Five key takeaways from our ‘Power up your practice’ virtual event

Important: This blog post was published before the government announced that MTD for ITSA will be delayed until 2026. Some of the information below is no longer accurate.

This week, we hosted a live virtual event to explore some of the ways you can strengthen your marketing strategy and deliver the superhero services your clients need. In case you missed the event, here’s a rundown of the key takeaways.

1. Target startups to grow your client base

Nick Longden, FreeAgent’s VP of Sales, began by sharing some statistics about the state of play for UK businesses over the past few months.

According to Companies House and the Office for National Statistics, there were 6,087 voluntary dissolutions and 15,846 company incorporations in the UK in the week ending 19th February 2021.

Nick highlighted that although some businesses are closing, the large number of new startups presents a good opportunity for accountants and bookkeepers to grow their client base.

2. Soar to new heights with your practice services

Nick then discussed how practice services are changing as technological solutions can now help with tasks such as data collection, reconciliation and analysis.

With the right tools in place, practices can choose to spend more time nurturing their client relationships and providing advisory services. This shift away from compliance tasks gives accountants and bookkeepers the opportunity to go above and beyond clients’ expectations.

3. Strengthen your marketing strategy

Ailsa Bates, FreeAgent’s Head of Content and Awareness, provided attendees with some practical tips to help them enhance their marketing strategies. Ailsa broke these tips down into three key areas:

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Ailsa touched upon the importance of local SEO, as clients will often include a location in their search queries when looking for an accountant or bookkeeper.

If you register your practice’s address using Google My Business, your practice will stand a chance of appearing next to the map in the Google search results for practices in your local area.

You can also ask your clients to review you on Google to boost your practice’s star rating. Positive reviews are likely to increase the visibility of your listing, so it’s a good idea to send a link to your reviews page in your emails to clients to encourage them to write a review. If a client is not happy with your services for any reason, you may want to get in touch with them to address any issues they have.

Content marketing

Another hot topic at the event was the importance of content marketing and, in particular, using blog posts as part of your marketing strategy.

According to Ailsa, you shouldn't worry if you don’t have much writing experience. A blog post can be a personal piece of writing where you express your passion for helping business owners and talk about your services and expertise. Try to post regularly and plan out your content several weeks in advance if you can.

Once you’ve published a blog post, try to make time to review your website’s statistics. You’ll be able to see how many views your post received over a certain period of time and get other handy insights about the traffic to your website that could inform your strategy.

Social media

Ailsa recommended being active on social media but warned that trying to maintain a presence on all the available platforms can be overwhelming. Consider sticking to one or two social media platforms that are appropriate to your client base.

Once you're in the routine of writing and publishing blog posts, you can use this content as the keystone of your social media schedule. You can also factor in timely social posts, such as your views on new legislation or tips to help your clients prepare their businesses before taking a summer break.

If you plan and write your social media posts in advance, you can limit the amount of time you need to spend on social media activity each week. Consider using a tool that allows you to schedule your posts in advance. You can check your social media profiles intermittently throughout the week if you want to respond to any comments.

For more tactics to help you develop your marketing strategy, check out our blog post on marketing tips for accountants and bookkeepers.

4. Keep an eye on FreeAgent’s new features

Kevin Lord, FreeAgent’s Head of Practice Enablement, provided attendees with a demonstration of our award-winning mobile app. He also talked through some of its recent updates, including the launch of ‘Capture for later’ and the option for clients to enable their bank feeds while they’re on the go.

Kevin then revealed some of the new mobile features in development, including the option for your clients to automate their receipt capture process using optical character recognition. This means that data will be extracted digitally from photos or scans of your clients’ receipts so you won’t have to type out their expense information manually.

Kevin also discussed our plans to launch a year-end company accounts filing feature in FreeAgent. This feature will allow your clients to approve their accounts before you file them and is the next step towards FreeAgent delivering a complete end-to-end accounting process for small business clients.

5. Prepare your practice and clients for legislative changes

Kevin went on to discuss HMRC’s upcoming Making Tax Digital (MTD) milestones and explained why now is a good time to introduce FreeAgent to any of your small business clients who don’t currently use accounting software. Here’s a rundown of the upcoming milestones in the MTD initiative:

MTD for VAT

The scope of MTD for VAT will expand in 2022. VAT-registered businesses with a taxable turnover below £85,000 will need to follow MTD rules for their first VAT return starting on or after 1st April 2022.

In the meantime, HMRC will stop accepting VAT submissions made using the XML facility from 8th April 2021. This means that you’ll need to submit your clients’ VAT returns via FreeAgent’s MTD connection with HMRC from this date.

MTD for Income Tax Self Assessment

MTD for Income Tax Self Assessment will be introduced in 2024. It will require self-employed business owners and landlords with annual business or property income above £10,000 to follow the rules for MTD for Income Tax Self Assessment from 6th April 2024.

MTD for Corporation Tax

MTD for Corporation Tax is likely to be the next phase in the initiative but won’t be rolled out until 2026 at the earliest. The outcome of a recent HMRC consultation on the introduction of MTD for Corporation Tax is expected in the near future.