Do NOT price alone

A before-and-after exchange with a ReNew firm*.

Key takeaways:

• Raised the price by $2,500. There was still scope to increase price
• Added emotional outcomes
• Amortized the cost over the entities and took a leadership role. “It will cost $10,000 for the initial work (an average of $588 per taxpayer) and I’m confident the value will far exceed this price.”
• Specific about what was NOT included
• Held Zoom meeting to walk client through the proposal ie no hiding behind email.

Before:

Here are the outcomes of the setup:

• We will start Tuesday, 24 August and finish no later than Friday, 24 September
• We will clean up your Quickbooks online in order to provide clear operations and cash balance reports for:
• XX
• Name here LLC
• Name here LLC
• Your three daughters
• The Name Trust
• The three Trusts No. 1
• The two Name Trusts
• The three new Irrevocable Trusts
• The Name LLC
• The Name LLC
• The Name house
• We will not track any investment accounts (dividends, interest, capital gains), but will summarize distributions to/from those accounts as appropriate
• Ensure downloads are working properly in order to optimize your experience keeping things updated
• Optimize and recommend bill payment and recording for online versus paper payment
• Ensure best practice in bank reconciliations
• Set up the books so you (and we) have the ability to generate accurate, up-to-date statements at any time
• have up to 7 meetings with you, me, and my colleague to discuss and implement this work
• of course, you will have full access to me during and after this process, and our ongoing work will include maintaining the system we set up with you.
• it will cost $7,500 for the initial work and I’m confident value will far exceed price and it will set you and us up for success including getting a better handle on the price of the ongoing work. Does that sound like a good approach to you?

Final version

I will suggest a monthly price for the work enumerated in my Tax, Accounting and Advisory Services Proposal. But in thinking about that price, we have one significant start-up task, which is optimizing the accounting so it accurately and easily reflects what's going on with and between the buildings, trusts, and individuals.

Some of the broad goals are:

• You have peace of mind that I am able to provide backup to you and the family;
• You have the ability to easily generate appropriate reports to support our analysis, planning, and tax return preparation;
• You are taking maximum advantage of available technology to minimize effort (e.g. ease in paying bills, reconciling accounts, less manual data entry).

The accounting is the scaffolding that supports our strategic and advisory work. Therefore, it makes sense to tackle the accounting optimization first.

Here are the specifications and outcomes of the optimization:

• We will start Tuesday, 24 August and finish no later than Monday, 8 November (We will substantially complete the work much earlier, but this end date allows us to reconcile two months of statements as part of the setup.)
• We will optimize your Quickbooks online to allow you to streamline accounting tasks and easily generate operations and cash balance reports for
• XX
• Name here LLC
• Name here LLC
• Your three daughters
• The Name Trust
• The three Trusts No. 1
• The two Name Trusts
• The three new Irrevocable Trusts
• The Name LLC
• The Name LLC
• The Name house
• Some of these nineteen entities will have straightforward or even minimal activity, but establishing books for each is appropriate for financial and tax reporting.
• We will not track any investment accounts (dividends, interest, capital gains), but will summarize distributions to/from those accounts as appropriate.
• We’ll assist to ensure downloads are working properly in order to optimize your experience keeping things updated.
• We will optimize and recommend bill payment and recording for online versus paper payment.
• We will ensure best practice in bank reconciliations.
• We’ll set up the books so you (and we) have the ability to generate accurate, up-to-date statements at any time.
• We will have up to seven meetings with you, me, and my colleague to discuss, plan, and implement this optimization.
• Of course you will have full access to me during and after this process, and our ongoing work will include maintaining the system we set up with you.

It will cost $10,000 for the initial work (an average of $588 per taxpayer) and I’m confident the value will far exceed this price. Most importantly, this project will set you and us up for operational success including getting a better handle on the price of the ongoing work.

Before pricing, leverage the ReNew network and seek our guidance and input. You'll ultimately achieve far better outcomes on pricing work and any other advisory projects you set out to do.

* Pricing is covered in week 5 of RYAF.

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