Congratulations to Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit®, who was recently named one of 10 Influential American Business Leaders by Forbes magazine.
The list was compiled by contributor David Williams, who said, " I am pleased to note that all 10 of the individuals I acknowledged and have admired so much are still living, still leading and, particularly in the cases of Amazon, Apple and Google, have been responsible for providing the world with thousands of new jobs and untold levels of additional wealth.
Intuit’s best wishes go out to the other CEOs listed, including Melinda Gates, Tim Cook, Warren Buffett and Rupert Murdoch.
Welcome to another in a series of profiles spotlighting the 2016 Firm of the Future finalists. This edition features Gavin Watt of First Base Accountants. Stay tuned in 2017 for details on how to enter our next Firm of the Future contest and continue visiting our blog often.
Gavin Watt: We have been in our current office in Stirling in Scotland for about eight years, and have a team of seven. We have clients across the UK and abroad.
GW: Most of our clients are small- to medium-sized family businesses. We provide the usual tax and accounting compliance services for individuals and both unincorporated and incorporated businesses. In addition to this, we offer specialist tax planning and business development services. We specialize in providing compliance and advisory services to property investors and developers, and have clients based throughout the UK.
We are also part of an international accountancy group, and provide services to international businesses that are starting to trade and establishing a base in the UK. We can also assist UK business requiring assistance overseas.
GW: We believe that we represent a Firm of the Future because we are constantly striving to improve our working methods, and most importantly, the way we interact with clients and prospects. We are aiming to build a firm with traditional local clients, but see major growth potential in developing long distance clients, both in the UK and abroad. Cloud technology, and the skill of application, are key to this growth. We are well into our program of migrating all our existing clients onto QuickBooks® Online (QBO) and associated apps. Every new client will use QBO.
GW: Clients need to engage a modern thinking, IT savvy accountant who has done the research, and keeps doing the research, to provide the right cloud software for their business. This accountant must be able to hold the client’s hand through the process and provide ongoing support. My advice is to do it now. The sooner a business adopts cloud technology, the sooner it can reap the benefits.
GW: We set our objectives and we do our research. Any software we choose has to provide the functionality and quality we need in a user-friendly way. Software must deliver value and business benefits to both our clients and ourselves. After that, it is down to the ethos of the software provider and their people. In short, whom do we want to work with?
KA: What apps do you use for your firm, and for your clients, and which do you recommend most frequently? Why?
We have been recommending QBO and Receipt Bank most frequently, but we are changing to QBO and AutoEntry for those clients who wish to, as we feel the functionality is better than Receipt Bank. Shortly, our own firm’s app will be live and we’ll be recommending that, which will in turn have links to all the other Apps we feel are relevant to the clients.
KA: You mentioned in your contest entry that you have been working in Accountancy and IT for 25 years. When you think about serving clients 25 years ago versus nowadays, what, in your opinion, has been the biggest change?
GW: Looking back over the last 25 years, just about everything has changed in the way an accountancy firm operates and interacts with its clients. The most outstanding reason for this is the progress of technology. This has changed both the way the firm communicates and operates internally and the way the firm communicates and interacts with clients and the outside world.
Internally, firms have significantly more efficient workflow, providing greater value for the client and higher profitability for the firm. The information provided to our clients today is not historic; it is up to the minute, providing better business insights that enable us to work with our clients to help them achieve their goals.
GW: Our policy is to have face-to-face meetings with clients, develop relationships, and get to know them and their business. Introducing value pricing was, therefore, an integral part of those meetings.
GW: The clients that grasped it are those that we really want to work with. We have seen a stronger relationship develop and have more interaction.
GW: Yes. It puts us in control. The client is advised the fee for the job, and we include the software free of charge. This has given us a strong selling point when insisting that QBO is adopted.
KA: What advice would you give other firms thinking about transitioning from hourly fees to monthly fixed fees?
GW: As a firm, it has not been our policy to have hourly billing. We have always endeavored to work on a fixed fee basis. There are some exceptions, such as tax investigation work. Again, my advice would be to do it as soon as possible. There are many positives to fixed fee billing for both the client and the firm. Our staff does not have the stress or wasted time of completing timesheets. We don’t always get it right, and we tell the client that when we agree the first fee. If the fee is not right, we get around the table and agree on a course of action.
KA: You mentioned in your entry that it takes time to transition existing clients to Mark Wickersham’s model. What has been the biggest challenge, and do you have existing clients who have agreed to switch and now would never go back to the old hourly billing model?
GW: The main reason for adopting Mark Wickersham’s model is to increase our fee levels and to upgrade the type of service we provide to some of our clients. It took time to determine our levels of service and what to include at each level. For new clients, this is the model we use and it has resulted in about a 30 percent increase in fees achieved, and more in some cases, especially where we provide additional services. For existing clients, more effort is needed to make sure they understand. We have seen an increase in existing fees of about 20 percent. I think that implementing this pricing model will always be a “work in progress,” as we constantly seek to improve.
KA: You mentioned First Base Accountants offers a monthly newsletter to clients and prospects. Do you have any stories about how this has influenced a prospect to become a client, or any other positive outcomes from issuing the newsletter?
GW: It is difficult to quantify how much business might have been gained as a result of our newsletter, but we see it as an integral part of our awareness marketing. It is a passive way of keeping in touch with clients and prospects.
