How accounting firms can scale their client advisory services

As client demands evolve, becoming a trusted advisor is increasingly crucial for accounting firms’ long-term success. Whereas business relationships were once purely transactional, clients today seek strategic insight and greater value from their accounting partners. To seize this moment, more and more accountants are expanding their impact with high-value client advisory services (CAS).

The shift to CAS is a lucrative one, promising higher profit, retention, and client satisfaction. A recent study by Thomson Reuters revealed a 113% increase in average monthly billing for new and existing clients, and a 25% increase in overall annual revenue within the first year. CPA.com’s Business Model Trend’s report also found that “accounting firms may be able to increase monthly client revenues by up to 50% if they offer strategic advisory services.”

CAS provides growth-focused firms an opportunity to deepen their impact with their clients. In this guide, we’ll share insights from our recent webinar on how you can build, scale, and position your firm’s client advisory services. Our webinar speakers are all part of Ramp’s Accounting Partner network, comprising thousands of seasoned finance professionals nationwide.

What are Client Advisory Services (CAS)?

CAS, the fastest-growing segment in the profession, refers to a variety of services that go beyond traditional accounting functions to offer businesses deeper insights into their finances. Services range from monthly financial reporting to virtual CFO work like financial strategy and forecasting. The practice can vary widely depending on a firm’s strategy, but at its core, CAS is about helping firms establish themselves as trusted business advisors. Here’s how our accounting experts are using CAS to differentiate their services.

Amanda Brower, CPA and Head of Customer Success at Hiline, says her company provides a full range of back office services through their CAS. “For traditional firms, I think it’s more about differentiating between compliance and attest work. For Hiline, what we do is provide the back office function for all of our clients,” shares Brower.

At Cherry Hill Advisory, a consulting firm focusing on CFO services, risk advisory, and cybersecurity, CAS is about delivering value to clients. “When we speak to new or current clients, the ethos is more than traditional transactional services,” explains CEO and Managing Principal, Mike Levy.

Jack Allen, co-founder and COO of Ballast Consulting Group, shares this value-oriented mindset. Ballast sees CAS as an opportunity to be a true strategic partner. “Historical financial data is not usually set up to inform future decision-making at our clients’ companies,” Allen explains. “Given the size of the businesses we work with, having a solid accounting foundation to feed the finance function is a necessity.” Ballast’s CAS focuses on integrating historical data with financial forecasts to boost performance and growth.

While the CAS model can vary from firm to firm, the building blocks for success remain the same.

Tips from the experts for CAS success

Here are five key insights for building and scaling your CAS program.

1. Consider a managed service model

Focusing on scalability at the start will position your firm for greater success down the line, empowering your business to adapt to market demands. At Cherry Hill Advisory, Levy optimizes for scale by ensuring his team offers a broad range of services, from financial planning to payroll. “The more value you deliver, the more your clients appreciate the partnership you have with them.” Levy expresses. “If you’re generating enough value, the revenue comes with it.”

To achieve scale, many firms adopt a managed service approach versus a staffed service model. While this model may require more upfront investment, such as hiring and training for relationship management skills, it allows firms to support more clients.

2. Align pricing to your firm’s service delivery

Key to developing trust is transparent, fair pricing. Pricing models can differ depending on the service delivery model, but often fall into three categories: fixed fee, hourly billing, or a hybrid subscription model. To decide which model is best for your firm, consider the following:

• Fixed fee: Cherry Hill Advisory uses this model because it ties back to the firm’s value proposition. “Hourly arrangements come with less risk, but this doesn’t always generate the value proposition. Clients may not want to discuss strategy or ask questions because of transactional, hourly billing,” explains Levy.
• Hourly billing: This approach allows Ballast to tailor to their customers' needs. “Our core service is integrated finance and accounting. We price these offerings based on an initial discussion with the founder or operator at the client, get an understanding of their needs, and then get access to books,” says Allen.
• Subscription model: Hiline operates on a subscription model and offers add-on services. According to Brower, “This decision goes back to the idea of stability for founders; we provide stable monthly pricing and implement auto-debiting. During the onboarding process, we make sure anything missed during the scoping process is identified. This cleanup work is priced as a flat fee. Scoping a lot of this as a subscription model incentivizes efficiency and shows client true value and transparent pricing from the start.”

3. Supplement expertise with the right technology

Great advisory services are made possible by great technology. To scale an effective CAS program, accounting firms must help their clients adopt the right software solutions to enable faster processes, analysis, and reporting. Hiline not only advises on clients’ technology roadmaps but helps implement them as well. Ensuring compatibility with core accounting software such as QuickBooks is important. “Our internal team’s sole purpose is to understand technology in the market, test it, and build partnerships,” Brower explains.

Combining process, people, and technology, automation tools offer drastic efficiency gains for accounting firms as well as their clients, freeing up time for more strategic work.

4. Unlock incremental value with a partner ecosystem

Technology partners can also help accounting firms gain access to new skills and solutions while expanding reach into new geographic markets and potential clients. “If a tech partner can make it easy for our firm to get up to speed, that’s a win,” says Allen. “This only works, however, if our clients are accruing some of the value of the relationship.”

Look for partner ecosystems that prioritize mutual clients. “The tools that make our lives easier and show a lot of value to our clients, like Ramp, [is] an easy sell—no brainer. Christian is our Ramp advisor and what our clients can get in terms of white-glove service through him, rather than going through the regular channels, makes us look awesome,” adds Allen.

5. Free up time for client-facing work with AI

AI is now a requirement rather than an opportunity for fast-growing accounting firms. Here’s how our experts are incorporating AI into their services:

• Low-value tasks: Brower notes, “At Hiline, we leverage AI to the highest extent possible, especially to automate ‘button pushing; work. We use RPA tools and databases, as well as robots, to do a lot of this work. This saves our talented team more time for high-value strategic service and advice, allowing us to price services at the price point with value and expertise.”
• Learning & development: Allen shares, “What we’re currently using AI the most for in terms of high-value work is in training and development. For a lot of our accounting processes, we record Loom videos, and then use Loom’s AI tools to create standard operating procedures. This saves time on building out closing processes.”
• Document review: Levy asserts, “Our core generative AI is a tool similar to ChatGPT, which helps generate commentary on financial statements and cleans up wording. It helps with more junior staff, providing a simple review before sharing with clients.”

Scale your CAS with Ramp

Let Ramp help enhance your advisory services with an all-in-one platform that delivers real-time financial data and automated savings insights. Our thousands of integrations help businesses easily integrate Ramp with their core tools. In addition, our accounting partners and their clients are supported every step of the way, with white-glove support through a dedicated partner success team. To learn how Ramp can help power your CAS offering, become a Ramp Accounting Partner today.