A poorly executed price or accounting fee increase letter can make you lose customers, fast. In this article, we share our top tips for communicating a price increase to your clients so that you don’t lose them but rather earn their continued support.
There are many reasons for a price increase and they are mostly justifiable. From a global economic crisis to realizing that you’ve been under-charging, to hiring new employees or getting new tools to improve efficiency. Whatever your reason, one of the major hurdles you would have to cross is telling your clients about it in a way that doesn’t make them feel cheated or taken for granted.
Most firms would communicate a price increase to clients through a letter sent via email or a client portal. Below, we share 5 tips to help you craft a clear and effective price increase letter plus a free template you can customize for your firm.
Let’s dive in.
Accounting Fee Increase Letter: Informing Your Accounting, Bookkeeping or CPA Client About Price Increase
Express appreciation
In writing a price increase letter for your bookkeeping or accounting clients, it’s important to start by expressing your appreciation towards them. After all, everyone likes to feel valued!
Customers who feel valued are happy, and happy customers will stick with your business.
Moreso, It’s especially important to express appreciation to your clients when you’re about to ask something of them. It will make you seem less demanding and more gracious. Also, it never hurts to acknowledge the contributions each client has made to your business.
This price increase letter template will help you to stay positive and appreciative of your clients while kindly letting them know of your new expectations for them.
Be professional
As an accounting, CPA or bookkeeping firm founder, one of your main goals is to present a professional image to your clients. You want to appear competent, polished, and diplomatic at all times.
A professional image communicates that you take both your customers and yourself seriously and will do a good job serving them. It builds your credibility and your customers’ trust in your business.
Our price increase letter for accountants, CPAs and bookkeepers will help you present your information to clients clearly and professionally, allowing you to build and maintain your professional image.
Be clear about the price and time of increase
Nothing makes a customer more angry and frustrated than being confused, especially if their money is concerned!
When you increase your prices, you want to be completely clear about the details. Make sure you include exactly how much your fees are increasing by and when the change will take effect.
Our rate increase letter for accountants, CPAs and bookkeepers helps you remember all the details and communicate them clearly, so your customers are not confused or frustrated.
When you increase your prices, you want to be completely clear about the details. Make sure you include exactly how much your fees are increasing by and when the change will take effect.
Maintain trust and credibility
Picture this:
At the beginning of your agreement, as stated in the accounting or bookkeeping engagement letter, your customer agrees to pay you a certain amount every month.
Later, you increase your prices, but the increase does not get communicated to your customer – perhaps because you were afraid of an ensuing conflict with your client.
After a few weeks, the customer realizes that you are charging them more than they agreed to pay. Now they are confused and angry, and you have to explain the change to them.
This is not a situation you want!
The above situation effectively wrecks your credibility. Even if everything was above board, your customer probably doesn’t trust you as much anymore. Clients don’t find situations like this funny when their money is involved.
You want to avoid this situation by clearly communicating with your customers about your price increase, even if it is intimidating.
(You may be interested in reading: How to Get Your Next 50 Bookkeeping Clients for Free)
Trust us. Your customers will be happier in the long run!
A carefully worded price increase letter template helps maintain your trust and credibility before your clients as it clearly spells out why and how you’re going about the price increase.
Download the price increase template
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When you make a change in your business, it’s essential to allow customers to ask questions and make sure they understand the change. After all, nobody likes to be confused!
When you send a price increase letter, make sure to include a note that invites customers to ask questions if they have them and clarify what you are requesting.
Clients are happiest when they know they have someone competent and helpful to go to when they have questions. And happy customers will stay with your business!
A good rate increase letter for accountants helps you stay clear and helpful and gives you a chance to invite your clients to ask questions if they have them.
You may be interested in:
Free Template: Accounting Fee Increase Letter Sample
{Insert Date}
{Insert Company Name}
{Insert Street Address}
{Insert City}, {Insert State} {Insert ZIP Code}
Hey {Client Name},
We are so pleased to be working with you and glad that you have been happy with our {bookkeeping services}. We have been {keeping your books up to date and your numbers look great}. Your confidence in {ABC Bookkeeping} means so much to us.
We are proud that we can help businesses like yours {keep your books accurate and up to date}. In order to continue to deliver great results we will be increasing our rates from {current rate} to {new rate}.
We will be rolling this out to clients immediately, but to thank you for being such a great client, we want to extend your current rate through {January 31st}.
If you have any questions about the rate increase you can reach me at {telephone #} or {email address}.
Again, thank you so much for being an amazing client!
Thanks,
{Your Name}
Download The Template for Free in Editable Words Format (.docx)
As your accounting business grows and your value goes up, your prices should increase too. But it can be scary to approach your customers with this change.
This price increase letter for accountants helps you to:
- Express appreciation to your clients
- Be professional in your presentation
- Be clear in your expectations
- Maintain trust and credibility
- And allow your clients a chance to ask questions
In short, it helps you up your prices while remaining diplomatic and maintaining great customer relations.
We also offer other template letters for free download:
