It’s nice to see the ICAEW having such a positive cash reserve so it can comfortably afford this expense.
The question I would ask is why do they need so much cash? If I was a member I would suggest I am being overcharged and the surplus cash could be reflected in a reduced subscription....
I think annual fee increases are necessary for most clients, unless you are already making a good recovery or the business needs have reduced.
Our staff will want a 2-3% payrise this year, and Iris will want to put their fees up by 6% or similar, and then on top of that there’s GDPR to comply with and MLR, plus auto enrolment costs.
If we didn’t increase fees, we would just make less profit each year.
Best to put fees up by 3% a year or more if the job is making a poor recovery, as it is easier to handle for clients than a 20% increase every 5 years.
I appreciate what you are saying FT and this wasn’t meant to be taken in a negative way, I just feel that 21 days for an outcome of no adjustments (if I recall correctly from previous posts) is a very long time. At a modest £50 an hour for 8 hour days, that’s over £8,000
I’m not sure what work you are doing on these enquiries, but 21 days seems absolutely crazy.
We have never had a problem recovering all of our costs from our insurers, and have used PFP in the past and been happy with them, so maybe they expected the work to take much less time.
I would strongly recommend getting some outside help with the enquiries and shadowing the person who does it, and that will enable you to pick up tips for how to handle future enquiries yourself.
I can see your point in not passing too much wealth to your children, however as a parent I’m committed to giving my children a better start in life than I had, in the hope that they can then build on that wealth and then do the same for their children and so on.
Being honest, I would love to see my family appearing on the rich list in years to come and for them to be building that wealth for future generations but also and most importantly, doing good with it too.
Charities are amazing and they do need support, but having specialised in charity audit for a number of years, and seeing the money wasted by them on staff that only work at about 50% of the productivity of private sector workers, and also spending money “because it’s there” I would prefer to set up my own family trust to dictate how and where those funds are deployed.
As others have said, the passing of wealth from parent to child isn’t the problem, it’s the way the child is raised that causes the issues.
2017 was another record year for us, but growth does bring its challenges, so although I’m really pleased with the results I have to say that i look forward to the time when we have reached all our targets and we can take it steady!
We aim to grow by another 10-15% a year for the next 5 years too, which is going to take some doing but I think is achievable. But then after that, I think we’ll grow through referrals, passive marketing (website/newsletters) and acquisition of suitable practices.
I’m looking forward to seeing what 2018 brings for you FT, hopefully it is a good year. My advice would be to focus on what you do best, and try not to get distracted with every new idea/software program etc that comes along....
Out of interest FT, who did you acquire your fees through?
I’ve just been catching up on your blog, as I haven’t had the opportunity over recent weeks.
You say you don’t have the time for your studies, but you have been sat watching You Tube for who knows how long over recent weeks?
I think £600 is a fair fee level to start from. We take on clients below that level, if we can see it being profitable, and we find that some of them go on to be very good clients paying us £3k or more a year after a few years.
I agree that one off jobs are just not worth the hassle, especially one off tax returns. The time and effort required to set them up outweighs the profit on the job!
Hope 2018 brings you the success that you are seeking, and a more focussed and clear mind to achieve that.
As I said in my comments on the post you’ve linked to, regarding 31 March year ends, it’s a huge problem.
When I first joined our practice 9 and a half years ago, the approach was to always incorporate clients and give them a March year end. That was back in the days when you had 10 months to file the accounts, and it caused loads of problems - rushed off your feet in December and January and [***] all to do in February, March and April.
We have a good spread of clients across the year now, with management accounts and other services thrown in we don’t really have any quiet periods which means our clients are getting good service all year round and our staff are utilised fully and not killing themselves over December and January.
Like Glennzy said you need to sit the CTA exam in May. If you don’t, you’ll find another excuse to put it off in November and before you know it you’ll have waited a few years and then think what’s the point.
You rcan ally do need to focus, if you want to grow your practice and make more money, then spend all your time doing the work and reviewing the work, and let referrals and some automated marketing (website, email marketing, PPC) and of course your shop front, bring in the new business you need
For a practice of your size and which doesn’t offer face to face meetings or any advisory services, you don’t need fancy proposal software, you just need a simple matrix and some word/pdf templates.
I admire your honesty when you blog, you should sit and reflect on what you have written and I think you’ll see a pattern of jumping from one thing to another, without ever staying focussed and seeing something through to the end.
My answers
You should be able to get support for about £40 a month for you and Q, maybe less, so would be worth shopping around.