KA: How do you use the ProAdvisor® program or social media channels to connect with prospects and current clients? Is there one that has been particularly more successful than others?
GW: So far, we have used the Quickbooks marketing tools for logos and marketing documents, which have been incorporated in our emails and on Facebook. This is effective at raising awareness.
Our firm’s app is currently being developed by Intuit® and will be live shortly. We see this as a major improvement in communication. We are also in the process of incorporating links to the QBO training center videos on our website, which we hope will interact with the app. Our next project is to develop a landing page with QBO to use for more direct email marketing.
GW: Our plan moving forward is to increase the size and profitability of the firm by developing our long-distance clients. We now have the technology in place to do this, and believe that with the use of technology, we will still be true to our policy to hold regular face-to-face meetings and develop strong relationships.
KA: What advice would you give to a firm trying to transition from their old ways to become a Firm of the Future?
GW: Do it now or get left behind. Be open minded and look to new horizons. Embrace technology. Hire the right people. Reinvent your services and fee structure around the new possibilities. Talk to your clients and take away their pain. Set yourselves a target date or you will put it off!
We want you to be completely satisfied with your order. You can return unopened items for a refund provided you notify us that you wish to cancel your order within 7 days of receipt.
Paper and Card that we have already cut to size for your order (this covers all our paper, card and single fold cards except for that in our office papers section unless stated differently)
Items that are to special order only may not be cancelled once we have placed the order with our supplier.
To obtain a refund for the cost of the goods you must notify us by e-mail within 7 days of receipt that you intend to return the goods and they must be returned to us unused and in their original condition and packaging within a further 7 days of your notification to us. Goods are returned at the customer's expense.
We are happy to refund payment for goods provided you have notified us beforehand, they are returned in unused and resalable condition and with their original packaging. We will refund customers the invoiced price of the goods only, not the original delivery charge. Where the original order qualified for free delivery we will deduct an amount to cover the cost of the original delivery, this will not exceed 10% of the order value.
Items that are ordered as a set must be returned as a complete set. Individual parts of the set cannot be returned on their own.
If your order qualified for a free gift, the free gift will need to be returned in perfect unopened condition with the return. Please ensure you are happy with your purchase before you open your gift. Should an order be returned without the free gift enclosed a charge of £20.00 will be applied to cover costs of the gift offer.
Should an item be returned that we do not offer returns on this will only be returned to you if you pay the delivery costs.
Consumers within the United Kingdom and the EU have additional rights under the "The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations" these are detailed below.
The cancellation period is increased to 14 days from receipt and goods must be returned within 14 days from the notification. Notification can be by any method although we prefer email or our Contact Form you can also use the Model cancellation form which can be downloaded here. The cost of our standard (cheapest) delivery option will also be refunded. If you requested an enhanced delivery service this will not be refunded.
When you notify us of your wish to cancel your order we will issue a returns authorisation number which must be shown near to our address on the outside of your returned package. Returns received without a returns authorisation number will be refused and given back to the delivery company.
You are responsible for any items to be returned whilst in your possession and until we have signed for and accepted delivery. Items are to be returned at your expense by a method that grants you adequate insurance for loss or damage. We are not responsible or liable for items lost or damaged while being returned to us.
Items should be packed in packaging that affords adequate protection from loss or damage while being returned to us.
You may cancel your order in full or just part of it at any point before it is despatched. Once your order has been packed and booked in with our carrier for collection it is considered as despatched even though it may still be on our premises.
Paper and Card that we have already cut to size for your order (this covers all our paper, card and single fold cards except for that in our office papers section)
To cancel an order you should contact us by e-mail or use our Contact Form as soon as possible, please quote your order number and tell us just which items you wish to cancel. We will refund in full any items cancelled.
If you receive damaged or faulty goods you must notify us within 3 days of receipt. You should email us or use our Contact Form to let us know. At our discretion you will be entitled to either a refund or a replacement. Do not return the goods unless we ask you to and provide you with a returns authorisation number. If we ask you to return the goods to us and providing you return them using the method we have suggested (or one costing no more), we will refund the postal costs incurred in returning them.
Refunds will be processed as soon as possible. for unopened goods returned under our returns policy this is usually within 3 working days of receipt. For opened or faulty goods refunds will not be made until the goods have been examined by us or if necessary by the manufacturer or other third party. In all cases where a refund is due it will be made no later than 14 days after we receive the returned goods. Refunds will always be made in the same form as the original payment where possible. If we cannot refund your original payment method (e.g. if a card has expired) we reserve the right to issue a credit to the value of the refund for use on our website.
If your original order qualified for free delivery or other offer and by returning item(s) reduces the value of your order to an amount so that it no longer qualifies for the original offer or discount then the discount applied to your original order will be deducted from your refund.
Should we (at our sole discretion) agree to accept the return of items outside the scope of the above returns policy or after the time limit for returns we reserve the right to deduct a 15% administration fee from the amount credited and to deduct the original cost of delivery if it was greater than the original delivery charge on your order. Where we agree to accept returns outside the scope of our returns policy we reserve the right to issue a credit to the value of the refund for use on our website.
You're invited to join us for our monthly broker bash on the last Thursday of each month from 5:00pm to 7:00pm. This great networking event is a great opportunity to meet fellow industry professionals. We look forward to seeing you there.