Every October, for the past 3 years, I’ve kicked off my annual “Pricing Adjustment Review” for all of my clients. It doesn’t necessarily mean every client’s pricing increases every year. This is more art than science.

If you’re thinking about joining us at next week’s Pricing Increase Workshop (where I’ll cover increasing prices of current clients), I want you to come prepared with what your ideal prices are for new clients.

If you’ve ever prepped for a new baby in your family, you likely went through a “nesting” period. You built the crib, washed the onesies, and generally got everything in the right place before the baby got there.

At the end of every month, I block 4 hours on my calendar to plan out the upcoming month. Every 3 months, that time includes planning the next 3 months as well. This past Monday, I planned October and Q4.

Quietly, behind the scenes, Lou (my web designer), my daughter (the 14yo), and I have been toiling away getting all past newsletters loaded up onto a website. And…

Here’s a recent win from an Aligned member (shared with permission):

My first real corporate internship was when I was 19 years old, at a place called Hewitt Associates. At the time, Hewitt was a privately held company, headquartered in Chicago’s northern suburbs. The particular building I sat in was surrounded by wooded acreage right off I-94.

With absolutely nothing to do with running an accounting firm (because it’s nice to remind ourselves that we’re more than our work), here’s what I’m reading, watching, and playing.

If you read last week’s email, you know that we’re in the middle of playing “Is it AI?”, where you guess if I used AI to write my refreshed website copy.

Have you ever watched “Is It Cake?” on Netflix? Pastry chefs attempt to make a cake that looks like something else (purse, shoe, bowl of fruit, etc) and then three judges have to determine, from a reasonable distance, which of the purses / shoes / fruit bowls are actually cake.

Last week was county fair week. For context, I spent my entire life in the suburbs of Chicago until our family moved to very rural, very small town Idaho 6 years ago.

Only 110 days until Christmas, but more importantly…Only 25 more days until the Fall Selling Season. Why is September thru early-December a selling season for small accounting firms?

I started my firm in 2018, slowly, quietly, and watching every penny. It wasn’t until a few years in that I decided to head to my first accounting conference. 2020 was going to be the year I attended my first conference! (cute, right?)

I’m still processing Bridging the Gap (more on that next week?), but the biggest stop-me-in-my-tracks moment happened even before breakfast on the first day.

Your kids are teaching more about selling than you realize. In our house, it sounds like this: “Do you want an apple or strawberries on your plate?”

If you want to weigh less, count your calories. If you want to work less, count your hours.

Exciting stuff…I’ve been working with Fathom (forecasting software) on a thing. This month, we’re teaming up to do a live webinar walking through how I use Fathom to forecast my clients through this confusing economic situation.

When we (we = The 15 Hour Accountant newsletter community) started brainstorming ideas for Aligned Accountants back in December 2024, there were two clear asks from the group. Accountants in this community agreed that they needed…

We’re talking about the “casual drop” today…

When I was about 1 year into my accounting firm ownership life, I was in a Girl Scout carpool headed to a weekend jamboree camp.  Me in the driver’s seat, my newish mom-friend Amy in the passenger seat, and lots of 8 year old girls in the back. (I later found out that my spiritual gift is not carpooling lots of small children, but I digress.)

It’s no secret that I do my best to run my firm with iron-clad boundaries. But I do this from a place of being part of a two-income household with my husband holding a W-2 accounting job that offers health insurance.