The Advisory SKU: Ending the Time-Billing Trap in UK Accountancy

Why It Matters

By decoupling fees from hours, firms can scale advisory work, improve margins, and position themselves as strategic partners, meeting growing client demand for proactive growth advice. This shift is timely as 75% of firms are already investing in cloud automation, making the transition to product‑led advisory both feasible and essential for competitive advantage in 2026.

The Advisory SKU: Ending the Time-Billing Trap in UK Accountancy

Accountancy Age · Date 9 February 2026

The traditional linear equation of more revenue = more hours is broken. As we move through 2026, the UK’s most successful firms are decoupling fees from time. By adopting a “Product Mindset” and building repeatable Advisory SKUs, partners are finally moving from compliance‑led “form fillers” to high‑value strategic growth partners.

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The “advisory gap” and the scalability problem

During the recent Leading Voice broadcast, Adam Branch, Head of Partner Enablement and Professional Services at Intuit QuickBooks, identified what he calls the advisory gap. It isn’t a lack of talent or expertise holding firms back; it is a lack of repeatable processes.

When advisory is treated as a bespoke service, it relies entirely on the capacity of a senior partner. It becomes an “afterthought,” as Emily Betteridge, Manager at BDO Digital, noted, rather than a core offering.

“The firms that are succeeding in offering advisory services are ones that treat it as more of a product offering and not just an afterthought that they’re tagging on just because others are doing so.” – Emily Betteridge, BDO Digital

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Turning advice into a “product”

To bridge this gap, firms must stop “selling the brain” and start “selling the blueprint.” This requires standardising expertise into tangible terms. Adam Branch highlighted the specific mechanics used by the UK’s top firms to operationalise this shift:

1. Value‑based pricing – decouple the fee from the time spent and anchor it to the commercial impact.

2. Fixed output – ensure the client knows precisely what the deliverable looks like.

3. Fixed scope – define exactly what the client receives (e.g., a Monthly Growth Diagnostic).

“Secondly, it may be that we can treat advisory more as a product and less as a service. So, you know, put it into tangible and standardised terms such as tiers or packages that you can then go and offer to your clients based on their needs, each with, like, a fixed scope, a fixed output and also a fixed value‑based price.” – Adam Branch, Intuit QuickBooks

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Why clean data is the “raw material”

You cannot build a reliable product on unreliable data. For an advisory SKU to be profitable, the “Digital Engine” behind it must be automated. The Accountancy Age 50+50 report shows that technology spend has moved from pilots to embedded use, with 75 % of firms now investing in cloud accounting and automation.

By using platforms that offer automated bank feeds, receipt capture, and auto‑categorisation, firms free up the time necessary to move from talking about “what happened” to strategic conversations about “what is coming next.”

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The “invoice test”

The ultimate sign of success in this transition is how your client perceives your value. If your billing is still tied to “filling in forms,” your brand identity remains anchored to compliance – a low‑margin burden.

Adam Branch proposed a simple test for every UK partner:

“If your client sees your invoice and immediately thinks ‘tax return,’ I believe you failed. But if they see your invoice and they start thinking ‘strategic growth partner,’ then I think you are very much on the right road.”

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Summary: The 90‑day shift

Transitioning to a product‑led model requires a deliberate choice to stop chasing every new tool and start building a unified platform. As the 50+50 rankings consistently show, the firms pulling ahead are those that simplify their tech stacks and treat technology as a long‑term commercial capability.

The goal for 2026 is clear: move beyond the timesheet, build a “digital engine” that does the heavy lifting, and package your expertise into products that deliver high‑value strategy without burning out your team.