Achieving The Change Your Firm Wants To See

This week marks the launch of a new initiative designed to help accounting and bookkeeping firms expand beyond traditional compliance and confidently deliver a broader range of advisory services that clients genuinely value.

“Achieving the Change You Want to See”, an ESS BIZTOOLS initiative, will run through to 30 June 2026, and is focused on equipping your firm with practical, ready-to-use resources that encourage clients to recognise your business as their Key Strategic Partner.

A Question Worth Asking Today

How many of your clients, right now, would describe your firm like this?

“Our accountant is a key partner in our business and our go-to professional for advice. They are extremely valuable to our growth and success.”

According to the Intuit QuickBooks SMB Navigator Report 2025, only 15% of small businesses surveyed currently view their accountant as a Key Strategic Partner.

That statistic represents one of the biggest growth opportunities available to accounting and bookkeeping firms today.

ESS BIZTOOLS is committed to helping you close that gap by providing structured, evidence-based advisory resources that enable you to deliver Financial, Commercial and Management Accounting Advisory Services with confidence.

Introducing Our Affiliate: TaxFitness

Benchmarking Against the Top 20%

Most accountants already recognise that:

✅ Compliance work is increasingly commoditised

✅ Software continues to automate routine processes

✅ Margins are tightening

✅ Clients are asking more strategic questions

The real opportunity lies in advisory.

However, advisory only becomes valuable – and billable – when it is grounded in evidence rather than opinion.

TaxFitness provides a benchmarking platform that compares your clients’ performance against the Top 20% of businesses within their industry.

Why Benchmarking Matters Now

✅ Automation is accelerating

✅ Clients expect insight – not just historical reporting

✅ Advisory requires structure and credibility

Benchmarking provides:

✅ Authority in conversations

✅ Confidence in recommendations

✅ A factual starting point for ongoing advisory work

If firms remain purely compliance-focused, the long-term outlook becomes increasingly challenging. Evidence-based advisory is the pathway to relevance.

Why Benchmark Against the Top 20%?

Traditional benchmarking often compares performance to the industry average.

But:

✅ The average includes underperforming businesses

✅ No business owner aims to be “average”

✅ The Top 20% reveals what “best practice” actually looks like

This approach answers the question your clients really want answered:

“How do the best businesses in my industry actually perform?”

Benchmarking to the Top 20%:

✅ Creates urgency

✅ Highlights opportunity

✅ Changes the tone of advisory discussions immediately

Key Outcomes of Top 20% Benchmarking

✅ Identifies margin leakage

✅ Quantifies performance gaps in dollar terms

✅ Highlights the 1–3 key improvement levers

Importantly, this is not about analysing everything.

It is about focusing on the few numbers that drive profitability, cash flow, and business value.

Benchmarking Is the Start – Not the Finish

While benchmarking initiates the advisory conversation, the ESS BIZTOOLS Starter Package provides the practical tools required to implement improvement strategies and guide clients through the full business lifecycle.

The Starter Package helps your firm deliver advisory services in areas such as:

Starting or Buying a Business
✅ Pre-purchase due diligence support
✅ Supplier negotiations and working capital considerations
✅ Advisory before business owners commit or resign from employment

Research & Development Guidance
✅ Step-by-step R&D process resources
✅ Templates, flowcharts, and documentation
✅ Opportunity identification for innovation-driven clients

Debtors & Cash Flow Management
✅ Implementation of structured credit control systems
✅ Prevention of excessive debtor days

Trades Industry Advisory
✅ Charge-Out Rate Calculator
✅ Profit-driven pricing discussions
✅ Evidence-based margin improvement

Ongoing Client Engagement
✅ Monthly Business Plus Newsletter positioning your firm as more than a tax provider

These tools enable your firm to provide meaningful, forward-looking financial management guidance – services that SMEs consistently report they need but often don’t realise their accountant can provide.

A Combined Advisory Ecosystem

Over the coming weeks:

✅ TaxFitness introduces evidence-based benchmarking

✅ ESS BIZTOOLS provides structured implementation resources

✅ The Boss Factor Library (featured next week) strengthens leadership and business development capability

Together, these complementary services create a complete advisory framework designed to help your firm achieve recognition as a Key Strategic Partner.

Special Offer

EXPLORE TAXFITNESS AND SUBSCRIBE HERE

The Opportunity for 2026

The firms that thrive over the next decade will not be defined by how efficiently they prepare tax returns.

They will be defined by how effectively they guide their clients’ business decisions.

Visit our website – www.essbiztools.com.au – to discover the detailed overview of the services provided by ESS BIZTOOLS. You are also welcome to contact us on 0418 190 181 or email .

Insights From Our Affiliates

Every Business Owner Should Know What Their Business Is Worth – Every Year

Every business owner should know, every financial year, what their business is worth.

Not because they’re selling.
Not because there’s a dispute.
But because value is the clearest scoreboard of how well a business is actually performing.

Most accounting firms only talk about business valuations when there’s a trigger - succession, sale, divorce, or funding. By then, the conversation is reactive, rushed, and difficult to scope or price. That’s a missed opportunity.

A business valuation isn’t just a transaction tool. It’s an advisory lens.

It answers the questions business owners really care about:
❓ What is my business worth today?
❓ What’s driving that value?
❓ What would increase it over the next 12 months?

Those are not technical questions. They’re strategic ones.

At TaxFitness, we’ve built a Business Valuations Database to make these conversations practical and repeatable inside accounting practices. It brings together industry-specific valuation benchmarks, common valuation methods, typical multiples, value drivers, and risk factors across hundreds of industries.

The goal isn’t to replace professional judgement.
The goal is to systemise the conversation.

When valuations are structured:
✅ Partners aren’t relying on memory or one-off spreadsheets
✅ Teams can confidently participate in advisory discussions
✅ Valuation insights connect directly to tax planning, benchmarking, and profitability

Most importantly, valuations stop being a one-off project and become an annual advisory conversation.

When clients understand how today’s decisions affect tomorrow’s value, advisory stops being abstract — and starts driving action.

Knowing the value every year changes behaviour.
And that’s where real advisory begins.

More info: www.taxfitness.com.au

Make sure to use the Referral Code: ESS100 for $200 off your annual subscription.

EXPLORE TAXFITNESS AND SUBSCRIBE HERE

ESS BIZTOOLS Podcast

Live Podcast with Darren Gleeson of TaxFitness

How do you achieve Key Strategic Partner status?

Join Darren Gleeson (Managing Director, TaxFitness) and Peter Towers (Managing Director, ESS BIZTOOLS):

Thursday 12 February | 11:00 AM AEST

Questions can also be submitted directly to

REGISTER HERE

Listen to more Accountants Minute Podcast episodes here

Want to know more?

Visit www.essbiztools.com.au.

If you would like to have a discussion about how this concept of virtual CFO services can be supplied by Australian accounting firms please ring our Managing Director, Peter Towers, on 0418 190 181 and we will arrange a complimentary 45-minute Zoom meeting to discuss your firm’s position and to give you our advice.

We believe that this is the blueprint for the delivery of an enhanced range of services by Australian Accounting and Bookkeeping firms to assist SME businesses to add value to their businesses and to assist accountants and bookkeepers not only to attract but to retain outstanding talent who want to be involved in the delivery of “real accounting services”.

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