Free game · about 6 minutes · your logo on a demo firm
Profit simulation game for accounting firms
The Profit Game is a free simulation of the decisions that set an accounting practice's profit for a year. Type your work email: the game reads your firm's public website and runs four quarters under your firm's name, logo and color.
Play The Profit Game as your firm Free · about 6 min · work email required · your name and logo on a demo firm
- 4board meetings, one per quarter
- ×2the profit of the quarter before, each time
- 100futures played before each decision
- ≈ 6 minin Boardroom mode, free
On this page
What decides an accounting firm's profit in a year?
A practice on monthly packages earns its margin from the fee per client and the hours each client really takes, with a team that is always short in busy season.
From hourly bills to monthly fees
Moving clients from hourly bills to monthly packages is the change many practices are making. The price you set decides who signs and who leaves; in the game your buyers' price sensitivity is hidden, so you see what a higher fee costs in proposals lost before you commit.
Deadlines bunch the hours
Every package is a promise of hours every month, and month-end and filing deadlines bunch them up. The game counts every week the team is over capacity, because overloaded weeks are when service slips and clients leave.
Qualified, trainee or offshore?
Qualified accountants are scarce and slow to find, trainees need review, and offshore staff add hours in another time zone. The game puts all three in front of you with a cost and a ramp, and reveals each hire's real speed only after it.
Reconciliations and first drafts
Bank reconciliations, categorization, document chasing and first drafts of management reports are where agents already carry hours. The review stays human, so the game charges supervision time and hides how much of the promise your process absorbs.
The few clients that carry the margin
Most practices have many small clients and a few large ones that carry the margin. When a large one asks for 20% off at renewal, the game makes you weigh the discount against the odds it moves to another firm.
How do the game’s levers map to an accounting firm?
The game simulates a small retainer firm. Every lever above has a setting in it, plus scope, overhead and cash; the table shows its numbers and where to read each one in your own firm.
See the demo firm’s numbers, lever by lever
The demo book is a six-person firm on monthly retainers worth $68,000 a month, the way a practice sells monthly bookkeeping, payroll and advisory packages, only with fewer and larger clients than most. At each board meeting you set package price and scope, hiring, AI agents and the answer to your largest client's discount request, after the twin plays 100 futures of each option.
In the game every fee earner is called a consultant. Every number under “In the game's model” belongs to its model, not to a benchmark; “In an accounting firm” is where to read each lever in your own year.
| Lever | In the game's model | In an accounting firm |
|---|---|---|
| Retainer price | A standard retainer sells at $12,000 a month; your six current ones run from $9,000 to $14,000, $68,000 in all. New retainers at $9,000, $12,000, $15,000 or $18,000. Buyers' price sensitivity is hidden and learned from the proposals you win and lose. Existing clients keep their fee. | Monthly package fee per client: bookkeeping, payroll, advisory. |
| Scope | Lite 16 h, standard 24 h or premium 32 h of consultant time a week per client. A wider scope is worth more and churns less: 4.5%, 3.5% and 2.8% a month. | Transactions, entities, payroll runs and meetings included. |
| Capacity | Five consultants at 34 h a week plus you. Every week over capacity raises the odds that clients leave. | Hours of your accountants and bookkeepers, with deadline peaks. |
| Hiring | Senior at $13,000 a month, 4-week ramp; junior at $6,500, 10-week ramp; contractor at $4,500, 6-week ramp. Real speed shows after the ramp. | Qualified senior, trainee or offshore team. |
| AI agents | Pilot: about 24 h a week for $2,500 a month. Full rollout: about 60 h for $7,500. Ramp of 6 to 8 weeks; the share of promised hours really delivered is hidden, from 35% to 110% depending on the world. | Reconciliations, categorization, document requests, report drafts. |
| Client concentration | Largest client at $14,000 a month, a fifth of retainers, asks 20% off at renewal. A refusal loses it in half the worlds, a 10% counter-offer in a quarter of them. | Your largest clients and the bank, lawyer or software partner that refers new ones. |
| Overhead | $16,000 a month. Trim it by $2,500 (about 15%) and the team works 3% slower; cut $5,000 (about 30%) and it works 15% slower. | Software subscriptions per client, office, compliance and insurance. |
| Cash | Invoices paid 30 to 60 days after they are sent; the bank starts at $45,000. | Monthly direct debits against annual fees billed after year end. |
Can your firm double its profit next quarter? Check the arithmetic
Before you play, put your own numbers in. This runs in your browser and nothing is sent. The prefilled values are examples, not benchmarks: replace them with yours.
What will you learn in four quarters?
One board meeting per quarter, one module per meeting. The season takes about 6 minutes in Boardroom mode and about 20 in the MBA season, which adds a graded case per quarter.
- Q1, pricing: whether a higher package price with a tighter scope earns more than discounting to keep every client.
- Q2, capacity: qualified hire, trainee or agents before the next peak, and whether to match an offer made to your best accountant.
- Q3, growth: your largest client's renewal discount, and whether referral partners or outreach bring new packages.
- Q4, strategy: the pricing and team you present at year end, and what the practice is worth when less of it depends on you.
Questions accounting firm owners ask about the game
Is there a profit simulation game for accountants?
Yes. The Profit Game is a free four-quarter simulation of a small firm on monthly fees, with the decisions a practice owner faces: package price, scope, capacity, hiring, AI agents and a dominant client. It takes about 6 minutes.
My practice has hundreds of small clients. Does the game still fit?
The levers fit, the scale does not: the demo firm has six large retainers so that each decision is easy to see. Use the calculator on this page with your own client count and average fee; the game then shows how price, capacity and concentration play against each other over a year.
Can I play the game as my own firm?
Yes, under its own name. Type your work email and the game reads your firm's public website for its name, logo and main color. No client file, ledger or fee of yours is read. If you add your monthly recurring revenue, the money on screen scales to your size; the engine still plays the demo firm.
How can an accounting firm double its profit?
Usually through price and scope before volume: a higher fee on the packages clients value, fewer hours per client through automation and standard processes, then new clients within the hours you free. The calculator shows the arithmetic, the game shows the risk.
The game for other professions
How the game works, its modes and its rules: The Profit Game.
Then play your own firm.
The game plays a demo firm. A digital twin of your own firm runs the same engine on your CRM, time and invoice data, so the buyers, pipeline and capacity it plays are yours. Before it advises anything, it replays your last 12 months and shows you which figures land inside its error bands and which do not yet.
Play The Profit Game Book a scoping call
A twin of your own firm, built on your CRM, time and invoice data: from $55,555; your exact scope is set on a call. Want to try your own numbers in a flow model now? Twin Lite runs them in your browser.
- Play the game: four quarters, 100 futures per decision.
- Book 30 minutes: we pick the one decision your twin should answer first.
- Get your twin: same engine, your data, and a replay of your last 12 months you read before any scenario.