Is your customer service sensational?

If the answer is 'no', you need to be at the AVN conference on 7th October 2008. The theme is 'How to give sensational service' and it'll be full of ideas and tips on giving your clients and prospects outstanding service every single time.

And even if you can confidently answer 'yes!' you should still be there to hear from our brilliant speakers and find out how to deliver even more sensational customer service!

Get more details and book your place 

(Resources from the April 2008 conference are still available here)

Latest News

THE LATEST SURVEY OF HOW ACCOUNTANTS PRICE
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 


A few weeks ago Accountingweb.co.uk published their Fee Survey 2008. The survey makes interesting reading and here are some of the really fascinating findings.
 
As with AVN’s own benchmarking survey of how accountants charge there is a huge variation in prices. For example, for a simple tax return for an employed individual who has some income and dividends the average price is £149, and yet 2% of respondents charge over £400. And whilst 27% of respondents would not do an audit for less than £2,000, 14% are prepared to charge less than £600.
 
How accountants calculate those prices is also varied. Hourly billing still dominates; but only just. 44% of respondents use hourly billing versus 36% that use value pricing. The rest use even more weird and wonderful methods; “what the client paid last time”, the “going rate” or, even worse, being “haggled down by the client.”
 
An interesting finding was that on average firms using value pricing charge 10.5% more than the firms using hourly billing. Although we suspect some respondents may confuse value billing with fixed pricing; value billing is much more than simply giving a fixed price up front and if done well can result in significantly higher prices compared with the old time-based billing.
 

And given that clients hate surprise bills so much, perhaps the most astonishing finding is when it comes to quoting up front. The survey found that 77% of respondents quote up front, but almost half of those firms (49%) end up charging a different amount!

Read the Fee Survey 2008


THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
Wednesday, July 09, 2008 


The cover story in the July 2008 edition of Accountancy magazine was none other than Steve Pipe's analysis of benchmarking data for 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' report on the UK's accountants.

The report has some surprising findings, not least the huge discrepancy between 'super-successful practices' and those at the other end of the scale. It demonstrates that the key to being successful is to be more proactive ... and shows you how to go about doing just that.

Read Steve's article


BECOMING A PROACTIVE ACCOUNTANT
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 


Research shows that more than anything clients want their accountant to be proactive. Steve Pipe's white paper 'The Proactive Accountant' shows just what you can do to earn client loyalty ... and increase turnover.

Request your copy here  



This 11 min video was recorded in March 2008. Please excuse the 15 seconds of noise from an aeroplane passing overhead.
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