Playbook, accounting firm
Why the package price is not the quote for the person asking
The published package assumes a client who fits the package. People who ask a practice for a quote in a chat window very often do not fit it, and the reason they are asking rather than signing up is usually the thing that breaks the price: three years unfiled, a foreign rental, a set of records nobody has reconciled since the software changed. A number given before any of that surfaces will be treated as binding, and the conversation about why it moved is worse than the one about why there was no number.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for quotes and estimates holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The variable that moves the fee is the state of the client's records, which is the one thing a prospect never mentions unprompted and the assistant can never see.
- Catch up work is priced per year of arrears in most practices, so the same client is several different quotes depending on how far back the problem goes.
- Prospects arriving from another accountant carry a handover cost that has nothing to do with the ongoing fee, and they rarely realise it is a separate line.
- Unlike a scoped project in other trades, the practice cannot see the position until it holds the records, which puts a document collection step in front of the quote itself.
How it arrives
- can you give me a price for three years of unfiled returns
- how much to sort out books that are in a mess
- what would you charge to take over from my accountant
- i have rental income abroad how much extra is that
- can you quote before you see my records
- how much for a catch up plus going forward
What has to be indexed for this to work
| How catch up and arrears work is priced | Whether it is per year, per return or quoted on inspection, and what you need to see before a figure can be given. This is the most common quote request a practice receives out of hours and it is almost never on the website. |
|---|---|
| The things that move a fee off the package | Unfiled years, foreign income, multiple properties, unreconciled records, a change of bookkeeping software, mid year incorporation. Publishing this list lets the assistant explain why a quote needs a look without asking for any of the detail itself. |
| What you need in order to quote | Last filed accounts, the current bookkeeping file or its absence, the years outstanding, the entity type. A prospect who arrives at a call holding these gets a fee that day, and this list is what turns a chat into that call. |
| Your takeover process and any handover fee | Professional clearance to the outgoing accountant, agent authority, the records you request from them, and whether the transition itself is chargeable. Prospects switching are comparing on this as much as on the ongoing fee. |
The reply
Catch up work is quoted separately from the ongoing package, because the fee depends on how many years are outstanding and what state the records are in. The fees page shows the ongoing packages, and the things that typically move a quote off them are unfiled years, income from abroad and records that need rebuilding. To give you a real figure one of the accountants needs to see the last filed accounts and whatever bookkeeping exists, which takes one short call. Shall I take your details for that?
It separates the two fees the visitor is conflating, which is the first useful thing anybody can tell them. Naming the specific things that move a quote signals that the practice has seen this before, which is what somebody with three years of arrears is nervous about. It then asks for a call rather than for their figures, so nothing gets priced from a description.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor starts describing the actual state of their affairs, whether that is the number of years outstanding, an income source or the condition of the records.
That is exactly the kind of thing an accountant needs to look at before we put a figure on it, and I do not want to give you a number that then changes. Leave your name and email with a line on how many years are involved and we will get you a proper quote.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never apply the published package price to somebody who has described arrears or unreconciled records.
- Never estimate how many years of catch up work will be needed from what the visitor has said.
- Never say whether a late filing penalty will apply, or what it might come to.
- Never promise a fee will not change once the records have been seen.
Questions
- Is a range safer than a number?
- Only if it is a range you published, framed as the ongoing package rather than as the quote for their situation. A range invented to sound helpful is remembered as the top of it having been the bad case, which is worse than no figure at all.
- People are embarrassed about the state of their records. Does that matter here?
- It is the reason they are typing rather than ringing, and it is why naming arrears and messy records plainly in the reply works. A prospect who sees their own situation described without judgement books the call.
- Can it collect the documents we need in order to quote?
- It can tell somebody exactly what to bring and take their name, email and message so a person follows up. It cannot receive files or look anything up, so treat it as the thing that gets the right paperwork to the call, not as an intake system.
Keep reading
- Everything for a accounting firmDeadlines drive the volume. What an accountancy practice can automate, and why no answer may touch a caller's own numbers.
- Handling quotes and estimates in generalWhat has to be known before a number is possible, how the scoping step works, and how to answer without stonewalling or inventing a figure.
- Fee queries from existing clients, answered from the engagement termsAdditional fee queries answered from the engagement terms: what triggered a charge, when the practice invoices, and where the query goes next.
- The onboarding steps that decide how fast a new client gets movingIdentity checks, agent authority and the professional clearance letter, explained at the enquiry stage rather than during the delay.
- Handing over when the numbers arriveA general question stops being general the moment somebody supplies their own facts. The trigger, the wording, and the deadline to capture.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.