Change to client services agreement

This is a template for a new letter to be used beginning today:

CHANGE TO CLIENT SERVICES AGREEMENT

The past six weeks have been unlike anything I’ve experienced in the past 33 years of serving in the advisory profession. I responded by increasing my average daily client caseload from 3 to 5, increasing hours and taking ‘shortcuts’ to established internal control procedures to help more clients. The results were disastrous. You probably ready about the sorry current state of financial response and tax law change. My peer small business accountants across the county are still reeling. At a personal level, I developed some stress-related high blood pressure symptoms and had to change my daily routine. All is on a good path now.

Going forward, I have adopted some changes to keep work flowing more efficiently. This will not change existing agreements or work in progress. However, new work will be scheduled on a more regimented and controlled process.

I revised my accounting service engagement agreement: the new agreement is split into two parts. One part is longer “boilerplate” and is used only once and carries from one task to the next. The second part is task specific. It is meant to be updated frequently as our work plans evolve.

The other most significant change is a required written financial plan for both individual and business clients. The lack of basic financial documents and uncertain strategy priorities is a serious underlying cause of much of the financial suffering we see today. If you have a plan, great, we will use that. If not, we will build it together. But I am now limiting my practice to those clients with articulated financial status and goals. This is a necessary change to ensure the highest results from our work together.

In your specific case…