Traditionally, CPA firms quote hourly rates to perform services. Under this system, clients would get “sticker shock” because the fee for their work was 1. Unknown prior to receiving the service; and 2. Never explained in any terms other than the amount of time it took to do their work.
Realizing how many clients disliked this, Avizo has made the commitment to change our entire billing model. Our new method is based in “value pricing” and the critical component for you is under this method you agree to the fee for services before we ever start our work and we get to have a discussion together about what services are most beneficial to you and your organization.
Why Change?
To better serve our clients, we must transform our own business model to meet the challenges of exponential change in a world greatly influenced by technological innovation. Technology affects how organizations work and utilize human capital. We continually make significant investments in the latest technology and personnel training to ensure our knowledge and capability are maximized. This approach allows us to better share our knowledge and expertise with a focus on helping your business be even more successful. The latest iteration of our transformation comes in our approach to fees.
While this approach is relatively new to our profession, the concept of pricing for value is something we experience every day. As consumers of goods and services, we much prefer to know what the cost of the service will be in advance. Most of us are more interested in total costs than we are an hourly rate when we have no idea how many hours the service will take.
How It Works
It starts with a conversation. Your value pricing client service agreement will include any services you want assistance with. This includes bookkeeping, payroll, wage reporting, financial reporting, tax returns, audit and, any other service you normally receive. After our conversation about services and what you need and want, we put together a three-tier option for you. This gives you the freedom to choose whether to go with the basic, value, and premium service levels – all customized to your preferences.
Our goal is to design a value pricing proposal based on your choices. Once you decide on your tier, all services will be bundled into one fee paid in twelve monthly payments. That means no more tax-filing invoice – everything is spread across the year. This approach gives you the power to know, in advance, your fees for the next 12 months, which creates certainty in managing your accounting and consulting expense. For Avizo, it allows us to better schedule our work and manage our business operation.
When Can You Get Your Value Price Agreement?
Avizo team members are working, daily, to contact clients of our Client Accounting and Advisory Services (CAS) team to discuss and present value pricing proposals. If you engage us for these services, but have not been contacted, you should hear from someone before the end of 2020. We are taking our time with the process since it represents a significant change for clients and us.
For clients receiving only tax and financial reporting services, we are looking to 2021 to introduce the value pricing model. We have great plans for value added services providing access to content and information previously not delivered but, very relevant to taxpayers.
What’s Next
The expanded concept of value pricing is the “subscription model”. Subscription services have been around for decades. Most of us have several subscriptions right now. I have subscriptions to professional journals and such. In addition, I have subscriptions to Nexflix, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Sling TV, and Apple Music just to name a few. The subscription model for service businesses is quickly becoming an attractive alternative to traditional fee per service models. Our new value pricing model will, eventually, morph into a subscription service model.
Making a change to a business model take a lot of effort, but Avizo professionals are committed to taking the time to ensure we understand the services you require and those that could be valuable for your organization.
Dennis Sherrin, CEO & Strategic Consultant
Dennis is passionate about continual learning and subscribes to the ideology that “life is your leadership class”. To that end, he relies on the observations of the client organizations he has worked with to influence his ideology on vision, leadership, business and life-work balance.
