For South African accounting practices
You run the numbers for your clients every day. This is the one most practices never run for themselves: how many clients leave in a typical year, what each one was worth over the years they stayed, and how many you have to win just to stay the same size.
Your figures, in Rand. About four minutes. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent.
The commercial problem
A practice is paid in year three, not year one. So the client who quietly moves after one tax season is not a small loss — it is most of what that client was ever going to be worth. Three forces decide how often that happens.
SARS expected to issue about six million auto-assessments this season, and in July 2026 it extended them to certain provisional taxpayers. The once-a-year individual return is steadily becoming SARS's job.
The easy fee shrinks every yearFor many clients, the only contact all year is a request for documents. When clients are asked why they changed accountants, the answers are slow responses and silence — rarely the fee.
Same clients, longer relationshipsMost new clients arrive by referral — and then look you up before they phone. A website that lists services above a contact form quietly loses the referral you already earned.
Referrals that actually convertThe standing-still calculator
Move six sliders. It uses only the figures you enter, assumes no result and invents no clients. If you do not track your loss rate, count the clients who did not come back for last year’s return.
Your practice, using your figures
New clients you must win every year just to stand still
15 clientsAt 10% a year, about 15 of your 150 clients leave. Every one has to be replaced before the practice grows by a single client — roughly R 75 000 a year in winning and onboarding, while R 360 000 in annual fees walks out of the door.
Bring the loss rate from 10% to 7% and you keep about 4.5 more clients a year. Over five years that is roughly R 1 476 518 in fees — before a single new client is won, and without a cent of extra marketing.
A planning estimate, not a forecast or a guarantee. It assumes a steady loss rate and an average fee, and excludes fee increases, referrals, additional services and VAT. Years a client stays is capped at 20.
Why the number matters
Every client who leaves has to be replaced before the practice grows at all. That is the treadmill: referrals, proposals and first meetings spent simply getting back to where you were — and then the most expensive year of the relationship, all over again.
Keeping a client costs a fraction of winning one. The work is already understood, the books are already clean, and the fee arrives without a proposal. Every year a client stays is the most profitable year you have had with them.
In most practices the relationship between deadlines belongs to nobody. The work has an owner. The deadlines have an owner. The eleven months in between have neither, and that is where clients decide to leave.
Three things that are entirely yours
Six messages a year that ask your clients for nothing: the Budget Speech changes that affect them, the February year-end top-ups, checking an auto-assessment before accepting it, the provisional tax dates. Written once, sent automatically, in your practice's own voice.
One checklist per client, one upload link, and reminders on day 1, day 7 and day 14 that stop the moment the file arrives. The October phone calls stop being a partner's job.
Website and WhatsApp enquiries acknowledged immediately, followed up on a defined schedule and visible to the partner — so a referred prospect never waits until tomorrow.
What CRM Solutions builds for practices
The website is one part. The commercial value comes from how the whole client journey works together — from the first enquiry to the tenth tax return — and how clearly the partner can see it.
See how the engagement worksTwo or three packages named for who they suit, what is included every month rather than only at year end, and a first step that takes one tap on a phone.
A clear first-year journey for every new client, and document requests that follow up on their own — so year one stops being the year you lose money on them.
The year-round calendar, running automatically, so the client hears from you when something relevant changes — not only when a document is due.
Enquiries, response time, new clients won, clients lost and fees retained in one view — so you fix the most expensive leak first.
Evidence before claims
Structuring complex treatment choices into a calm, credible patient journey — with original treatment content, clearer pathways and visible clinical leadership.
Turning a specialist product catalogue into a premium commerce and education platform, where buying confidence is built before the cart.
We show what was built and why. We do not publish revenue claims without verified client data and permission.
The engagement
Nothing is due before the scope is agreed in writing, and the second half is not due until the work reaches the agreed milestone. Founder-led from the first diagnosis through launch — no page-count package, no junior handover, no disappearing once the platform is live.
Paid once the written scope is accepted. It confirms the engagement, secures scheduled capacity and allows strategy and production to begin.
Paid at the completion, approval or pre-launch milestone recorded in your project agreement — before final transfer or public launch where applicable.
Your accepted proposal always controls the exact total, currency, milestone, due date and project-specific terms. Full detail on the payment options page.
Before you ask
Because the honest answer depends on what is actually broken. What is fixed is how you pay: half to begin, half at the agreed completion milestone. The total, the scope and the dates are agreed in writing before a cent is due.
No. Your accounting, tax and practice software stays exactly where it is. We build the client-facing side around it — the website, the enquiry path, the reminders and the contact calendar. Where your software already does a step well, we use it rather than duplicate it.
Because a referred client looks you up before they phone. If what they find is a list of services and a contact form, a good share of those referrals never call. The website does not replace referrals — it stops you losing the ones you have already earned.
No. Client choices cannot be guaranteed and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. We commit to the agreed scope, clear milestones, thorough testing and correcting agreed deliverables that do not meet the approved specification.
No. It suits established, owner-led practices — from a sole practitioner with a few hundred clients to a multi-partner firm — whose client journey is not yet working as one measurable system. If the arithmetic does not justify the investment, Ignatius will say so on the call.
A focused commercial conversation
Book a 60-minute Discovery Call with Ignatius. We will look at your standing-still number, where clients are leaving, and which part of the gap is worth closing first.
Select a date, choose your local time and tell me what would make the conversation valuable.
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