Stephen Edwards is a business coach, accountant and consultant for accounting practices. Having started Cheltenham Tax Accountants from scratch in 2013 it now runs almost on auto-pilot leaving him with time to work on advisory related services for clients in the form of business coaching and also specialising with business automation and tech. Stephen works with other accounting practices to help them automate parts of their business and free the practice owner from the 'daily grind'.
Hi guys. I've tried Mark Wickersham's pricing in the cloud and Goproposal.
I trialed GP around March this year and didn't feel at that time I could justify the £100 a month. When I cancelled I was impressed that I got a personal call from James asking how the trial went and I explained my reasons for not continuing at that stage.
A few months later thought I'd give Mark's software a go. Wow, what a faff!! Just setting up an account and understanding which version you need was a nightmare. There was a sense of arrogance about it in that you should have done your homework and spend hours learning it before you can even run through a quote. However, I bought into this idea of pricing.
I continued to receive GP's emails and felt that the private facebook group for accountants would go a long way to help justify the cost. We were taking longer and longer to get proposals and EL's signed and I could finally see how GP would benefit me with the cost no longer being an issue.
I'm not going to sound like one of these 'success stories' as it's still early days but what I will say is that the software (along with the FB group) has not only made my sign up process super slick but I am now charging how I should for our services.
The level of customisation and ease of use is a big factor also.
I looked at Practice Ignition but felt it was trying to be too many things. GP knows what it is and is not trying to be everything to everyone.
PS - Being able to pick James' brain in the FB group was also a big factor. A massive personal touch.
Hi guys. Interesting article and I wholeheartedly agree with not pressurising the client and having to sign up there and then on the spot.
However being someone that embraces cloud software where it can increase efficiencies I do use digital signature software through Adobe. I would never go back to a manual signature but this is beside the point.
I have spent hours upon hours looking into some of the commercial pricing programs out there and decided to cut a long story short they weren't for me.
However I have fully embraced the philosophy behind this and have actually created my own system to suit our firm.
I have a saved workbook in Excel which is made to look very pretty and professional and have one for a sole trader and one for a company.
I go through a few tabs which asks some basic questions on their turnover, payroll the bookkeeping etc and based on this it arrives at a summary of the services and the pricing.
I have to say this is going down very well and has actually increased my margins because it makes the pricing far more transparent.
If anyone wants to know more about this feel free to PM me.
In this day and age of so much digitalisation I don't see having shop front as a negative. If anything it's a way to stand out from the other practices. I don't have one myself but see the appeal.
Good luck and try to focus on positive people around you as there seems to be quite a lot of negative comments thrown your way on a regular basis (although they still read the blog). Obviously criticism can be a good thing but needs to be done in the right way.
Thank you for sharing.
By the way, how did you get on with Glide previously (we are finding it useful)?
You must have a slow internet connection as I don't get these problems you report.
One of the main benefits of cloud software is the bank feed and bank rules. Desktop software to my knowledge is still lacking here features by and large?
This is along the lines of my thoughts, Xero is the easiest to use (for accountants and non accountants) but they have a bit too much power and support is slow.
QB is my alternative as it is the one I find to have a bank rec function any where near as intuitive as Xero and offers great pricing.
Will keep with Xero for non invoicing clients as it's just so easy to keep a nice up to date reconciled bank :)
I think that cloud software has a major say in the future of accounting but lets not over play it's role. There is a lot of self-interest involved here.
My answers
Hi guys. I've tried Mark Wickersham's pricing in the cloud and Goproposal.
I trialed GP around March this year and didn't feel at that time I could justify the £100 a month. When I cancelled I was impressed that I got a personal call from James asking how the trial went and I explained my reasons for not continuing at that stage.
A few months later thought I'd give Mark's software a go. Wow, what a faff!! Just setting up an account and understanding which version you need was a nightmare. There was a sense of arrogance about it in that you should have done your homework and spend hours learning it before you can even run through a quote. However, I bought into this idea of pricing.
I continued to receive GP's emails and felt that the private facebook group for accountants would go a long way to help justify the cost. We were taking longer and longer to get proposals and EL's signed and I could finally see how GP would benefit me with the cost no longer being an issue.
I'm not going to sound like one of these 'success stories' as it's still early days but what I will say is that the software (along with the FB group) has not only made my sign up process super slick but I am now charging how I should for our services.
The level of customisation and ease of use is a big factor also.
I looked at Practice Ignition but felt it was trying to be too many things. GP knows what it is and is not trying to be everything to everyone.
PS - Being able to pick James' brain in the FB group was also a big factor. A massive personal touch.
Thanks Finalo, I found this useful and very relevant
Hi guys. Interesting article and I wholeheartedly agree with not pressurising the client and having to sign up there and then on the spot.
However being someone that embraces cloud software where it can increase efficiencies I do use digital signature software through Adobe. I would never go back to a manual signature but this is beside the point.
I have spent hours upon hours looking into some of the commercial pricing programs out there and decided to cut a long story short they weren't for me.
However I have fully embraced the philosophy behind this and have actually created my own system to suit our firm.
I have a saved workbook in Excel which is made to look very pretty and professional and have one for a sole trader and one for a company.
I go through a few tabs which asks some basic questions on their turnover, payroll the bookkeeping etc and based on this it arrives at a summary of the services and the pricing.
I have to say this is going down very well and has actually increased my margins because it makes the pricing far more transparent.
If anyone wants to know more about this feel free to PM me.
Steve
T&T are one of the most expensive accountants in the country, there is huge irony in this...
In this day and age of so much digitalisation I don't see having shop front as a negative. If anything it's a way to stand out from the other practices. I don't have one myself but see the appeal.
Good luck and try to focus on positive people around you as there seems to be quite a lot of negative comments thrown your way on a regular basis (although they still read the blog). Obviously criticism can be a good thing but needs to be done in the right way.
Thank you for sharing.
By the way, how did you get on with Glide previously (we are finding it useful)?
Hi FT, try
https://www.whatsglide.com
for PM online, I use taxcalc for AP and tax but agree poor PM system.
Glide has been fab.
@neilrobinson5
You must have a slow internet connection as I don't get these problems you report.
One of the main benefits of cloud software is the bank feed and bank rules. Desktop software to my knowledge is still lacking here features by and large?
This is along the lines of my thoughts, Xero is the easiest to use (for accountants and non accountants) but they have a bit too much power and support is slow.
QB is my alternative as it is the one I find to have a bank rec function any where near as intuitive as Xero and offers great pricing.
Will keep with Xero for non invoicing clients as it's just so easy to keep a nice up to date reconciled bank :)
Great article
Having given this some thought recently I am very pleased with the content of this article as it has given me much more to think about!
I think that cloud software has a major say in the future of accounting but lets not over play it's role. There is a lot of self-interest involved here.