How a tax firm owner stopped giving his time away and moved hourly clients onto a quarterly retainer

Client snapshot

Who: A growing tax & accounting firm with a small team Size: The owner was personally preparing a couple hundred returns a season Program: 90-day coaching program, after earlier TaxDome workflow sessions with his team Worked with: The owner, with senior team members joining for some sessions

The challenge

When we first talked, the owner told me the work itself was fine. What wore him down was the processes and client communication around it, plus the fact that most of his week went to tax production when he wanted to be reviewing and selling.

He was billing a lot of his non-tax work by the hour. When he pulled the numbers, his tax returns looked healthy, but the clients who also got bookkeeping or payables help had effective hourly rates he called "pretty bad." Small asks kept getting absorbed. Some clients even had to remind him to send a bill, which he called a big wake-up call.

What we worked on

A client profitability review to find where scope had quietly grown past the price

Three-tier pricing for individual returns, built with the REFRAME pricing tools and shared with his team

A rollout plan for price increases that sorts clients into those who get the new fee, those who get a path to it, and those who get a smaller scope

Flat fees for one-off work that used to be estimated after the fact

TaxDome workflows and team development so more of the client work can move off the owner's desk

Results

What's happened so far:

Two clients moved from hourly billing to a monthly retainer built around quarterly meetings. He told them the hourly setup wasn't working anymore and pitched the retainer, and they both said yes. For one of them, the new yearly fee is about six times what he figures they would have billed hourly.
IRS notice responses now have a flat fee. The firm used to look at the letter, do the work and come up with a number afterward. Now the client knows the price up front, and the team is looking for other one-off work to package the same way.
Pricing tiers are drafted for individual and business clients, with a proactive tier that includes a tax projection. His internal fee guidelines already put higher prices on more complex returns, and he told me people haven't blinked.

He's also planning to take on fewer returns himself next season so he has more room to review and sell. That part of the work is still in progress.

In their words

"The work itself is great. It just is the processes and the, you know, client communications and all that. That's the part you get worn down by."

— Firm owner, at the start of our work

"…if you don't have a backbone, it doesn't matter what you say the price is going to be, people are going to walk all over you."

— Firm owner, on holding the line on price

"…what I'm going to get back are nights and weekends… it's more like giving myself margin to maybe even use some of the same timeframes, but just be better."

— Firm owner, on taking fewer returns himself next season

How a tax firm owner stopped giving his time away and moved hourly clients onto a quarterly retainer

The challenge

What we worked on

Results

In their words

Could this be your firm?