At least then you don’t have to worry and you would only have to work for about 30 minutes on chargeable work to cover the cost :)
FT why don’t you look at outsourcing all of your IT support to someone who will take that off your plate, so you can focus on the chargeable work?
It’s nice to see the ICAEW having such a positive cash reserve so it can comfortably afford this expense.
The question I would ask is why do they need so much cash? If I was a member I would suggest I am being overcharged and the surplus cash could be reflected in a reduced subscription....
I think annual fee increases are necessary for most clients, unless you are already making a good recovery or the business needs have reduced.
Our staff will want a 2-3% payrise this year, and Iris will want to put their fees up by 6% or similar, and then on top of that there’s GDPR to comply with and MLR, plus auto enrolment costs.
If we didn’t increase fees, we would just make less profit each year.
Best to put fees up by 3% a year or more if the job is making a poor recovery, as it is easier to handle for clients than a 20% increase every 5 years.
I appreciate what you are saying FT and this wasn’t meant to be taken in a negative way, I just feel that 21 days for an outcome of no adjustments (if I recall correctly from previous posts) is a very long time. At a modest £50 an hour for 8 hour days, that’s over £8,000
I’m not sure what work you are doing on these enquiries, but 21 days seems absolutely crazy.
We have never had a problem recovering all of our costs from our insurers, and have used PFP in the past and been happy with them, so maybe they expected the work to take much less time.
I would strongly recommend getting some outside help with the enquiries and shadowing the person who does it, and that will enable you to pick up tips for how to handle future enquiries yourself.
I can see your point in not passing too much wealth to your children, however as a parent I’m committed to giving my children a better start in life than I had, in the hope that they can then build on that wealth and then do the same for their children and so on.
Being honest, I would love to see my family appearing on the rich list in years to come and for them to be building that wealth for future generations but also and most importantly, doing good with it too.
Charities are amazing and they do need support, but having specialised in charity audit for a number of years, and seeing the money wasted by them on staff that only work at about 50% of the productivity of private sector workers, and also spending money “because it’s there” I would prefer to set up my own family trust to dictate how and where those funds are deployed.
As others have said, the passing of wealth from parent to child isn’t the problem, it’s the way the child is raised that causes the issues.
2017 was another record year for us, but growth does bring its challenges, so although I’m really pleased with the results I have to say that i look forward to the time when we have reached all our targets and we can take it steady!
We aim to grow by another 10-15% a year for the next 5 years too, which is going to take some doing but I think is achievable. But then after that, I think we’ll grow through referrals, passive marketing (website/newsletters) and acquisition of suitable practices.
I’m looking forward to seeing what 2018 brings for you FT, hopefully it is a good year. My advice would be to focus on what you do best, and try not to get distracted with every new idea/software program etc that comes along....
Out of interest FT, who did you acquire your fees through?
I’ve just been catching up on your blog, as I haven’t had the opportunity over recent weeks.
You say you don’t have the time for your studies, but you have been sat watching You Tube for who knows how long over recent weeks?
I think £600 is a fair fee level to start from. We take on clients below that level, if we can see it being profitable, and we find that some of them go on to be very good clients paying us £3k or more a year after a few years.
I agree that one off jobs are just not worth the hassle, especially one off tax returns. The time and effort required to set them up outweighs the profit on the job!
Hope 2018 brings you the success that you are seeking, and a more focussed and clear mind to achieve that.
As I said in my comments on the post you’ve linked to, regarding 31 March year ends, it’s a huge problem.
When I first joined our practice 9 and a half years ago, the approach was to always incorporate clients and give them a March year end. That was back in the days when you had 10 months to file the accounts, and it caused loads of problems - rushed off your feet in December and January and [***] all to do in February, March and April.
We have a good spread of clients across the year now, with management accounts and other services thrown in we don’t really have any quiet periods which means our clients are getting good service all year round and our staff are utilised fully and not killing themselves over December and January.
Like Glennzy said you need to sit the CTA exam in May. If you don’t, you’ll find another excuse to put it off in November and before you know it you’ll have waited a few years and then think what’s the point.
You rcan ally do need to focus, if you want to grow your practice and make more money, then spend all your time doing the work and reviewing the work, and let referrals and some automated marketing (website, email marketing, PPC) and of course your shop front, bring in the new business you need
For a practice of your size and which doesn’t offer face to face meetings or any advisory services, you don’t need fancy proposal software, you just need a simple matrix and some word/pdf templates.
I admire your honesty when you blog, you should sit and reflect on what you have written and I think you’ll see a pattern of jumping from one thing to another, without ever staying focussed and seeing something through to the end.