Author: Jennifer Walleman
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2025 issue of the South Carolina CPA Report
What’s more valuable: an hour of work—or the results it creates? For Kyle Eller, the answer was clear.
Eller is the owner and principal manager of Capstone Accounting and Advisory Group, a firm with locations in Lancaster and Fort Mill, South Carolina. Formed through the acquisition of two established firms, Capstone serves approximately 1,000 clients and supports a wide range of individuals and businesses across the region.
From the outset of acquiring the first firm in 2024, Eller’s goal has been to modernize operations — shifting the focus from tracking hours to delivering results.
“I don’t want myself and my staff to be beholden to just tax returns for us to be successful,” Eller said. “I think there’s a lot of opportunity for businesses, young businesses and even mature businesses looking to grow. They need advisory work, but I know a lot of them are scared of the inconsistencies of billable hours.”
He’s implemented a value-based pricing model, which means clients are charged based on the value of the service — not the time it takes to complete it.
“We’re not billing you for every six minutes of a phone call that you’re calling into our firm and asking questions or sending an email,” Eller said.
Eller first became interested in value-based pricing after seeing it gain traction among younger professionals. After doing some research on it, transitioning just made sense.
“Getting out of the tax shop and kind of getting to a point where we’re not keeping track of time throughout the year and billing it on a tax return or billing it throughout is something where we can protect our time and protect what we are doing.”
To set pricing, Eller and his managerial team meet and determine a number of factors. While time is considered, pricing is primarily based on impact—such as time saved, strategic decisions supported, or improved cash flow.
For many clients—especially growing businesses—Eller’s firm offers tiered service proposals that may include bookkeeping, quarterly or monthly tax planning, and advisory services. Higher tiers often provide CFO-level support, such as forecasting, capital planning, and strategic decision-making. Each tier is priced to reflect the scope, frequency, and complexity of service, typically starting around $1,000 per month. While tax return preparation is usually billed separately, core services are bundled to create consistent, transparent pricing. Eller also considers the return on investment (ROI) for each engagement, aiming to deliver significantly more value than clients pay in fees.
“We do try to be cognizant that they aren’t just giving us $1,000 a month for nothing,” he said. “Our hope is that they’re giving us $1,000 a month and we’re turning around and able to allow them to generate $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 in sales or profit margin against the advice, planning, and efforts we are putting into that service.”
Ultimately, the aim is to create consistent, transparent pricing for the client and create a sustainable way for the firm to scale without relying on hourly billing.
Strategizing for the Future
Eller’s shift to value-based pricing isn’t just about improving client experience. It’s part of a long-term vision.
His goal is to grow the combined business to $1 million in annual revenue by working closely with a targeted group of clients who value advisory services and guidance.
As new clients come on board, he anticipates hiring strategically and bringing in staff who can manage a defined set of client accounts. This helps prevent staff burnout and preserves margins.
Rather than trying to serve every type of client, Eller focuses on targeting businesses that are ready to grow with services like fractional CFO support, cash flow forecasting, capital planning, and long-term strategy.
Growing Pains Worth Facing
When first transitioning to value-based pricing, the biggest challenges came with communicating its value — to both longtime staff and legacy clients.
Eller said that it was a culture shift for staff to grasp that a customer would be willing to pay a monthly fee.
“They hear $1,000 a month and go, ‘Where are you getting these clients like that? Who’s going to pay $1,000 a month for what we do?’” Eller said. “Folks who believe in what we’re doing and know that we’re going to get it done.”
Building understanding with staff that their time and services are valuable has been crucial to buy-in, Eller said. They no longer have to hit a set number of billable hours or time goals.
Clients were used to paying once a year after work was completed, but this often led to unpredictable totals based on primarily tax prep and whatever came up throughout the year.
Eller knew that he didn’t want to continue what he dubbed, “the rack model” — a review-adjust-close process that lumped time-based charges into the annual tax bill.
“I cannot continue to do that to clients when they come to us in March, and we’re charging them a couple thousand for a tax return and then adding another couple thousand to some random time build fee that accumulated throughout the years,” Eller said.
Alternatively, that amount can spread out over the year and provide an element of consistency.
“Like any other monthly vendor contract or monthly bill that you have, you know that you’re sending us $1,500 a month,” Eller said. “It’ll be the first of the month, and you’ll know exactly what month it’s for.”
For the right clients, the value-based model is worth it — especially when it comes to saving time, Eller said.
“The value pricing is related to the time a business owner is saving not having to do their books at 8 or 9 at night when they finally get to go home and see their families,” he said. “If you are not good at something, you shouldn’t be taking the time to do it. You should outsource it.”
Firms Making the Switch
Transitioning to value-based pricing isn’t all smooth sailing. Sometimes the firm eats costs.
“There are going to be projects that might come up early that end up not being a profit margin for us,” Eller said. “We do sink a lot of time into it, and we end up looking back and we only got $1,200 for that month, but we ended up doing about $4,000 or $5,000 worth of work. The hope is that we don’t continually have those projects come up for that client.”
For firms considering a value-based model, he recommends looking at the client profile as a starting point for pricing.
“If you’ve got consistent clients, I think the best thing to do is to pull what that client is doing for you each year in terms of revenue and at least using that as a base,” Eller said.
He also said the model isn’t for everyone. A firm’s size, structure, and client base play a role in whether it’s a practical fit. Their clients also have to see the value of accountants. Eller encourages firms to assess their value and define their key performance indicators to measure if it’s a good fit.
But for the firms where it does make sense, the model can prove valuable — and even help shift the profession.
“We don’t have to scrape for 5-6 months out of the year, pull our hair out during tax season, and then burn cash for the other six months,” Eller said. “There are great opportunities here for us all to be successful.”
