Growth is only real growth when your profit is going up.
For many CPA firms and accounting practices, “more business” often means “more headaches” without “more profit.”
If your team spends too much time on multicurrency reconciliations or chasing documents, hidden operational friction is likely reducing your revenue.
With out free client profitability analysis tool you can cut through the noise. In 60 seconds, you’ll find out which clients are driving your firm’s growth and which ones take more time and money than they bring in.
To accurately calculate your "True Profit" figure, gather your data from the last 12 months and follow these steps:
1 - Enter Total Annual Client Revenue: Start with the gross amount you invoiced the client annually.
2 - Adjust the Realization Rate: This is the most critical field for professional firms. If you bill 100 hours but only collect on 85 due to write-offs, inefficient workflows, or scope creep, your realization rate is 85%.
3 - Log Your Service Lines: Add rows for different team members (e.g., Partner, Senior, Junior). Input the total hours they spent on this specific client and their internal "burdened" hourly cost (salary + benefits + taxes).
4 - Allocate Overhead: Factor in the rent, software subscriptions, and administrative support. Our tool calculates this as a percentage of your Adjusted Revenue. A standard firm overhead allocation is usually between 20% and 30%.
5 - Hit the Calculate Profitability button to instantly see your True Profit and Margin. The tool will categorize the result to show if the account is highly profitable or under-performing.
Not all revenue is created equal.
A big client can sometimes be less profitable than a smaller client that is easier to manage and takes less time.
Here are two scenarios where things are not what they seem and where Eleven’s profitability calculator can create the clarity you need:
On paper, this is a flagship account bringing in $50,000 in annual revenue. However, the reality under the hood is different:
This client represents a modest $20,000 in annual revenue, but they are highly disciplined and use modern, automated workflows.
The Takeaway: Without running this analysis, most firms would prioritize the $50k client while neglecting the $20k client who is actually fueling the firm's health.
For CPA firms and family offices, profitability is the key to capacity management and firm longevity.
No. This is a client-side calculator. All data entered stays in your browser and is not stored, tracked, or seen by Eleven.
Enter your internal cost. This should be the "fully burdened" rate (salary + benefits + payroll taxes). If you enter your billing rate, the tool will show zero profit because it will subtract your price from your price.
Yes. Use the "Add Service Line" button to include as many team members as necessary (e.g., one row for a Junior, one for a Senior, and one for a Partner) to get a full picture of the labor required for the client.
If you haven't calculated your firm’s specific overhead, a safe industry benchmark for accounting firms is between 20% and 30%.
Time is your inventory. A 100% realization rate is the goal, but manual document gathering and client delays often reduce this to 70–80%. If you don’t factor this in, your profit calculations may be overly optimistic.
Manual currency conversions quietly eat into your profits. If your team spends hours each month reconciling foreign accounts in spreadsheets, labor costs for those clients can quickly become much higher than for domestic-only clients.
While it varies by niche, a good profit margin is typically 20% to 30%. Anything above 30% is considered highly profitable. If your margin is below 10%, you are likely spending too much time on the client or not charging enough for the complexity of their work.
Our free Client Profitability Calculator is a great start.
For more complex calculations, and a host of other modern accounting features, try Eleven.
Designed specifically for the complex needs of CPA firms and Family Offices, Eleven automates the very tasks that eat your margins.
Eleven offers the professional-grade features your firm needs to scale:
