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.
Here to introduce a client instead? See For accountants and advisers.
Does any of this sound familiar?
- "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.
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.
None of this means something is wrong with the practice. It is what happens when a good practice grows faster than the way it is run.
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 deliveryEngagement 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 managementKnowing 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
- PeopleManagers who manage, so partners can stop reviewing everything, and a way of growing your own people when recruiting is hard.
- ClientsTurning year-end conversations into regular reviews, and building advisory work around the clients who want it.
- Direction and leadershipPartners 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
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
- £1.2Mfee income, about fifteen people
- 110 daysof lock-up to start with
- 70 daysafter three changes
- £131,000of cash released
Take a practice with fee income of £1.2 million and about fifteen people. The partners feel the practice is doing well, yet the overdraft comes out every January and never quite goes away.
A good first step is to measure lock-up: work done but not yet billed, plus bills not yet paid. Suppose it comes to 110 days. At fee income of about £3,300 a day, that is around £362,000 sitting in WIP and debtors.
Three changes are usually enough to move it. Recurring clients move to fixed monthly fees by direct debit. One-off work is billed when it is done, not at the year end. And a named person runs a simple reminder routine, so the partners don't have to chase.
If lock-up came down to 70 days, about £230,000 would be tied up instead, releasing around £131,000. No new clients, no extra work, and no more January overdraft.
An illustration. Your numbers will be different, and I can't promise any result.
A free tool
Start with fifteen minutes: the hidden hours check
A free two-sided card. On one side, a simple way to add up the work you do for your twenty largest clients that nobody agreed, priced or billed. On the other, the questions a good coach would ask you about it. A practice doing eight unbilled hours a year for each of its twenty largest clients, at £90 an hour, gives away £14,400 a year.
Download the hidden hours check (PDF)
What a client says
[Testimonial from a partner or owner of an accountancy practice, used with permission.]
[Name], [Role], [Practice]
The same system, the same terms
Accountancy practices get exactly what every SMARTer client gets: the SMARTer System, coaching and mentoring with the source always named, goals you set, and a short written agreement before any paid work starts.
- Start freeThe ten key areas review and a Discovery Call.
- SMARTer Business Review, from £750A proper look at the whole business. If you don't think it was worth the fee, you don't pay it.
- SMARTer Programme, from £1,500 a monthSix months on the areas that matter most, with a 90-day exit if you are not seeing progress.
- SMARTer Mentoring, from £400 a monthAn experienced person to think with, once a month.
No VAT is charged.
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.