01 · The Challenge
From day one, fixed pricing was central to the firm's model. That decision created predictability on the revenue side, but it also meant that billing, client onboarding, and collections had to run cleanly. As the firm grew, the manual processes that had worked at a smaller scale stopped being viable.
“I never wanted to be the firm that was always collecting receivables. Work should be paid for before it is provided to the client.”
Katie Helle, CPA and Principal Advisor, Scaled Accounting Solutions
In the early stages, handling billing manually was manageable. Katie would send invoices at the start of each month, and clients would either provide payment information upfront or wait until she followed up before paying. The process was slow, but the volume was low enough that it did not create a crisis.
As Scaled Accounting Solutions grew, that changed. Katie was spending approximately 25 hours per month on billing administration alone, based on her own assessment of the time involved. That included reviewing completed work against fixed-price agreements to confirm scope, calculating whether pricing needed adjustment, and manually entering client information across multiple systems. New client onboarding followed the same pattern: send intake emails, wait for information to come back, then manually key it into each system in the stack. From first contact to a project being live, each onboarding took close to three hours.
The proposal stage added its own friction. Sending a proposal, fielding questions about which service tier fit the client's situation, and waiting for a selection stretched across multiple email exchanges before any work could begin. The back-and-forth was time-consuming and, from the client's perspective, not a polished experience.
Beyond the operational drag, the time cost had a real personal consequence. Katie had built Scaled Accounting Solutions specifically to give herself time for her family. Every hour spent on billing admin was an hour not spent with clients or at home.
02 · The SolutionWhy Anchor
Katie first heard about Anchor through a contact in the accounting technology space who recommended it early in the firm's growth. She evaluated other platforms, including one she had used at a previous firm, and found that the pricing models of those alternatives did not work for a firm of her size. Most charged a monthly subscription fee on top of a percentage of collected revenue, which made the economics difficult in the early stages.
Anchor's processing-fee model, with no monthly subscription, aligned with how she wanted to run the firm. The platform was also more intuitive for setting up proposals and managing client agreements than the tool she had used previously. That usability mattered for a firm without a dedicated billing team.
The integration with Financial Cents, the practice management system at the center of Scaled Accounting Solutions' operations, was a deciding factor. When a client signs a proposal in Anchor, an automation flows directly into Financial Cents to create the corresponding project, removing an entire layer of manual data entry.
Implementation
Scaled Accounting Solutions connected Anchor to Financial Cents as the practice management hub. Client intake forms feed into the system, and once a new client signs their proposal in Anchor, the integration automatically creates the project in Financial Cents without any manual keying. The admin's role shifted from entering data to reviewing what came through and confirming everything pushed correctly.
Katie also restructured how proposals reach prospective clients. For most service lines, Scaled Accounting Solutions now offers three tiered options, each with an embedded video explaining how the service works. The video is tailored to the discovery conversation, so by the time a client opens the proposal, they already have a clear sense of which tier fits their situation. That change removed the back-and-forth that had previously stretched across multiple emails before a client selected a service.
03 · The ResultsEliminated Time-Consuming Tasks
The billing administration that had consumed approximately 25 hours each month, based on Katie's own assessment, is now effectively zero. Clients connect a payment method when they sign their agreement, and payments collect automatically from that point forward. There is no manual invoicing cycle, no chasing outstanding balances, and no reconciliation work across disconnected tools.
Client onboarding dropped from close to three hours per client to approximately 15 minutes. The admin reviews what came through the integration, confirms the project is set up correctly in Financial Cents, and the engagement is live. For accounting clients who need services to begin promptly, that speed eliminates the delays that used to push start dates back by days.
The proposal stage no longer involves back-and-forth. The tiered format with embedded video handles the questions that previously arrived by email, and clients arrive at a decision without additional exchanges. From the client's perspective, the experience is more organized and more professional than what came before.
“I wanted to scale my business, but I didn't want to be tied to my computer. Now I can add value to my clients instead of spending time on administrative tasks.”
Katie Helle, CPA and Principal Advisor, Scaled Accounting Solutions
The time recovered has gone toward deepening relationships with existing clients rather than adding volume. That was always the point. Scaled Accounting Solutions was designed to stay intentional, and Anchor removed the administrative drag that had been pulling Katie away from the work that actually matters to her clients and to her firm.
See what a consolidated billing system could do for your firm.
We’ll walk you through what an Anchor shaped transformation looks like for your practice.