Get real about costs or you'll be left behind by inflation

Accounting firms need to focus on their real expenses and review their prices or get left behind by inflation and interest rates rises, says Rebecca Mihalic, a director at eastern seaboard accounting practice BusinessDepot. "We spend a lot of time focused on making sure our clients are still profitable and they're staying solvent – we need to have a look internally," Ms Mihalic said on this week's Accountants Daily podcast. "Even if you don't bill by the hour anymore, and there's lots of us who don't, you're still probably determining whether or not you're profitable on a client by looking at an hourly rate associated with a timesheet. "I would suggest that hand-in-hand with that you should also be looking at the actual costs that are going on in your business and whether or not those costs are being supported by your pricing. "I could guarantee at the moment – unless you've done huge pricing reviews recently – you're probably losing out and will continue to lose out moving forward."