How do I start charging for business advice?

You start charging for business advice by invoicing advice your practice already gives, on its own line, for a fixed monthly fee. Pick two or three clients, name the meeting and the note they will receive, write the exclusions, and agree ninety days. Leave the compliance fee where it is. That is how you start charging business advice accountants have been giving away on the phone.

Do not wait for a new brand, a full price list, or an extra hire. Directors already ask your partners about cash, hiring, and margin. The first charge is for that conversation, made regular and written down.

Why unpaid advice never reaches an invoice

The bottleneck is not a shortage of judgement. Partners already tell clients whether to hire, when to chase a debtor, and which job is eating margin. It happens at the end of a VAT call, or in the ten minutes before a meeting the director asked you to sit in on. Nothing on the invoice describes it. The annual compliance fee absorbs it, so the client files it under goodwill.

Three unpaid hours a month with one client never become a manager's job, because the advice has no name and no boundary. Every follow-up question is treated as included. If you want to turn accounting clients into advisory revenue, the first move is one honest invoice for work you already do.

Why a compliance uplift is not a separate advisory fee

The usual fix is to raise last year's compliance fee and tell the team that advisory is now in the package. The client sees a higher total and no new service. Managers still have no meeting, no note, and no right to decline a side question.

A separate advisory fee is a named line with a date, a length, a written note, and a stop. A compliance increase does not start charging business advice accountants can point to on a bill.

Xero's Modern Practice Playbook (August 2026, from a survey of 520 UK accountants and bookkeepers in May 2026) reports that advisory carries the highest profit margin of any service UK firms offer, at 51%. Only just over half of firms currently provide advisory, and 19% cite capacity as a key barrier. Two in five practices that use value-based pricing say it has made their practice more profitable. Advice with no invoice line is still untracked time.

IRIS Software Group's anonymous poll of UK accountants (published May 2024) found that 60% charge separately for advisory, while 38% offer it as part of compliance work. If your practice gives the opinion and books it to the annual fee, you are in the second group. The first job is a separate line. Fee ranges for a wider catalogue sit in what accountancy firms charge for business advisory. Read that after this pilot has a name and a number.

How to start charging business advice accountants already give

The clean way to start charging business advice accountants will defend in a partner meeting is a short pilot with a written stop. Four decisions, made once, are enough.

• Who. Two or three directors who already ask for a decision, pay on time, and are not in an enquiry or a cash emergency. A first fee conversation during a crisis sounds like a charge for the fire.
• The name. Eight words or fewer. "Monthly decision review" beats "strategic support". A director should be able to repeat it to a co-director.
• What they get. One booked meeting of about 45 minutes, a one-page note of the single priority you agreed, and two email threads on that priority. Bill a fixed amount for the month. An hourly charge for the same calls turns into a debate about minutes.
• What stays out. Tax planning projects, unlimited calls, board packs, and weekend messages. Put the exclusions in the letter. If they want more during the pilot, decline it or wait until the term ends.

Say it in their words. The same rules you use to introduce advisory without an upsell feel apply here: start from the decision they raised last month, and make the exit obvious.

Here is a worked example. Treat the figures as this firm's own assumptions, not as survey data. Northline Interiors is a fit-out company with turnover of £2.4 million, looked after by a four-partner practice in Manchester. The partner already spends about three hours a month with the director on hiring, cash, and supplier terms, and none of it is invoiced. At an internal cost of £120 an hour, that is £360 a month given away (3 × £120). The first paid line is £350 a month, or £4,200 over twelve months (12 × £350). Use the review for a decision the director already faces, such as whether to hire a fitter on a £48,000 salary before the April pipeline is signed.

	Advice inside compliance	First paid advisory line
When	After another call, if someone has time	A booked monthly slot
Invoice	Buried in the annual compliance fee	Its own line and name
Scope	Whatever the director asks that day	One decision, with written exclusions
Record	An email thread	A one-page note they can reopen
Who	Whoever picks up	A named adviser, with the partner on the first two meetings

Before the conversation, write the fee you will quote and the floor you will not cross. If the director asks for less, remove a deliverable. Do not cut the number because they have been a client for years.

