Four-day-week may not work for smaller firms, ICAEW told

Smaller accountancy firms have warned that a four-day-week may not work for the accountancy sector, according to the ICAEW. 

It comes as the four-day-week trial in the UK, coordinated by 4 Day Week Global, is just over two months into its pilot.

David Webb, director and shareholder of Edwards Chartered Accountants, told the association: “In my opinion, it is not going to work because you’re going to get clients who are disgruntled on a Friday or Monday because they can’t get the advice they want on a particular day. Broken down, clients want answers pretty much straight away, so you have to make yourself available.”

Webb noted that small firms like Edwards largely deal with family-owned businesses that want that closer level of service, adding that “accountancy is a service business and if the service is not provided then clients will go elsewhere”.

Webb also believes that the 100/80/100 system “wouldn’t be achievable for accountants” unless fees were raised to make up for lost capacity.

He said: “Employing the 100/80/100 rule would mean you’d have to increase fees roughly by 25% and I don’t think that would go down too well with clients. Because as a firm you look at the hourly capacity you’ve got under different grades of staff and you multiply that by the hourly rate, discount a little bit through efficiency, and then that gives you your potential capacity.

“Now, if you reduce that to 80%, to service your client base you’ve got to take on another quarter of staff to cover it and get back to 100% of hours worked.”

Webb told the ICAEW that the “big question” will be if firms go to 100% capacity within four days, therefore not losing capacity. 

He said: “Essentially this way accountants are working hard for four days and having a Friday off, but then the big drawback is not being able to service clients on the Friday and answer questions, which can lead to losing clients.

“It all falls down to service levels and if your service levels drop, you lose clients. But if your service levels are good, you retain clients and get a good reputation and gain new clients.”

Webb concluded that service levels are more important than fees as firms “have to give good service before they can charge a fee”.

He added: “I’ve been in the profession a long time and I suppose maybe I haven’t got total foresight with where the sector is heading. But I do understand that the business is based on service levels. It always has been and always will be. If you get the service levels right, you get rewarded, but if you get the service levels wrong, which occasionally you do, you get the sack.”