More clients aren’t always the answer

Accountants in practice are a business just like millions of others and being in business means the bottom line is probably never quite good enough.

So, the simple answer to profitability issues for accountants is go out and get more clients pure and simple. The more clients you have the more money you make.

Of course we all know or should know that an influx of clients will stretch the workload of the staff possibly to breaking and that if stretched and pushed to the limit mistakes are more likely to happen with the consequences being not just increased insurance premiums but quite possibly untold reputational damage that may never be repaired.

Morale goes west as the staff are feeling more pressured, client satisfaction levels fall as they don’t get the standard or level of service they have come to expect and the new ones don’t get the level that they thought they were going to get.

So just taking on each and any new client is not the universal panacea solution, it could well be that looking at actually getting rid of some troublesome clients will free up staff time and will show them you don’t expect them to put up with unwilling or uncooperative clients with the result that you now have a newly motivated and happier workforce delivering better results across the board.

Now if you go for a cull of the bad clients and at the same time unleash your newly motivated staff to look at the existing clients and sell more services to them the effect on your bottom line can be profound.

So you see sometimes more clients isn’t always the answer.