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Accountants are increasingly feeling fee pressure from clients, according to new CBA research – just as negotiating pricing is revealed as accounting firms’ biggest challenge.
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Pricing pressure hitting accounting firms, says CBA
23 July 2015
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8 minute read
The CommBank Accounting Market Pulse, based on a survey of accounting firms around Australia, shows the top three challenges for firms in the current market are: negotiating price with clients; competing with other firms; and winning new business.
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Speaking to AccountantsDaily, Marc Totaro, national manager, professional services at Commonwealth Bank, said accountants are facing extra pressure as businesses try to rein in costs.
“Clients are demanding and expecting more value for their spend,” Mr Totaro said.
This means firms can no longer expect mandatory annual fee increases from longstanding clients, he said: “The days of long-term, unquestioned loyalty are over.
“Everyone is under revenue pressure and therefore costs are a big focus for all companies. One of their biggest costs is dealing with professional services, legal and accounting, and they’re asking ‘are we getting the best value from our professional services suppliers, such as accountants?’.
“Accounting firms are really having to adapt the way they service their clients and that is pushing a lot of the compliance-type work, the shared services-type work, offshore. There is a lot of offshoring, outsourcing: that’s to make sure these firms are as efficient as possible so they can minimise any fee increases for clients.”
In additional to changing price expectations, Mr Totaro said, accountants are having to deal with changing service expectations from clients.
“Different accounting firms are looking at the way they service their clients and maybe differentiating their service proposition to meet the needs of their different client bases,” he said.
“In an ongoing trend of diversification in service offerings across the sector, the move to providing non-accounting services has continued.”
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