Operations
How accountants move to fixed-fee packages (and automate the onboarding that follows)
6 July 20269 min readRead
B2B practice
How accountants and bookkeepers get clients: a 90-day plan
How your buyer buys: Nobody is searching for you. You go and find them.
An owner changes accountant at a pinch point: a tax return they cannot face, a year end that went badly, or a first VAT quarter. They ask another owner first, then search for an accountant for their kind of business and read the reviews. A homepage that names their trade, a package with a monthly price and a Google review from someone like them settles it before the call.
The second route is a professional one. A bookkeeper who does not do year ends, a payroll bureau, and the owners you already act for all pass names on when the fit is clear. They refer to the accountant they can describe in one line, which is why a niche does more for referrals than it does for search.
The order follows. Name the client type in the headline, tell the people you know, and move annual-bill clients onto a named monthly package in week one. Then the fixed-price health check, the weekly LinkedIn post and the review asked for at year-end sign-off. Then the written answers to fee-call questions, the cold email to limited companies in one sector, and the capacity message in October.
Step zero
The free checklist, before the plan.
The checklist repairs what you already have: the phone, the profile, the booking path. This page is the plan for new work on top of it, and the two are different jobs.
The Accountant's DIY Growth Checklist
The free checklist for accountants and bookkeepers: every repair to the phone, the profile and the booking path, as step-by-step actions. Sent by email.
Where they look
Where your customers actually look.
ICAEW(opens in a new tab)
The institute's find-a-chartered-accountant search is where an owner checks that the letters after your name are real. Keep the firm entry current, with the niche named in the description.
ACCA(opens in a new tab)
The same check for ACCA members, with a public directory of practising firms. The entry has to carry the trading name and town that appear on your website, or the check fails.
AAT(opens in a new tab)
For licensed bookkeepers and accountants, the AAT directory is where a small business is told to look. State the services you are licensed for, and match them to your packages page.
Xero and QuickBooks advisor directories
An owner who already runs the software searches the advisor directory for someone in their town who knows it. Certification, a photo and a sentence naming your niche are what get the click.
LinkedIn(opens in a new tab)
Where owners in your niche read, and where the professional referrers check you. A headline that names the client type, one post a week for those owners, and a reply to everyone who comments.
Google Business Profile(opens in a new tab)
Accountant with your town ends on the map, and the review asked for at year-end sign-off lands here. Category Accountant, each package listed as a service, and the niche in the description.
Your year
When the phone rings, and when to start.
Self-assessment enquiries peak in January; the 31 March year end and the new tax year bring a second wave in April and May.
- Jan: peak, start the visibility work
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr: peak
- May: peak
- Jun
- Jul
- Aug: quiet
- Sep
- Oct, start the visibility work
- Nov
- Dec
Amber months are the peak, grey months are quiet, and "start" marks the month the visibility work has to begin in.
- January peak: start by October, because local search takes about three months to move.
- April to May peak: start by January, because local search takes about three months to move.
Accountancy has two waves. January brings the self-assessment rush, and the 31 March year end and the new tax year bring a second wave in April and May. The search work for January starts in October, which is also when the capacity message goes out: how many self-assessment clients you can still take before 31 January. The work for April and May starts in January, in the middle of the rush, so have it ready in December. August is the quiet month, when owners are away and nobody switches. Use it for the package pricing, the migration letter to annual-bill clients and the bookkeeper and payroll conversations. The email before each pinch point goes in October for records, early January for the return and March for year end.
The 90-day plan
Four phases, in the order that pays back fastest.
Each step names its channel, its cost band from the technique register, the effort it takes, and how long until the first enquiry or booking.