Run a ninety-day pilot before you publish prices

You start charging business advice accountants can explain to a co-director when the letter fits on one screen. Talk it through, then send the wording the same day. Attach it to your normal engagement terms so the new line sits inside the firm's advice scope. The ninety-day pilot is long enough for two paid meetings and short enough that a director can say yes. This sequence is commercial guidance for your practice, not a substitute for your professional body's engagement letter.

Letter you can adapt (swap the name, date, and fee):

From 1 December we will invoice £350 a month for a monthly decision review for Northline Interiors. The fee covers one 45-minute meeting, a one-page note of the priority we agree, and two email threads on that priority. It does not cover tax planning, more than one cash scenario, or calls outside the booked slot. Your compliance fee stays as it is. The first term is ninety days. If the review is not useful, we stop this line and carry on with compliance as we do today. I will send our engagement wording for signature before the first invoice.

Pilot checklist for this week:

1. List five clients where a partner already answers decision questions every month, unpaid.
2. Choose two whose directors raised a live decision in the last quarter: hiring, cash, pricing, or a lease.
3. Name the line in eight words or fewer.
4. Fix one fee, one meeting length, and two exclusions. Write the floor under the fee.
5. Have the conversation, then send the letter. Do not add the line to an invoice they have not discussed.
6. Book the first meeting before you raise the fee note.
7. After two paid months, count the hours. Invite a third client only if delivery stayed inside the cap.

If a client declines, compliance stays and the free review stops. When the hours on the paid clients hold, package a business advisory service clients will buy as a named programme.

Common mistakes

• Raising the compliance fee and telling the team that advisory is now included
• Emailing the whole client list to announce a new service line
• Opening the fee conversation during an enquiry, a year-end panic, or a cash crisis
• Discounting the first month because the client is long-standing
• Leaving exclusions off the letter, so month two becomes open access to a partner
• Letting partners keep the unpaid calls after the client declines
• Publishing a price list, or copying another firm's tiers, before anyone has paid for a month

Give the monthly fee a home the client can open

A fee with nowhere to look at the work feels like a charge for a meeting. Once the letter is signed, the director needs to see the priority you agreed and what you reviewed last time, without emailing the partner. Offer Elevale under your practice's own brand, as that client workspace. The priced advisory line then has a visible home, which makes the second invoice easier to explain.

Managers run the next review from the same record, so the line does not fall back into unpaid calls when another partner is on leave. The commercial offer still leads: the name, the fee, and the decision the client already cares about. Elevale is where the priority and the review history stay visible between meetings. See how accountants and financial advisers use a client workspace, and how the Partner Programme lets your practice offer it under your own brand.

Frequently asked questions

How do I start charging for business advice if clients expect it for free? Start with two or three directors who already ask for a decision, and keep every other client on the current compliance fee. Name a small monthly scope, say what is excluded, and offer a ninety-day term they can stop. Clients react badly to a vague line added in silence. They rarely object when the review matches a question they asked you last month.

Should the first advisory fee sit on the compliance invoice? Use a separate line and a separate name, even if it goes out on the same billing date. A higher compliance total hides the service, so the director cannot see what they bought and your managers cannot see what they must deliver.

How many clients should we include in the first pilot? Two or three. That is enough to rehearse the letter, the meeting, and the invoice. Add more only after those clients have had two paid meetings and you know the hours each one takes.

What if the director says this advice was always included? Agree that it was included, and explain that this is why the scope is now written down. Offer to leave compliance unchanged, and to stop the new line after ninety days if the monthly review is not useful. Do not argue that they have been undercharged for years.

When should we publish a full advisory price list? After the pilot has run for two paid months. A public menu before a paid review invites comparison and early discounts. Fix the name, the fee, and the exclusions in the pilot, then build tiers.

Next steps

• This week, start charging business advice accountants already trust you for, with two clients and one fee.
• Send the letter in a conversation and book both first meetings before the invoice goes out.
• Tell managers the exclusions so out-of-scope calls are declined, including by partners.
• After two paid months, read what accountancy firms charge for business advisory before you design tiers.
• Use the business advisory playbook for accountancy firms to connect this first invoice to how the work is delivered each month.

A separate line, a fixed fee, and a ninety-day stop make the first charge something a director can accept.