Ignition was a real step forward for Candy. Before it, she had no system at all, and it gave her the discipline to send proposals with payment built in. But the platform's cost structure never fit the way she runs her firm, and over time the friction wore on her.
The core problem was the subscription. Ignition charged a flat monthly fee whether Candy sent one proposal or twenty. For a firm that sends under 10 proposals a year on purpose, that fee was not the cost of using the platform. It was the cost of keeping it available. She was paying like a high-volume firm to run a deliberately low-volume practice.
"It just felt very costly and very clunky. I would get frustrated at the thought of sending out a proposal because I didn't want to deal with it.”
Candy Bellau, CEO, Kramerica Business Solutions
Credit cards made the friction worse. When a client asked to pay by card, Candy had to rebuild the invoice by hand with a credit card fee added, either in QuickBooks or back in Ignition. The estimate never came out exact, and the extra step reflected poorly on a firm built on getting details right.
Then there was the annual increase. Candy had always written a yearly increase into her engagement letters, but with no automation behind it, execution ran on memory. Some clients went four years without an increase. Others got raised twice in one year. The mental overhead of tracking who was due, at what rate, on what schedule added to a monthly billing load Candy estimates at roughly three hours, alongside forgotten invoices her team would flag after the fact.
"I'd be stressed because I realized I haven't increased this client in four years. Or I'm doing increases and, wait, I already did it six months ago. With Anchor, that whole mental brain load is now gone.”
Candy Bellau, CEO, Kramerica Business Solutions
Why Anchor
Candy had known about Anchor for a while but kept deferring the switch. Moving an established client base felt like it would take significant time and energy, so she put it off.
Two things changed her mind, and neither was a feature list. The first was a peer. At Intuit Connect, a peer sat Candy down and walked her through the cost savings she had seen after moving to Anchor and how straightforward the migration had been. The second was the Anchor team itself, whom Candy met in person at the same conference. What moved her was how they treated her before she was even a customer, and a values alignment that matched how she runs her own firm.
The economics were the clearest part of the decision. Anchor charges $5 per payment with no subscription. For a firm sending under 10 proposals a year, that difference is the whole story. Ignition's fee was flat: Candy owed roughly $3,000 a year whether she sent one proposal or twenty. Spread across the fewer than 10 she actually sent, that subscription came to more than $300 for every proposal that went out, a cost that made little sense for a firm this deliberately lean. Under Anchor, proposals are free, and she pays only when a payment is processed.
The switch also fixed the credit card problem structurally. Instead of Candy rebilling by hand, clients now choose ACH or card at signing and Anchor routes the processing fee automatically. And the navigation she had found clunky in Ignition was, in her words, simply easier. Both the firm and its clients could use it without friction.
"One big difference compared to Ignition is the no-subscription model; that was expensive, especially when we do so few proposals. The other thing is it’s easier to navigate in Anchor. It's easy, and the clients have no issues with it.”
Candy Bellau, CEO, Kramerica Business Solutions
Implementation
The migration Candy had been dreading turned out to be the easy part. The setup she had put off for months was done quickly, and the experience left her wishing she had not waited.
Moving existing clients meant asking each to sign a new engagement and add their payment details. For a firm whose clients expect everything handled for them, Candy was careful about the framing. A few called to confirm the request was legitimate before completing it, and for anyone who wanted extra reassurance, she walked them through the setup on a Zoom call. No one pushed back on the switch, and several asked about the new platform.
Where the process got genuinely simpler was the point that used to be hardest. Clients now choose ACH or card at signing, and Anchor routes the fee automatically, so the manual rebilling was gone from day one. When Candy did hit a question during setup, Anchor's support team was there to work through it, and often ahead of her.
"Have you ever said, oh, I don't want to do this, it's going to take so long? You do it, and you're like, dang it, that was so quick. My recommendation: don't put Anchor off. Just do it..”
Candy Bellau, CEO, Kramerica Business Solutions
The clearest result is a cost structure that finally matches how Candy runs her firm. By leaving Ignition's flat subscription for Anchor's $5-per-payment model, she stopped paying to keep a platform available and started paying only when she gets paid. She estimates the switch saves roughly $3,000 a year. For a firm sending under 10 proposals annually, that is the difference between a fixed fee that ran regardless of activity and a cost that appears only when money moves.
Three other outcomes followed the switch, all reinforcing the same point.
Credit cards stopped being a manual chore. The rebilling Candy used to do by hand, adding a fee line item that never came out exact, is gone. Clients pick ACH or card at signing, and Anchor routes the processing fee automatically.
The annual price increase now runs on its own. A 5% automatic increase applies to eligible engagements where there is no material change to the scope, replacing a process that used to depend on Candy remembering. For a firm where some clients had gone up to four years without an increase, moving that off memory and into the agreement closes a gap that had been quietly costing her.
The monthly billing load eased. Candy estimates she gets back roughly three hours a month, about 4.5 working days a year, that used to go to manual billing, chasing which clients were due for increases, and tracking down invoices that had slipped. At the firm's $175 hourly billing rate, that reclaimed time carries real value as capacity she can point back at client work.
What Candy describes most readily, though, is not on the ledger. It is the mental category she no longer carries: who had been billed, who was overdue for an increase, who needed a new invoice because they wanted to pay by card. That load is gone, and the attention it used to take now goes toward the work she wants to be doing.
"I think from start to finish, the process to get on Anchor is easy. The cost transparency and savings is great. And I think it's important if you're looking at the core values of your company and the people you want to work with, that Anchor would answer those areas for you.”
Candy Bellau, CEO, Kramerica Business Solutions
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