How to accurately quote service fees for new bookkeeping clients

XBert's Client Analytic reports can help you accurately quote new client services, with deep insights into the data quality and more.

With more bookkeeping businesses and accounting firms moving to a mix of fixed-price and value-based billing, knowing the workload a client will bring to the firm is a key part of pricing correctly. 

There are many reasons fixed-fee billing is starting to take over traditional hourly billing including: 

• Cloud accounting programs and add-ons allow accountants and bookkeepers to generate financial data, at any given time. They can work faster and more efficiently, as well as have full visibility across insights on the work they do for clients, at the click of a button. 
• Clients like knowing what they’ll be charged. Knowing what the service cost is upfront gives them peace of mind. 
• The focus moves from how much time is spent on the work, rather on the value of the service provided. 

You can absolutely have screening questions for new clients to gain the required information. However there a few reasons this can cause issues down the track: 

• Your client may not even know the answers. This is especially true if they’re coming from another bookkeeper or accountant and have no knowledge over their files.  
• It’s inefficient – spending time asking questions you may or may not get the correct answers to. 
• No quality control. If your Client is managing their own books – they may think they’re doing a great job, instead you’re walking into a nightmare. 

A much more simple and effective way to ensure you get accurate information on your potential client files, is to use XBert’s reports and analytics to swiftly analyse the data. You will have access to deep insights into the client data, including the health of their file, size and complexity and the activity count.  

It’s simple:  

1. Connect the client file, then head to the Analytics tab, or the Client Console. 
2. Review the Data Quality report to see what needs to be done. 
3. Review the Activity Count report in Practice Reports to see the complexity of the file. 
4. Share these reports with your client, alongside your cost proposal, to support your fees.
5. Review these reports regularly to ensure your fees are aligned to the volume of work and to keep an eye on the data quality – especially if the clients are managing some of the books themselves.

Have some questions questions about how XBert can help you accurately quote service fees for new client?  

Start a free trial now and one of our Customer Success Team will be in touch.