Most accounting firms are built to handle what clients bring to them. The firms pulling ahead have flipped it — they’ve defined their services, structured their pricing, and stopped leaving money on the table for work they’re already doing. In this fireside chat, SmartVault VP of Growth Jonathan Young sits down with William Hamilton of […]
Resource Topic: SmartProposal
The Accounting Engagement Process, Broken Down Stage by Stage
Let’s say two firms take on the same client, with the same return and fee schedule on paper. One firm spends tax season chasing signatures, tracking down missing documents, and writing off hours nobody agreed to. The other doesn’t. Why? This infographic maps the full tax prep workflow — from the first client intake call […]
Why Accounting Firms Struggle with Pricing
You already know your pricing is off. You’ve known it for a while — maybe since last April, when you closed out the season and looked at what you billed versus what you did. The plan, as usual, is to fix it in the off-season: raise rates, build out your pricing packages, and get more […]
Tax Preparation Workflow: What It Looks Like When Your Engagement Stage Works
Most of the problems that make tax season feel exhausting don’t show up during tax season. That’s what makes them so hard to fix. By the time a return is taking longer than expected, or a client is asking for something nobody remembers agreeing to, or staff are trying to piece together information scattered across […]
Scope Creep in Accounting: The Hidden Cost of a Vague Engagement (and What It Breaks)
Ask most accountants what tax season feels like and you’ll get the same answer: get through it, recover, and figure out how to make next season better. For most firms, though, next season ends up looking a lot like the one they were hoping to leave behind. The hours are just as long, the frustration […]
The 3 Decisions Keeping Your Accounting Firm from Pricing What It’s Worth
Most accounting firms finish tax season knowing they worked more than they earned. It almost always traces back to three things. None of them are that hard to fix. This guide breaks down the three decisions keeping your firm from pricing what it’s worth: how your services are structured how pricing gets set whether advisory […]
Your Pricing Problem Isn’t Your Prices. It’s What Happens Before You Quote Them.
When tax season ends, you probably do the same thing most firm owners do. You look at what you billed, compare it to how many hours you worked, and then you’re overcome by a familiar frustration: you just spent the last four months working around the clock and the revenue number staring back at you […]