How to build your company secretarial practice
As an accountant, offering company secretarial services to your clients when you’re already an expert in handling tricky regulations on their behalf makes sense. You’re well-equipped to make sure they stay within company regulations, which saves them time and stress on complicated administrative tasks.
At the same time, expanding your company secretarial service can be a great way to grow your firm. Here’s how to start building your company secretarial practice.
Work out how you’ll do it
First things first, we know that company secretarial services are about more than just submitting confirmation statements – and play a vital role in your clients’ corporate governance and statutory compliance.
The first step to building out your company secretarial service is looking at the skills and resources within your firm to work out how you’ll deliver the work. Do you have the right people in place? Is there enough time to add more work in, or do you need to consider capacity? What tools might you need to help make things quick, efficient, and profitable?
Tackle the top-level logistics first, and then get into the details.
Invest in the right software
Once you know you’ve got the right people, it’s time to look at making the work scalable. For that, you need repeatable processes that you can apply to each and every client. And that’s where software comes in.
By using cloud company secretarial software, you’ll be able to save time and work smarter – managing every step from company formation through to accounts production. By making use of automations and features designed to reduce manual input, you’ll also keep a tight handle on your new service’s profitability.
Features to look out for include:
- Integration with Companies House
- Filing confirmation statements
- Updating, editing or adding people with significant control (PSCs)
- Dormant accounts production and filing
- Automated emails and checklists (like CS01).
Work out your pricing structure
Next, as with any new service, you need to work out how to charge for your company secretarial services in a way that adds value to your clients but builds profit for your firm.
We’ve outlined how much company secretarial services should cost in a recent article for AccountingWeb, but, in a nutshell, consider the following factors:
- Time – how much time will it take you to set up and then offer the service, end-to-end?
- Risk – offering company secretarial services comes with responsibility, and potential professional damage to your firm if something goes wrong. Factor this into the cost
- Expertise – you’re able to offer this service because you’re an expert in your field, and your pricing should reflect the skills you apply
- Value – what ultimate value are you bringing for your client? What’s the benefit of them using your services, rather than trying to tackle it themselves?
Once you’ve considered all of the above, you’ll need to decide on the best way to package your service. You might perform isolated tasks (like registering a new company or making changes with Companies House) on an ad-hoc basis, and charge a fee each time, or carry out the full service using a subscription pricing model.
Start communicating with clients
The final stage of building your company secretarial practice comes down to communication. There are two ways to approach this.
First, remember that your existing client base likely presents an excellent opportunity for you to cross-sell into. Tell them directly, explain what the new service means, and don’t be afraid to offer to wrap it up into their existing pricing, if that seems like an option.
Then, make sure you’re telling new or prospective clients about your company secretarial services, too. You’ll need to detail it on the website – including the specific ways you can support clients – and make sure it’s featured prominently in your conversations or marketing materials.
By following the above steps, you’ll be well geared up to create a strong foundation for your growing company secretarial practice. As with all new services, it’s worth setting yourself some goals and targets (like a certain number of new clients a month) to keep you on track, and checking against them periodically to reposition things if you need to.
Our powerful company secretarial software helps accountants build their practice. If you’d like to try a demo, we’d love to hear from you.
