There's no shortage of work in your firm — there's a shortage of work that's charged for, and clients who are profitable. This guide fixes both, starting with two rules.
Charge for everything you do — every call, every letter, every chase, every “quick question.”
Make every client a profitable client — so your best clients stop quietly subsidising the loss-makers.
We're corporate finance advisors. When a practice comes to market, buyers don't pay for turnover — they pay for sustainable profit, and they dig into recovery per client to find it. Unbilled work and loss-making clients come straight off the price. We wrote this guide because we'd rather have the pricing conversation with you now than the hard valuation conversation later.
“The price isn't wrong. The client is.”
Reed Holden, Holden Advisors — one of the ideas the guide puts to work
Find the one to two days per person per month your firm gives away — the calls, letters, chases, and “while you're on” requests that never reach an invoice.
Every service, three price points — minimum, standard, optimum — with volume bands and a records surcharge, so every quote is fast, consistent, and profitable by design.
The engagement letter wording habit and the two-line reply that stop free work at the door — without a single awkward conversation.
Grade the client list A to D on fees, recovery, and relationship — and see exactly which clients your All-Stars are subsidising.
The two conversations that fix every C and D client — including the courteous exit letter — plus the minimum standards that stop the tail growing back.
The four-rung billing ladder from timesheets-in-arrears to monthly direct debit — and what it does to lock-up, cash flow, and firm value.
Tell us where to send it and it's yours. It does its job when the worksheets get filled in — so block out the working week.
Connext Partners is a corporate finance advisory firm. We work alongside accountants and their clients across Ireland — valuing businesses and practices, preparing them for sale, advising on acquisitions and mergers, and raising debt and equity funding.
Corporate finance made simple, success made possible.
