Busy team. Happy clients. Missing profit.
Accounting, tax, audit and finance services for UK professional services firms. We track what busy hides — recovery rates, project margins, lock-up and cash — and keep compliance off your desk.
Gross margin recovered
+11 points
Recommended action
Book a CFO review
Month-end close
4 days from 4 weeks
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OpenAI
Paddle
Snowflake
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xero
At a glance
Ascendant Accountants is a UK accountancy firm for professional services businesses
- Services: statutory accounts, bookkeeping, audit, VAT & marketplace tax, R&D tax relief, and EMI share schemes. Everything you need.
- Client size: from start up to £20m+ in annual revenue.
- Integrations: Shopify, Amazon, A2X, inventory and 3PL systems, connected via Xero. We work with what you have.
- Smart Finance Function™: Your end goal – a fully outsourced finance department covering month-end reporting, margin analysis, and stock and cashflow forecasting — from £2,000/month.
Turning expertise into profit is harder than it looks
Professional services firms sell time, skill and judgement. The challenge is turning that work into revenue, margin and cash efficiently — without growth creating more admin, more payroll pressure and less control.
Problem 1
Work done. Cash delayed.
“The team has delivered the work, but billing and collection lag behind.”
The team has delivered the work, but billing and collection lag behind. Payroll, VAT, tax and overheads still need paying before the client’s cash has landed.
Problem 2
Busy teams. Weak margins.
“A full team does not always mean a profitable firm.”
A full team does not always mean a profitable firm. Scope creep, write-offs, underpriced retainers and poor recovery can quietly turn good work into low-margin work.
Problem 3
Growth creates more headaches.
“More clients, more staff and more projects should mean more profit.”
More clients, more staff and more projects should mean more profit. But without better reporting, pricing and controls, growth can create complexity faster than it creates reward.
Our Professional Services
Finance that turns expertise into profit
Good professional services finance helps you price properly, bill faster, protect margins, manage capacity and make better decisions about people, clients and growth.
Faster Billing
Work turns into invoices quickly, invoices turn into cash, and billing delays are visible before they put pressure on payroll or tax payments.
Margin Clarity
You can see profit by client, project, service line and team — not just total revenue. The firm knows which work is worth doing.
Utilisation Insight
Billable time, recovery rates, write-offs and capacity are tracked properly. You know where time is being used, lost or undercharged.
Pricing Discipline
Fees, retainers and project scopes are set with margin in mind. Growth is not built on hidden over-servicing or founder heroics.
Hiring Confidence
Forecasts show when to hire, what roles the business can afford and how payroll affects cash, margin and delivery capacity.
Founder Focus
Owners spend less time chasing numbers, invoices and admin — and more time leading the firm, winning work and developing the team.
Results from our Professional Services clients
+11points
of gross margin recovered for a 40-person consultancy by re-pricing retainers and fixing under-recovery on scoped work.
£195k
of cash released for a creative agency by cutting lock-up — faster billing, tighter WIP and firmer credit control.
4 days
month-end close for a multi-office firm previously waiting a month for partner-level P&Ls by project and team.
Meet your Professional Services CFO
Let’s talk about your professional services challenge
Whether the issue is billing, pricing, margins, payroll, reporting or founder time, we’ll help you understand what is holding the firm back — and what to fix first.