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At a Glance
- 20% income uplift across the client base after a full fee review on Socket
- 1,000+ clients moved from annual to monthly billing
- 2 minutes to build a new proposal
- Previously unbilled services now generating revenue (from mortgage references to Xero subscriptions and tax investigation insurance)
- 4.67 out of 5 rating from a companywide client feedback survey sent through Socket
Ask Accountancy
Ask Accountancy is in its 25th year, serving over 1,000 clients across partnerships, limited companies, small businesses, sole traders, and personal tax. The practice has paved its way as a modern, better-value alternative to traditional high-street accountants, built on a Xero-first approach and growing through recommendations and referrals.
We spoke to the Company Director, Andrew Hurd, and Partnership Development Manager Jasmine Hurd, who joined a year ago and quickly took on marketing, business development, and client engagement, alongside dipping into payroll, personal tax, accounts, and admin and studying her AAT to become a fully qualified accountant.
The Roadblock
Before Socket, the practice's previous proposal and billing platform had started costing them revenue. Building a proposal meant entering a lot of information, and the platform would silently fail to send invoices without flagging it, so a monthly client could go unbilled for months before anyone knew.
Over time, similar work could be priced differently across the client base, without a consistent structure underneath it. Ad hoc requests were typically absorbed by the practice, because the time spent tracking what needed to be billed wasn't worth the recovery.
The Turning Point
A colleague flagged Socket to Jasmine after seeing it on LinkedIn. What stood out was how simple the platform looked, and how quickly the Socket team responded.
"What drew us in initially was just how easy the process seemed. It looked like really effective but simple and user-friendly software, and that's what we wanted. We didn't want all the fluff. It can be as simple as you want to make it. The initial back and forth was bang on."
Jasmine Hurd, Partnership Development Manager, Ask Accountancy
The migration itself was a simple spreadsheet upload, so no client details had to be re-entered by hand. That gave Jasmine the headroom to treat the move as a pricing reset rather than a direct migration.
How Socket Supported Ask Accountancy's Pricing Reset
Instead of carrying old pricing across, Jasmine ran a full fee review of every client. Pricing was rebuilt from scratch using Socket's pricing drivers, which enabled customised pricing and allowed the team to tie each fee to the actual workload rather than to client history or what felt right in a meeting.
"The drivers on all the services mean we can charge what we need to charge, and it's consistent across the board for all clients, rather than someone having a meeting and saying 'oh, let's charge this.' Everything's fair, but the drivers still let us charge flexibly for the workload involved."
Jasmine Hurd, Partnership Development Manager, Ask Accountancy
Following the fee review, overall income rose by around 20% across the whole client base, and the new structure was uniform: clients were now paying for the same work using the same logic.
"We have probably generated an extra 20% overall income but some clients' prices have gone down, some up by a lot and some about the same. What we have achieved I believe is a lot fairer charging structure based on uniform costs no matter the clients’ background or ability to afford it."
Andrew Hurd, Company Director, Ask Accountancy
The exercise also surfaced services that had been chronically undercharged, including Xero subscriptions and tax investigation insurance. Ad hoc work like mortgage references became viable to bill for the first time.
Alongside the fee review, most clients moved from annual to monthly payments, which has shifted the rhythm of the practice's cashflow. The end of year revenue spike that most accounting firms live with is now spread across the year.
"It's made cashflow a hell of a lot easier because we know exactly what's coming in each month, rather than waiting for December and January when we used to get most of our revenue."
Jasmine Hurd, Partnership Development Manager, Ask Accountancy
Once Jasmine had set up her proposal and engagement letter templates, proposals quickly became a two-minute job. Jasmine puts in the client name and email, ticks the services, Socket automatically pulls in the right service schedules, and all Jasmine needs to do is review and send.
"You do a few ticks and it's sent. We probably do one in about two minutes."
Jasmine Hurd, Partnership Development Manager, Ask Accountancy
Closing the Loop With Clients
Once the migration was done, Jasmine ran a companywide client feedback survey through Socket rather than the usual contact email. The questions covered what the practice could improve, and how clients had found the Socket experience itself: receiving the email, signing the proposal, switching to monthly payments.
The current rating sits at 4.67 out of 5 and Jasmine was pleased to share the results with the team, allowing them to pinpoint any issues but also to give a bit of positivity back:
"You tend to only really hear from clients when it's negative or when they need something. Hearing positive feedback was really nice and it gives motivation back to us."
Jasmine Hurd, Partnership Development Manager, Ask Accountancy
Favourite Features
- Pricing Drivers: the pricing logic that ties every fee to actual workload, keeping pricing consistent across clients.
- Pricing Templates: making proposal building quick and easy, with services ready to add in seconds.
- Proposals: rebuilt from scratch during the reset, now sent in around two minutes.
- Engagement Letters: generated fresh for every client during the migration.
- Billing: monthly billing replacing the year-end spike, with reliable, visible invoicing.
- Bulk Adjustments: ready to use for next year's pricing review, with the hard reset already done.
- Client Feedback Survey: a structured feedback questionnaire sent from Socket using the practice's own email domain.
The Results
The move to Socket has had a positive impact on the day-to-day running of the practice:
- More time for the work that grows the practice: With proposals down to around two minutes and billing running reliably each month, the team has time back for the business development and client engagement work the practice had always wanted to get to.
- Cashflow the whole team can plan around: Moving most of 1,000+ clients to monthly payments smoothed out the December and January spike, so the practice knows what is coming in each month.
- Pricing the team can stand behind: A uniform, defensible charging structure tied to the cost of the work means no one has to second-guess a fee.
- Releasing revenue the practice was previously leaving on the table: Ad hoc work like mortgage references, alongside undercharged services like Xero subscriptions and tax investigation insurance, now brings in income, feeding into the 20% overall uplift.
- A team that feels the wins: The 4.67 out of 5 client rating, shared internally, gave everyone a dose of positive feedback and a clear, shared sense of where to keep improving.
- A lighter lift next time: With the reset done and every client on Socket, future price reviews run through bulk adjustments rather than a client-by-client rebuild.
"It's been a bit of a lifesaver, really. So user friendly, so simple. It's just made my life so much easier at work."
Jasmine Hurd, Partnership Development Manager, Ask Accountancy
Looking Ahead
Ask are the kind of practice that's quick to test what's new: they trialled Socket Leads early on, and Jasmine is keen to try TaxScout when she gets the chance, to improve their visibility on client tax balances and speed up the process of tax due date reminders.
The practice are seeing the benefits of a fairer pricing structure and cashflow rhythm, and using client feedback to improve their offerings and team morale. Year one on Socket has given Ask the reset they needed, and now they are looking ahead to enhance client experience and profitability even further.
