Intuit Quickbooks released the Growth and Marketing Maturity Benchmarking Report 2025, a quantitative study of 460 Australian accounting practices that outlines how firms’ growth outlooks shape their strategic paths in an increasingly competitive landscape. It sets a roadmap for firms to move from a position of moderate growth to high growth based on data-driven insights that differentiate high-growth firms from the rest.
The report uncovers how varying growth outlooks influence the depth of client engagement. High-growth practices, which targets significant expansion of their client base in the next 12 months, tend to be significantly more embedded in clients’ business decisions, more likely to maintain formal feedback systems, and far more active in cultivating relationships with high-value clients. Moderate growth firms, targeting only moderate client growth, and conservative outlook firms, without plans of expansion, tend to adopt a lighter-touch, capacity-driven approach.
Key stats you need to know
- 6 in 10 high-growth outlook firms are deeply embedded in their clients’ business decisions.
- High-growth firms are more than twice as likely as growth firms, and over four times as likely as conservative firms, to have established client feedback systems.
- Overall, 32% regularly connect with their high-value clients, while 43% say they engage them from time to time.
61% of firms with an aggressive growth outlook have strategic advisory relationships with their clients
- Almost 3 in 10 high-growth firms are completely involved in their clients’ business decisions.
- Practices focused on high-growth are almost twice as likely to be mostly too deeply engaged in their clients’ key decisions.
- 39% of high-growth firms have an established client feedback system.
High-growth firms tend to have far deeper involvement in their clients’ decision-making, with 33% reporting they are mostly involved and another 28% saying they are completely involved.
In comparison, fewer than half (46%) of firms targeting moderate growth and just 35% of conservative outlook firms reach similar levels of involvement, with the latter more likely to prefer a lighter touch with 60% saying they are only involved sometimes at most.
The level of business involvement aligns closely with the use of formal client feedback systems. Nearly 4 in 10 high-growth firms (39%) have established feedback mechanisms in place, compared with just 26% of growth firms and only 10% of conservative practices.
“Involvement in decision-making looks very different depending on a firm’s growth outlook,” said Michael Johnson, Director at Agile Market Intelligence.
“High-growth firms lean into deeper collaboration, while moderate- and conservative-outlook firms often take a more measured, hands-off approach.”
More than 4 in 10 practices regularly engage high-value clients
- More than half (52%) of high-growth firms engage with their high-value clients regularly or continuously.
- Conservative firms (46%) are more likely to be regularly engaged with high-value clients compared to firms focused on moderate growth (38%).
Overall, 32% of firms say they connect with their high-value clients regularly, with 9% saying they spend as much time as they want or need. Dissecting according to growth outlook, 52% of firms focused on aggressive growth claim to be at least regularly engaging with their high-value clients, valuing potential service expansion or referrals.
Interestingly, conservative firms report nearly the same level of engagement (46%) as high-growth practices, outpacing growth firms at 38%. This signals that the former tend to channel their capacity to their most valuable client relationships as most conservative firms only have fewer than 5 employees.
“Different growth outlooks shape how firms prioritise their time,” said Michael Johnson.
“High-growth firms cultivate frequent touchpoints to support expansion, while conservative firms, often smaller in size, focus their limited capacity on attending to their most valuable clients.”
About the research
Intuit Quickbook’s Growth and Marketing Maturity Benchmarking Report 2025 is based on quantitative research conducted by Agile Market Intelligence, reflecting the sentiments of 460 accounting practices across Australia, and collected between September and October 2025. The study provides a data-driven roadmap for accounting practices to accelerate growth by examining the behaviours, investments and strategic choices that distinguish high-growth firms.
You can download the report here.
Intuit Quickbooks is hosting The High-Growth Practice Benchmark, a data-driven discussion on Growth & Marketing Maturity Report. The session uncovers how top performers use the right strategies, systems and technology to achieve success.
Register for the webinar here.
