisory services taking over the accounting market, that’s no longer the case. And, if you’re drawing out services for clients, they’re much more likely to see you as an expenditure, trying to cut down on the time you spend together.

Firms embracing the transition into the advisory space are adopting intelligent software that can automate much of the work that used to come in. That means billable hours as a model is no longer suitable.

A change in focus for the whole firm

Focus needs to shift to adding value to client businesses. This is achieved by providing services that aid growth, help businesses make decisions to better themselves and help companies move past obstacles.

While some firms already have small teams heading up their advisory services, the next step needs to be to upskill the rest of the team. Imagine how much additional revenue you’ll bring in with a firm full of advisors.

When we spoke to Blu Sky, chartered accountants using Futrli who’ve fully embraced advisory services, their Lead Client Account Manager Sam Wood told us that since they made the change, they’ve been able to standardise their systems. That has meant that the whole team works in unity. He told us:

“The whole team are now so eager to sell forecasting to clients because they understand the value of it for businesses across the board, not just larger companies.”

This levels the playing fields between accountants of different levels. Especially when you embrace CPD for your firm. Some more qualified staff can be slower to adapt to new practices, which allows newer staff to level up to provide value to clients.

How to successfully roll out advisory internally

The internal roll out of advisory should start with an open conversation. Encourage staff of every level to share their ideas about how change can happen, and make sure everyone has completed an upskilling course. If everyone has access to the same resources then you’ll all be singing from the same hymn sheet.

Here’s a breakdown of how we suggest you approach offering advisory services to clients.

Step 1 – Segment your clients into compliance and non-compliance

Segmentation will allow you to divide your clients into manageable groups, and target those who are most likely to require advisory services.

Step 2 – From the compliance group segment by ascending year-end date

By targeting clients with upcoming year-end dates, this gives you the opportunity to implement a step-by-step strategy for your clients over the full financial year.

Step 3 – Begin contacting the first month's leads by telephone

Because of the nature of these services, you will need to contact your clients directly, rather than by email in order to explain the value and set up a first advisory meeting. You can now have the face-to-face meetings, perform a business health check, and set up a series of action points for the coming months.

This process should then be repeated month-on-month, with a new batch of clients added each time, and an internal KPI should be measured to monitor the success of this strategy. Your whole team does not necessarily have to have finished all the modules in certification in order to launch, this can be an ongoing process, as your advisory client base will grow exponentially.

This information comes from the Futrli Advisory Certification course that we’ve recently updated. Providing advice, best practice and more for accountants of every level, find out more about our CPD-accredited curriculum today.

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