Picture this: You’re an accountant making $180K in owner profit… working just 15 hours a week.

Sounds like clickbait? Nope—it’s Erica Goode’s actual firm.

Instead of chasing the “scale to 7 figures” dream, Erica built a lifestyle business a firm that delivers impact and profit without swallowing her life. Her hours are capped so she can spend the rest of her time with her kids, her family, and, you know, actually living.

And here’s the kicker: it’s not luck. It’s design.

Getting the right software stack for your clients is a key part to achieving this dream level of firms efficiency, and a good place to start with that is with the sponsor of this edition of the newsletter: Brex. 

Brex is built by accountants, for accountants. With ProAccess, manage all of your clients’ books with one login, AI-powered workflows end-to-end, and referral rewards for every client you onboard. See how accounting teams close the books 3x faster* on Brex.

Learn more about Brex ProAccess.

*Based on internal metrics from December 2024. Past performance does not guarantee future results, which may vary.

The mindset shift: Enough is enough

Most of us are wired for “more.” Bigger firm, more clients, higher revenue. Erica flipped that script. Her KPI isn’t top-line growth, it’s profit per client per hour. If that number stays strong, she’s winning.

That shift, from more to enough is what let her stop at 15 hours a week, not 50.

The practices that make it work

Erica’s firm isn’t magic. It’s systems. Here’s her playbook:

• Ruthless scope discipline. If it’s not in scope, it’s either repriced or declined. No “quick favors” that eat hours.

• Tiered fixed-fee packages. Three clean options: bookkeeping, bookkeeping + forecasting, or full fractional CFO. Clients know exactly what they’re buying.

• Tech that saves a hire. She ditched Excel forecasting early and went all-in on tools like Fathom synced with QuickBooks. That single decision saved her from needing staff.

• Time blocking like gospel. Email is handled in a daily block, not in constant micro-bursts. Context switching is a profit killer.

• Niche focus. She serves consultants and agencies - clients who use similar tech stacks, making standardization and efficiency possible.

Each time she hit a time wall, she rebuilt a process. That cycle repeated until she reached 15 hours. Then she stopped.

The lesson for accountants

You don’t have to build a million-dollar firm. You don’t have to grind out 60+ hours. You can build something that funds your life, not consumes it.

That requires two things:

1. The courage to define your “enough.” (Yes, $200K is plenty.)

2. The discipline to enforce boundaries. (Your scope, your hours, your clients.)

And if you want proof it’s possible? Erica’s newsletter, The 15 Hour Accountant take you along as she shares the behind-the-scenes of running a firm that puts life before work.

Her reminder is simple but radical in a profession addicted to “more”: You don’t have to scale. You can choose to live.