ACCOUNTANCY PRACTICES
You help clients run better businesses. Who helps you run yours?
Coaching and mentoring for partners and owners of accountancy practices, £500K to £10M fee income.
Practices of ten to fifty people, where compliance pays the bills, advisory work is where the future lies, and the partners still review almost everything.
SIGNS OF STRAIN
Does any of this sound familiar?
You are not alone. In a 2026 survey for Sage, 81% of accountants and bookkeepers said they do work outside their formal scope, and 70% said their fees no longer reflect the support they give.
That doesn't mean something is wrong with the practice. It is what happens when a good practice grows faster than the way it is run.
"Just a quick question" calls that add up to work nobody agreed, priced or billed.
Fixed fees set years ago, for clients whose needs have grown.
Partners still reviewing everything, and doing work a manager should do.
You can't recruit fast enough, so the team works harder instead.
Lock-up that is "just how the profession works".
Advisory work clients need, squeezed out by compliance deadlines.
A partner retiring in the next few years, and no clear plan for what happens then.
FIVE OF THE TEN KEY AREAS
Where accountancy practices usually start
The SMARTer System looks at ten key areas of the business. In accountancy practices, these five come up most often. They are the usual starting points, not a fixed route: we work only on the two or three that would make the biggest difference to you.
Service delivery
Engagement letters that say what the fee covers, a team that knows where the line is, and extra work agreed, and priced, before it is done.
Practice behind it: Scope control and change requests; Leverage, paid time and pricing
Finance and commercial management
Knowing which clients and services actually make money, reviewing fees that haven't moved in years, and bringing lock-up down.
Practice behind it: Service and client profitability; Reviewing your prices; Cash conversion and credit control
People
Managers who manage, so partners can stop reviewing everything, and a way of growing your own people when recruiting is hard.
Clients
Turning year-end conversations into regular reviews, and building advisory work around the clients who want it.
Direction and leadership
Partners who agree where the practice is going, and a plan for succession made well before anyone retires.
Practice behind it: Goals that actually get done; Strategy as a few clear choices
WHY ME
I'm not an accountant. That's rather the point.
I won't advise you on tax, audit, standards or regulation: you know those far better than I do. My work is the business of the practice: pricing, capacity, people, partners and clients.
I spent thirty years in frontline commercial roles for Oracle, Infor and Lawson, and I have built three businesses of my own, so I have sat on the other side of the engagement letter more than once. I also work alongside accountants: when my clients' questions are about the numbers, they go back to their accountant.
Most accountants are better at advising clients on their businesses than at running their own. That isn't a criticism. It is simply hard to see your own practice clearly from inside it, which is why most coaches have a coach.
AN ILLUSTRATION
What this can look like
110 days
from doing the work to being paid
£362,000
of the practice's own money waiting
Take a practice with fifteen people and fee income of £1.2 million. The partners feel it is doing well, yet the overdraft comes out every January.
There is one number worth checking: on average, how long does it take from doing a piece of work to having the money in the bank? Suppose it is 110 days. The practice earns about £3,300 a day, so around £362,000 of its own money is sitting in work not yet billed and invoices not yet paid.
Three simple changes usually shorten the wait. Regular clients pay a fixed monthly fee by direct debit. One-off jobs are billed as soon as they are done, not at the year end. And one named person sends the reminders, so the partners don't have to chase.
If the wait came down to 70 days, around £131,000 would come back into the bank. Same clients, same work, and no January overdraft.
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BEFORE YOU BOOK
Questions accountants ask
You're not an accountant. Why would we come to you?
Because the questions that hold most practices back aren't accounting questions. They are about pricing, capacity, people, partners and clients: the business of the practice. You bring the technical expertise. I bring the questions, the evidence on what good looks like, and an outside view.
We're a partnership. Who do you work with?
Whoever is right for the work: one partner, the partners together, or the partners and a practice manager. The SMARTer Business Review and the Programme can include several people, and we agree up front what is shared between partners and what stays private.
Can we fit this around busy season?
Yes. We agree the timing at the start, so sessions fit around your deadlines rather than competing with them.
We already introduce clients to you. Does that change anything?
No. Being a client and being a referrer are kept entirely separate. What you tell me as a client stays confidential, and I don't pay or take referral fees.
Talk it through
Forty-five minutes to an hour on Zoom, at a time that suits you, busy season included. No pitch, no pressure, and you'll leave with something useful either way.