Week 0
Sharpen the offer
Pick one client type, such as contractors or cafes, and put it in the homepage headline
- Cost: Free
- Low effort
- First result in 4 to 12 weeks
In the bundleTell everyone you already know
Message former colleagues, past clients and owners you know: what you now do, and who you are looking for
- Cost: Free
- Low effort
- First result in 1 to 4 weeks
A plan with a name and a monthly price
Move annual-bill clients to a named monthly package for one fixed fee, collected by direct debit
- Cost: £
- Medium effort
- First result in 2 to 8 weeks
In the kit and the bundle
Month 1
Sharpen the offer
Sell a fixed-price bookkeeping health check or Xero clean-up, credited against the first three months of a package
- Cost: Free
- Low effort
- First result in 2 to 6 weeks
LinkedIn, posting and conversations
Post once a week for owners in your niche, and start a conversation with each one who comments
- Medium effort
- About 2 hours a week
- First result in 4 to 12 weeks
Ask every client for a review
Ask every client for a Google review at year-end sign-off
- Cost: Free
- Low effort
- First result in 4 to 12 weeks
In the bundle
Months 2 to 3
Answer buying questions in writing
Write up one fee-call question a month, such as whether you can switch accountant mid-year
- Cost: Free
- Medium effort
- About 1 hour a week
- First result in 12 to 26 weeks
Cold email to limited companies
Email limited companies in one sector with one offer: a fixed-price review of their bookkeeping set-up
To limited companies only: identify yourself, give an opt-out address, keep a suppression list.
- Cost: ££
- Medium effort
- About 2 hours a week
- First result in 2 to 8 weeks
Limited companies onlySharpen the offer
In October, say how many self-assessment clients you can still take before 31 January
- Cost: Free
- Low effort
- First result in 1 to 4 weeks
Month 3 onward
Reciprocal trade partners
Pair with a bookkeeper or accountant who does the other half of the work, plus a payroll bureau, and speak every quarter
- Cost: Free
- Low effort
- First result in 8 to 16 weeks
Ask for the referral at the high point
At year-end sign-off, ask who else they know who is fed up with their accountant
- Cost: Free
- Low effort
- First result in 2 to 8 weeks
An email list, emailed each season
Email clients and past enquirers before each pinch point: October for records, early January for the return, March for year end
- Cost: £
- Low effort
- First result in 2 to 8 weeks
The cost of waiting
What doing nothing costs accountants and bookkeepers.
The leaks below are the ones the accountants and bookkeepers page already names. Put a figure on each, see what the fix gets back a month, and how many weeks the kit or the bundle takes to pay for itself.
Industry estimates, not client results
Industry-typical ranges for a small accountancy practice: a first year of accounts and returns in the low thousands, about four in ten enquiries engaging, and a retained client renewing once a year.
Every number below is prefilled from that estimate and editable. Put your own figures in and the leaks, gains and payback recalculate as you type.
Where it leaks
Drains enquiries
No prices on the website, so comparison shoppers move on
- Leaking now
- £1,300 a month
- Gain from the fix
- £520 a month
- The fix
- Fixed-fee package design (about £700 one-off)
- Pays back in
- 5.8 weeks
Drains close rate
Onboarding a new client takes weeks of chased emails
- Leaking now
- £918 a month
- Gain from the fix
- £459 a month
- The fix
- Onboarding automation (about £1,150 one-off)
- Pays back in
- 10.9 weeks
Drains enquiries
You serve everyone, so you are the obvious choice for no one
- Leaking now
- £1,733 a month
- Gain from the fix
- £693 a month
- The fix
- A website that niches you (about £1,750 one-off)
- Pays back in
- 10.9 weeks
Drains repeat purchases
Fees are a surprise, and clients hate surprises more than high bills
- Leaking now
- £71 a month
- Gain from the fix
- £35 a month
- The fix
- Fixed-fee package design (about £700 one-off)
- Pays back in
- 85.9 weeks
On these figures
£4,122 a month leaking
Fixing every leak above gets back about £1,737 a month, with each leak counted on its own against the same baseline, regulars kept included.
- The Recurring-Revenue System (£2,295)
- Pays back in 5.7 weeks
- The Accountant Growth Kit (£49)
- Pays back in under a week
Inside the 90-day window on these figures. Change any field above to test it against your own numbers for accountants and bookkeepers.
What matters most
The levers that carry the most weight here.
For an accountant four steps carry the plan. Narrowing who you serve, because an owner scrolls past accountants and stops at accountants for cafes. The plan with a name and a monthly price by direct debit, which turns the January cliff into income that arrives twelve times a year. Real deadlines with real capacity, stated in October: how many returns you can still take and the date you stop taking them. And cold email, to limited companies only, in one sector with one offer, a fixed-price review of their bookkeeping, sent under your own name with an opt-out address and a suppression list. The fixed-price health check credited against the first three months is the paid first step that all four lead to.
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If you would rather we did this for you
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