You audit everyone else's numbers. Nobody audits how the firm earns.
“We know every client's margin except our own.”
A practice built on examining other people's operations rarely turns the same attention on its own, because the people who could are the people whose books would be examined. A review reads fee realization, capacity and client concentration end to end, and reports what the partnership has been unable to ask itself.
realization
net fees per partner
utilization
WIP
lock-up
recurring revenue
peer review
client concentration
write-off
Your words, not ours.
Where it concentrates here
6 places the money tends to
go in an accountancy firm. Each one is concentrated — a single agreement, a single queue,
a single account nobody reviews — which is why sampling walks straight past them.
Recurring fees quoted years ago and never repriced, while the scope behind them grew every year the client did.
Peak-season capacity bought at contractor and overtime rates, absorbed into a seasonal average that hides what it actually cost against the fees it delivered.
Fixed-fee audit engagements that exceed their budgeted hours, with the overrun written off rather than billed or renegotiated.
Advisory work — the highest-margin line — delivered by whoever has capacity and never measured separately from compliance, so nobody knows what it earns.
Revenue concentrated in a handful of partner relationships, where the risk is not the client leaving but the partner doing so.
WIP carried past the point any client will pay it, aging quietly because writing it off means a conversation between partners.
Not every accountancy firm is the same business
Tax-led practicesRevenue concentrated into two compressed seasons, with capacity bought at peak rates and idle the rest of the year.
Audit and assuranceFixed fees quoted against budgeted hours that the engagement then exceeds, with the overrun absorbed rather than billed.
Client accounting services (CAS)Recurring monthly work priced years ago and never repriced as the client grew.
Advisory and CFO servicesThe highest-margin line, usually delivered by the people with the least capacity, and rarely measured separately from compliance.
Where this data actually lives
CCH Axcess or UltraTax for compliance work; Lacerte in smaller firms
Karbon, Jetpack or Canopy for workflow — usually adopted partially
Practice CS or CCH Practice for time and billing
QuickBooks Online Accountant across the client base, at wildly varying quality
A separate spreadsheet that is the real record of who owns which client
Named because it changes what the intake asks for. An extract from one of these has known gaps, and the review is built around them rather than surprised by them.
Reported in your numbers, not ours
realization
net fees per partner
utilization
WIP and lock-up
recurring revenue share
client concentration
write-off rate
average fee per client
The obligations that set the deadlines
Peer review, and the working papers it will actually sample
PCAOB registration and inspection, where applicable
State board licensing and CPE tracking per licensed professional
Professional liability renewal, which asks about fee disputes
What the review would ask you for
9 requests written for an accountancy firm
and asked of nobody else — 5 of them core. They sit alongside
the operating spine every business has — finance, revenue, receivables,
payables, contracts, people, IT, operations, risk, commercial and governance
— which is 107 further requests.
Client list with fee, service line and partner CoreRecurring versus one-off, and when each fee was last changed.
Standard fee, billed fee and write-off by engagement CoreThree numbers describe the same job; the gap between them is the finding.
Revenue by client, largest twenty CoreAnd by partner — concentration in a relationship is a different risk from concentration in a client.
Chargeable hours by professional, by month CoreTwelve months, so the season shows.
Seasonal capacity: contractors, overtime and per-diem costWhat peak capacity cost, against the fees it delivered.
Client accounting / advisory engagements and their pricing basisFixed, hourly or value — and when the scope last matched the fee.
WIP and unbilled by engagement, aged CoreIncluding anything carried past the point a client will pay it.
Most recent peer review report and any findingsIncluding the remediation, and whether it was completed.
License and CPE status per professionalA lapse is a practice issue, not an HR one.
Anything you do not have can be skipped in one
click, with a reason. The intake is completed in the
client portal, which saves each answer as it is given and can be
returned to as often as you like.
When this stops being interesting and becomes urgent
Succession — a founding partner with no realistic internal buyer
A private equity or roll-up approach, which arrives with a quality-of-earnings request the firm cannot answer about itself
A peer review finding
Losing a top-ten client and discovering how concentrated revenue was
The season after a bad season, when capacity was bought and not recovered
Who this involves
Signs it: Managing partner or firm administrator
Resists it: Partners whose book realization is about to become visible
Has been asking for it: The rising partner group, who inherit whatever is not fixed
Who commissions it
Managing partners, firm administrators and incoming partner groups. Phase one is priced before phase two is
discussed, the report is yours either way, and we take no vendor commissions or referral
fees on anything we recommend.
The proposal sets out the sequence week by
week, what we would need from you, and what it costs for your number of operating
units. No call required to see the number.
Closest to this
Operations that share more with an accountancy firm than the sector label
suggests.