20 Hours a Month of Billing, Down to 40 Minutes

For roughly the first fifteen years of running Spera, Janine billed hourly. Every invoice meant reviewing time entries line by line, and that review process left room for second-guessing. “There was just too much like negotiation in my head,” she said, describing the mental back-and-forth over whether a given hour was fair to charge a client.

That review burden had a cost beyond time. Janine estimates that at the peak of the problem, roughly 25% of her monthly billings never got sent at all. Even after she began transitioning clients toward fixed fees, that figure had only dropped to somewhere between 10% and 15%. Revenue she had already earned simply disappeared because there was never enough bandwidth to invoice for it.

Cash flow was reactive rather than predictable. “I did not have my finger on the pulse at all,” she said. “It was just super reactive and hard to plan for anything.” Collecting on invoices that did go out required ongoing follow-up, mostly by email, with phone calls reserved for the most overdue accounts.

"I know I was leaving money on the table because I was always behind and inevitably, I would forget to invoice someone or just simply run out of bandwidth to invoice.”
Janine Burke, Partner, Spera

Why Anchor

The move away from hourly billing wasn't triggered by software. It came from a mindset shift Janine worked through over years, prompted in part by a mastermind group of business owners in other industries. “That was a huge mindset shift,” she said of coming to terms with fixed and value-based pricing after a decade and a half of hourly billing.

Janine began transitioning clients gradually, running the new fixed-fee model through QuickBooks Online. It helped, but it wasn't built for the job. Invoicing was clunky, the interface changed often, and securely managing client card and payment information had become a real concern. She had already committed to a new way of running her firm; she just didn't have the infrastructure to run it cleanly.

That's the gap Anchor filled. Janine first heard about it through another mastermind group. By her account, the pitch was brief, about ten seconds, and it was enough. “I was at the perfect place where I knew that's what I needed,” she said. “And I have not looked back.”

Implementation

Client migration onto Anchor required sending new proposals and engagement letters, and having each client connect a payment method as part of the signing process. The transition produced no meaningful client resistance. Janine described the response as silence, in the best sense: there were no complaints, no pushback, no squeaky wheels. Clients completed their payment setup without friction and moved on.

The onboarding experience extended beyond clients. Janine noted that the Anchor team was responsive throughout implementation and available to guide her through the process. Today, nearly all of Spera's clients are on a fixed monthly fee with autopay enabled.

The firm's admin team handled client questions as they came in during the transition, walking clients through setup when needed. The conversations were straightforward, and the volume of questions was low.

"I didn't hear a word from my clients about the switch. So, no news is good news, right? I feel like you're always going to hear from the squeaky wheel and there were no squeaky wheels.”
Janine Burke, Partner, Spera

With the right infrastructure in place, the pricing shift Janine had already decided on could finally deliver what she wanted from it. Billing administration dropped from roughly five hours a week to about ten minutes. More significantly, the revenue that used to disappear, an estimated 25% lost to discounting, forgotten invoices, and uncollected payments, is now effectively protected, since billing runs automatically rather than depending on Janine's bandwidth to send it.

Cash flow changed from something she couldn't track to something she can predict. With 95% of clients on autopay, Janine knows within the first days of each month approximately what revenue has cleared.

The client-facing experience improved as well. The proposal and engagement letter process now sets a professional tone from the first interaction. “I definitely feel like it just makes us look so much more professional,” Janine said. “I get great feedback regarding our onboarding experience.”

"It’s not just the time, but it’s the stress. I don’t have that weighing over my shoulders all the time. It just allows me to be more focused on what’s more important for me: growing my business.”
Janine Burke, Partner, Spera