How to create world-class services
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🚀 You can also use AI within Ignition to save time creating or refining your service descriptions by clicking Suggest description after you have entered in a service name. Learn more here.
Align your fee structure with value
A great business model aligns your costs, invoicing, and payment collection with the delivery of value to your clients. If you are hoping to collect monthly fees from your clients, make sure your service has, at the very least, a monthly deliverable. Delivering value when asking for payment is the best way to eliminate fee disputes and will result in higher customer satisfaction.
Use a framework to write your descriptions
Our recommended framework includes:
Deliverables
What outcomes will the client receive with this service? Clearly define what you are doing for this client.
Be specific and use terminology that your clients will understand by avoiding jargon and internal terminology.
e.g. Reconciling credit card and savings accounts
Timeframe
When will you be delivering this work to your client? How long will the project take? Or, for recurring services, how frequently will you deliver your service?
Remember that you can also combine your billing to reduce your admin.
e.g. Weekly payroll, AP/AR, bank reconciliation = Billed monthly (reduces admin)
Quarterly and annual services = Billed monthly (provides billing consistency, steady cashflow and an easier payment schedule for the practice and client)
Limitations
Setting caps and limitations on your deliverables is incredibly important.
Ask yourself - are there any caps on your deliverables? If you're an accountant, how many employees are included in your payroll service? If you deliver marketing services, how many ads per month are included in the scope?
You can also consider a tiered approach if your services are easily scalable.
Remember that these are not hard rules - you can treat them as a guideline and agree to adjust the pricing if limits are constantly exceeded.
e.g. "We will reconcile 250 savings account transactions per month"
"Payroll for up to 5/10/20 employees"
Software/3rd party vendors
Will you be using software or a 3rd party vendor to deliver the service? If yes, who’s responsible for paying for the subscription or vendor fees? (You should only include this if the software or the vendors are client facing)
"We will use Xero/QuickBooks as the general ledger and your subscription is included in the price of this package"
"We will use Xero/QuickBooks at $XX price per month and is a separate software fee from our services"
Practical example
Accounting services - Basic Annual Accounting Services
Preparation of Notice to Reader Financial Statements and Income Tax Returns, based on the information being entered and reconciled in an online accounting software package.
This includes:
- Annual review of financial information contained in your online accounting software (managed by your bookkeeper)
- Preparation of required adjusting entries (up to 20)
- Preparation of T2 Corporate Income Tax Return
- Calculation of your taxation refund/payable
- Preparation of annual Notice to Reader Financial Statements
- 1 hour annual tax planning meeting to discuss your tax position
- Electronic filing of Income Tax Returns
- Online Accounting Software license
- Access to our phone and email advice line (up to 1 hr a month)
Consider tiers for scalable services
Tiers are the go-to pricing strategy for SaaS (Software as a Service) companies just like Ignition, as they are scalable for both the business and the customer. You can present tiered packages on your proposal built with Ignition using the Options feature.
Tiered services rely on a value metric as the differentiator. An example of one of our value metrics is the number of active clients that each subscription tier allows. The value metric helps define the scope of service and provides a clear “service expansion” point.
A tiered payroll service might look like this:
Startup package: Up to 5 employees
Small business package: 6-10 employees
Medium+ business package: 11-20 employees
A marketing package might look like this:
Start-up package: Up to 10 Facebook ads per month
Rev-up package: 11-20 Facebook ads per month
Scale-up package: 21-40 Facebook ads per month
Tiered service packages are amazing for setting clear expectations. As your clients’ needs change, they move up to the next tier. If you’ve priced them correctly, the Cost per Value Metric should go down as they move up and expand their utilization of your service.
Soaring Falcon Accountancy from the UK shows us how they use value metrics to differentiate their baseline packages. In this case they have payroll and tax returns as value metrics.
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