What Should Be Included in a Monthly Advisory Package for a Client?

Most advisory packages start as "ongoing support." Six months in, the client emails whenever they want, the calls run long, and the package has become a discount on your time.

The fix is scope. A package that lists what the client gets, and how long it takes you to deliver, has a margin you can calculate.

What goes in a monthly advisory package?

Five parts. Each has a fixed size, so you can deliver it the same way for every client.

1. A one-screen scorecard

Three to five numbers that map to the client's biggest money decision, each against a target. It is the same view described in our post on showing clients their numbers without a P&L. The client can open it any day, not just on call day.

2. One monthly review call

30 to 45 minutes. The agenda never changes: what moved, why it moved, what to do about it. Start with the number that changed most. Do not walk the scorecard line by line.

3. One written recommendation

After every call, send one decision. One action, one owner, one date. Not a summary of the call. This is the deliverable the client keeps, and it is your proof of value at renewal time.

4. A 90-day look ahead

A short forecast on cash, margin, or pipeline, depending on the client. Refresh it monthly. It turns the call from a review of the past into a conversation about what to do next. That is the line between bookkeeping with a call attached and advisory.

5. A capped question channel

Two questions a month between calls, answered within two business days. The cap is not about being stingy. It is how you keep delivery time honest.

That is the whole package. Anything beyond it is a project or a second package.

What should you leave out of the package?

What you exclude matters as much as what you include. Put these in writing:

• Unlimited calls and "quick questions" at any hour
• Custom reports built on request
• Catch-up bookkeeping and reconciliation fixes, which belong in the core service
• Tax prep and filings
• Projects like a budget build, a fundraising model, or an acquisition analysis

When a client asks for something on that list, you are not saying no. You are saying "that is a project, here is the price."

How do you price a monthly advisory package?

Flat monthly fee. Not hourly. The client is buying a decision made well every month, not a block of your time.

1. Price off the decisions, not the hours. A client deciding on a hire, a loan, or a price increase is making a call worth many times the monthly fee.
2. Sell it as the top of three tiers. Core service alone. Core service plus the scorecard. Core service plus the scorecard plus advisory. The middle tier gives price-sensitive clients something to buy besides cancelling.
3. Set delivery time before you set the price. If you cannot deliver the package in the time you budgeted, the price is too low or the scope is too big.
4. Agree on a 90-day review up front. Advisory takes time to show results. A scheduled review gives both sides a clean point to adjust scope or price.

When you quote it, state the price as the decision. "For $750 a month, I will help you decide how much inventory to carry every month, with a written plan." Clients buy the outcome. They do not buy the call. Say the price out loud before you send anything in writing.

What does a $750 monthly advisory package look like for one client?

Illustrative example. A wholesale distributor with $4M in annual revenue and 12 employees. The owner is deciding how much inventory to carry into the slow season. The advisory package costs $750 a month, on top of the bookkeeping fee.

The scorecard: gross margin, inventory days, and weeks of cash, each against a target.

Delivery time per client, per month:

• Prep, 20 minutes. Open the scorecard. Ask the AI analyst what changed and why. Pick the one thing to discuss.
• Review call, 45 minutes. What moved, why, what to do.
• Written recommendation, 15 minutes. Example: "Inventory days hit 74 against a target of 60. Cut the next two purchase orders by 15%. Owner: you. Date: the 25th."
• Between-call questions, 10 minutes. An average, capped at two questions.
• Total: 90 minutes.

Month one runs closer to three hours, because you do three things once:

• Ask the owner what money decision they face in the next 90 days
• Pick the three numbers and set a target for each
• Build the first 90-day look ahead

What the math looks like at 20 clients

$750 for 90 minutes is $500 an hour. Across 20 clients that is $15,000 a month for 30 hours of work.

Now the by-hand version. Pull QuickBooks reports, rebuild the numbers in a spreadsheet, format a deck. Prep grows from 20 minutes to nearly three hours, and the package takes about 4 hours per client. At 20 clients that is 80 hours for the same $15,000, or about $190 an hour.

Same price. Same client. The hourly return drops by more than half. Subtract your tooling cost per client from both versions, and the gap barely moves. Prep time is where the package is won or lost.

How do you know the package is working?

Track two things for every client. First, how many of your written recommendations the client acted on. Second, how many minutes you actually spent.

If the client acts on fewer than half, the recommendations are too vague or the scorecard is tracking the wrong numbers. Fix that before you chase the renewal.

If your time runs past 90 minutes three months in a row, cut scope or raise the price. Do not absorb it. The package only has a margin while delivery time stays fixed.

How do you deliver this without rebuilding it every month?

The 20-minute prep only works if the scorecard already exists and updates itself. Rebuild it each month and prep eats the margin.

This is the job Pineapple Analyst does. It connects to QuickBooks Online and HubSpot, puts each client's scorecard on a branded dashboard, and gives you an AI analyst to ask what changed and why before the call. The client can ask it the small questions themselves, which keeps the question channel under its cap. A budget-vs-actual view with the variance explained is an advisory deliverable you get from a prompt, not a project you build. Your brand is on it. Your clients get AI-powered insights. You get the credit.

If you run a fractional CFO practice, see how it works for fractional CFOs. If you are a bookkeeper or accountant, start here.