The very essence of standardizing and documenting your accounting firm’s processes is finding better and smarter ways to operate.

You might completely reimagine certain tasks that have instant impacts to your firm’s overall standing. For other tasks, you may only need to tweak a certain step. But when that step is carried out 10 times per week, that incremental improvement will add up over time.

And if your firm has fixed-fee pricing based on value versus charging by the hour, then you’ll be rewarded significantly.

Setting your fee structure to maximize your efficiency gains

If you charge by the hour, efficiency gains act as penalties: if your processes are more efficient, you’re spending less time performing them and, as a result, charging less for them.

But that shouldn’t deter you from boosting your firm’s productivity.

The answer to this is value-pricing. When you set your pricing upfront based on the value you are providing your client, you’re being rewarded not by the time it takes to serve them, but by the actual value you bring them.

And if you can bring them that value quicker after making a small change to your process, then you will be rewarded rather than penalized for it.

Not sure how much to charge for your bookkeeping services? Here's a bookkeeping pricing guide.

Standardizing and documenting your firm’s processes will enable scalability

When you’re cooking with a recipe with clear instructions, you’re setting yourself up for success as best as possible—even those who aren’t the greatest cooks.

You know what ingredients you need and when, what equipment you’ll use, and how long it will take to prepare and cook your meal. But without this information, the task becomes harder than it needs to be.