For decades, accountants have been taught one core billing truth: Time equals value. You bill time, track time, manage time, and measure profitability by time. As a staff auditor, I recall conversations about "stay within the billable hours," but I always found it conflicting. If the scope grew, why wouldn't we charge for the additional time required? Over the past five years, I have seen this topic come up at summits and conferences. I even did a few presentations as I learned how to charge differently. Now, more firms are realizing that time-based pricing is killing their growth, profitability, and positioning. Time-based pricing cheapens your expertise, anchors your value to effort instead of outcomes, and commoditizes your knowledge. It is time for accountants to stop selling hours and start selling impact.
Small Mistakes With Huge Costs for Your Client’s Tax Returns
We’ve all been there. A client walks into your office and, somewhere in the conversation, you realize that a seemingly minor oversight, a missed deadline, a form nobody filed, an election nobody mentioned, has spiraled into a five- or six-figure tax problem. In my years of practice, some of the most expensive mistakes I’ve seen weren’t the result of aggressive planning gone wrong. They were small, quiet errors. The kind that happens when a deadline slips, an election isn’t made, or a form gets overlooked entirely. The tax code is unforgiving in these situations, and the IRS has little sympathy for “I didn’t know.” This article walks through some of the most common, and most costly, small mistakes that can devastate your client’s tax situation, along with practical guidance for avoiding them.
