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Accounting & Consulting Services <$30m category
How are the Awards judged?
Entry into the Client Choice Awards is free.
The Awards for this category are judged purely on the survey scores we receive back from your clients.
Our online survey asks your clients to rate and comment on your firms’ performance in delivering services on a range of criteria including quality, value for money, price and innovation.
What results do I get?
All firms entering this Awards category will receive a summarised copy of the feedback collected from their clients as surveys are completed (aside from those clients who opt to remain anonymous), to keep track of how they are performing.
Judging of category winners will take place after the survey period closes and all Winners will be announced in March 2025.
Following the Winners announcement, participants will be able to purchase additional reports produced by Beaton:
- Firm feedback report – a detailed analysis of all the feedback collected from your firm’s clients for all the questions in our survey and with functionality to filter the results by service line, client industry sector and geography (where applicable)
- Industry benchmarking report – an aggregated report of all data collected as part of the Client Choice Awards allowing you to benchmark the performance of your firm at a service line, client industry sector and geography level (subject to the number of firms entering and the volume of sample collected)
The prices for these reports will be announced in due course and communicated to all entrants.
What do I have to do?
- Sign up by clicking one of the ‘Enter now!’ buttons below
- During the next working day following your entry we will email you with your firm’s unique survey link which you can begin sending out to clients and start collecting feedback. You are in charge of when invitations and reminders are sent so you can time these to best suit your clients
- We’ll email you each time a client completes a survey allowing you to act on the feedback if necessary and remove that client from future emailing campaigns
- Surveying will close on 14 February 2025 with Winners announced on 26 March 2025
- Following the announcement of the Winners, all firms who have purchased additional feedback reports will have these made available to them
What do previous entrants have to say?
Key dates
These are the key dates for the 2025 Client Choice Awards which you need to know:
Stage | Dates |
Entries Open Entries Close | 24 June 2024 30 November 2024 |
Surveying Starts Surveying Ends | 19 June 2024 14 February 2025 |
Winners Announced | 26 March 2025 |
FAQs
1. Who is eligible to enter the Accounting & Consulting Services category?
This Awards category is open to any organisation offering the following services in the accounting and consulting space:
- Audit
- Bookkeeping & payroll
- Business advisory
- Company secretarial
- HR consulting
- Management consulting
- SMSF
- Tax
2. Can we register in more one than category?
Yes, you can select as many service lines as are applicable to your organisation during the sign-up process.
During the survey your client will be asked to select the type of services they have received from you and then go on to provide their feedback on them.
3. What Awards can we win?
Entrants in the Accounting & Consulting Services Awards category can win the following Awards:
- Best Audit Firm (<$30m revenue)*
- Best Bookkeeping & Payroll Firm (<$30m revenue)*
- Best Business Advisory Firm (<$30m revenue)*
- Best Company Secretarial Firm (<$30m revenue)*
- Best HR Consulting Firm(<$30m revenue)*
- Best Management Consulting Firm (<$30m revenue)*
- Best SMSF Firm (<$30m revenue)*
- Best Tax Firm (<$30m revenue)*
- Best Accounting & Consulting Services Firm (less than $30m)
- Best Professional Services Firm (less than $30m)
* The above marked awards are subject to sufficient entrants taking part
4. How do our clients complete the survey?
We will provide you with your unique survey URL which you can send out to clients inviting them to provide feedback.
The survey takes less than 5 minutes to complete and asks your clients to rate and comment on your firms’ performance in delivering services on a range of criteria including quality, value for money, price and innovation.
5. How many clients do we have to survey?
To be eligible to win the Best Accounting & Consulting Services Firm (<$30m revenue) award, your firm must receive at least 30 unique responses (unique individuals rather than unique client organisations) which is the threshold required to deem your data sample statistically valid. To be eligible to win one of the Accounting & Consulting Services Specialist Awards (Best Audit Firm, Best Tax Firm etc.) then you must collect at least 10 unique responses from clients who have received the corresponding type of services. We recommend that when the survey period opens you send your survey link to all clients who have received services from your firm in the last 3 years. The survey period will remain open until 14 February 2025 and during this time you should send regular reminders to your historic client list as well as inviting any new clients that have come on board in the meantime. This approach will help to ensure you collect as much valuable feedback from clients as possible.
6. What if we don’t have enough clients to survey?
We understand that a lot of firms in this category work on a small number of large projects and as such might not be able to reach the required 30 responses to be eligible to win an Award.
In the 15 years we have run the Client Choice Awards firms return year on year simply because the feedback gained is so valuable. While it is great to win an Award and reap the benefits that come from that, the biggest benefit is being able to have your finger on the pulse of what your clients really think about the service you provide.
7. Whom are we competing against?
For all the Awards listed above bar the Best Professional Services Firm (less than $30m) you will be competing against other firms who have entered the Accounting & Consulting Services category.
For the Best Professional Services Firm (less than $30m) Award you will be competing against all firms who have entered the Client Choice Awards across all categories (Accounting & Consulting Services, Built & Natural Environment Consulting, Law & Related Services, and Specialist IP & Related Services).
8. What kind of reporting do we get with our free entry?
Once surveying has started, you will be automatically emailed each time one of your clients completes a survey allowing you to both action the feedback straight away and remove that client from future reminders you choose to send out.
9. Are there additional reports available that we can purchase?
After the Award Winners are announced in March 2025, entrants can purchase a detailed feedback report containing all the feedback collected from your clients. This report will give you a snapshot of how your firm is performing down to a service line, geographic and client industry sector level.
An example of this report can be found here.
Subject to the number of firms entering and the volume of sample collected, Beaton will also produce an industry level report containing industry sector, service line and geographical benchmarks to which you can compare your own firms’ results.
These reports will be available for an additional cost and further details will be announced in due course.
10. Do I have to purchase a Beaton report to be eligible to win an Award?
Judging the Awards is not related in any way to whether a firm does or doesn’t subscribe to Beaton’s reports.
11. How secure is our client data?
Beaton makes the utmost effort to ensure the security of your client data.
The invitations for these surveys are the responsibility of solely your firm and, as such, no client list is required to be submitted to Beaton.
Beaton collects the name and email address of each respondent during the survey for verification purposes (i.e. making sure the respondent is a real person) and to identify the individual alongside their scores in your feedback report should they choose to disclose their identity.
Survey data is stored only on secure servers. These servers are encrypted so that if the servers themselves are physically stolen the client files still cannot be accessed. Access to these encrypted servers is restricted to the Beaton research team.
12 months after issuing firms with their feedback reports, Beaton will delete all client data within these reports such that, should you request a replacement copy, you will still see the scores your clients gave you but not which client gave which score.
12. Will our client data be used for anything else?
Respondents have the option of opting in to be a part of future studies conducted by Beaton. The answer to this question is completely up to the respondent and is not a pre-checked checkbox.
A respondent who indicates they are happy to be contacted in the future may be invited from time-to-time to take part in other research related to professional services.
The details of all other clients who choose not to opt-in to future studies conducted by Beaton will be deleted 12 months after feedback reports have been sent out, as per above.
Still have questions? Please contact us and one of our team will be in touch to help.