Change is good. I’ve always looked forward to new experiences. As a rule, I embrace change.

This year has been one of change for Kildal Services LLC. We instituted our Base Plus billing, rather than continuing to try to make standard packages work. We began using a standard format for all client email communication.

We also began offering the QuickReview. I love the QuickReview, and I think the clients do too.

What is it? Let’s back up to the beginning of the relationship.

When the client first contacts us, and we start our initial conversations, via email and phone calls, about what their issues are and what they’re looking for us to do – this is is the flirting, if you will – the getting to know each other a little bit.

When clients contact us, many times they’re aware that their books are not right. They’re usually not sure exactly why, but they do know that they’re not able to get the information they need and/or want from the software they’re using, so we take the time to find out what they need and explain how we can help. We ask what they do, how they do it, and who does it. Once we have a good grasp of that, we move to the next step.

This is the QuickReview. It’s sort of the first date with the client. We know what they’re interested in, we know they’re interested in what we have to offer.

With a QuickReview, we ask for a small, prepaid fee to do a high level review of their accounting data. Usually a 24 hour turn around once we have payment and access to the data, we then tell provide them with a list of what needs to be completed to it up, or correct setup. We offer an estimate for the cost to do it, and then let them know that we will apply the QuickReview fee towards these services.

Most of the time, the clients hire us to do the clean up, but sometimes they take our list and do the work themselves. Either way, it’s a win-win for everyone. We’ve been paid for the work we’ve put into looking at the client’s information, and they feel they are getting a fair price by having us apply that fee towards any clean up work we’ll be doing in the futures – which would be billing for anyway. Also, it serves as a way to weed out clients that may not value our time, experience and expertise as much as others. We find that the ones that decline the QuickReview seem to be confirm our initial gut instinct: they want us to tell them what’s wrong and how to fix it for free.

I’m glad we’re changing, and so far, it seems like our clients do as well.