empwr. for firms - The offer, in full
A letter · private · not a sales call

How to lift capacity and profit in an accounting firm without hiring.

If you run an accounting firm and you are reading this, someone sent it to you or you went looking. Either way, this is the whole offer in writing. Read it, decide, apply. There is no call where I talk you into it.

Ten years ago I had one accounting practice. Today New Wave is an eight-figure, multi-discipline firm across accounting, law, financial planning, digital marketing and insurance.

I did not get there by working harder than everyone else. Plenty of firm owners work harder than me and are stuck at the same revenue they were at three years ago, taking home less of it.

I got there by doing the same three things over and over: find the actual constraint, fix the economics underneath it, then build the thing that removes it. Every time the firm plateaued, it was one of those three.

For most of that decade, the third one was the expensive part. Building anything meant developers, budgets and six months. So we did what every firm does. We rented software. Per seat, per month, forever, for tools that fit about seventy percent of how we actually work.

Then the maths changed

Over the last six months we have built AI directly into how New Wave runs. Not ChatGPT for emails. Actual working software, built by accountants, running on our own data.

  • BAS preparation and review, built off live Xero and practice-manager data
  • AML and client onboarding compliance
  • Bookkeeping review that flags issues before a human sees the file
  • AI meeting notes that write themselves into the practice manager
  • Client letters, structure charts, valuations, e-signing
  • A leadership console showing billings, capacity and revenue in real time

Twelve tools. No CTO. No dev shop. No six-figure build budget.

The part that surprised me was not the time we got back, though that was significant. It was the software bill. We are on track to replace close to $100,000 a year of subscriptions with tools we own outright.

We stopped renting our firm's software and started owning it. That is the turn.

Why I am writing to you specifically

Every accounting firm I talk to is jammed on the same thing. You are at capacity. Growth means hiring. You cannot find the people, or they cost more than the work returns. So margin stays flat while you work more.

And meanwhile everyone tells you AI is coming for the profession, which is a strange thing to be frightened of when it is the most obvious tool you have ever been handed to break exactly that constraint.

Most firms have touched it. Almost none have used it to move a number.

What empwr. for firms actually is

A twelve-month program for Australian accounting firm owners, proved in the first sixty days.

It runs on two tracks at once, and that combination is the whole point.

The build track

You install a preset tool we already run inside New Wave, connect it to your own Xero and practice manager, add the AI layer with a human approval step, and put it live in your firm. You are not starting from a blank page and you are not learning to be a developer. You are describing what you want in plain English and tailoring something that already works.

The firm track

Software alone does not fix a firm. An owner who builds a great tool but cannot hire, delegate, price or sell still has a stuck firm. So alongside the build you work through capacity planning and unit economics, org design and delegation, hiring and onboarding, positioning and proposals, client experience and retention, and your own operating rhythm as the owner.

Each quarter pairs a pillar of the firm with the tool that serves it. You work on hiring while you build the capacity tool. On positioning while you build the sales tool. They reinforce each other instead of competing for your attention.

What actually happens

  • A private Gameplan session before week one, where we find your constraint and pick the tool that breaks it
  • Eight weekly group coaching calls across the first two months
  • Three install workshops where you get hands-on help with your own build
  • Fourteen modules and eighty short videos, released weekly, covering all seven pillars
  • The preset tool library: every tool we run, as a template you install and tailor
  • Then you keep building across the year, each tool chosen against whatever is actually capping your firm at the time
  • A monthly call with guest experts, and a quarterly review that re-measures your numbers against the baseline we set in your first fortnight

Why this produces an outcome most programs cannot

Two reasons.

The first is that we have done it. Not researched it, not interviewed people who did it. We ran the experiment inside a real accounting firm, on real client work, under real compliance obligations, and we have the margin, time and capacity gains to show for it. Every template you get is one we use ourselves.

The second is that the deliverable is defined. Most coaching promises a transformation you cannot measure, which conveniently means nobody can ever say it failed. I did not want to sell that.

The day-60 standard

By day sixty you have a working tool. Not "progress". Not "clarity". A tool, and it has to pass six tests in front of the group:

  • Deployed, and someone other than you can log in and use it
  • Running on your firm's real data, not sample data
  • Doing one complete workflow, input to output, end to end
  • Secure: row-level access, credentials server-side, backups running
  • Used in anger at least once on live work, with the output accepted
  • Measured, against the baseline we captured in your first fortnight

Signed off and recorded. That record is what any later conversation refers to. It is the standard I hold myself to, not just the one I hold you to.

The investment

$5,000 a month for the first two months. That is the proof phase, where the tool gets built and shipped.

Then $1,200 a month for twelve months. The price drops by three quarters once the proof is in, and that is where the rest of the firm work happens.

Around $24,400 across year one. For context, one tool replacing part of your subscription stack can cover a meaningful chunk of that on its own, and you own the tool at the end.

The guarantee

You commit to twelve months from the outset. I am not interested in month-to-month, because firms that can leave every thirty days never do the uncomfortable work.

But inside the first sixty days, either of us can tear the agreement up as friends. No hard feelings, no argument, no lawyers. If you did the work and you do not have a tool that passes those six tests, you should not be paying me for another ten months.

High commitment, one clean exit, and a deliverable specific enough that nobody has to argue about whether it happened.

Who this is for

  • Solopreneurs who want to scale without building a bigger team
  • Smaller firms who cannot find the staff to grow the way they want
  • Firms wanting more capacity and better profitability without adding headcount
  • Firms who want real control of their data and their clients, and to deliver a better service because of it

And who it is not for

  • You want it done entirely for you and will never touch a build
  • You want a quick AI hack rather than a way to run and scale a firm
  • You are not willing to look honestly at your own numbers
  • You are comfortable renting a stack that half-fits and staying at capacity

How to apply

Cohort one is capped at twelve firms and we run four a year. Small enough that everyone gets coached properly and everyone gets a real Gameplan session.

Fill in the application. It takes about five minutes and it asks you to be honest about where the firm is jammed, because that is the thing we will build against. I read every one personally and you will hear back within 72 hours either way. If I do not think we are the right fit, I will tell you and refund the application fee.

There is no discovery call. This letter is the pitch. If it landed, apply. If it did not, that is a useful answer too.

Reuben Reuben Bergola · Founder, New Wave Group

empwr. for firms is an education and coaching program by New Wave Group. It teaches business systems, tooling and AI implementation. It is not financial, legal or investment advice, and outcomes depend on the work you put in. Figures describing New Wave's own results reflect our experience inside our own firm. Savings and capacity ranges are indicative and vary by firm size, software stack and implementation. © New Wave Group. All rights reserved.