Delegation is one of those leadership topics that sounds simple until you actually have to do it.

In this episode of The Working Theory Podcast, Max and Brooks talk about why delegation often fails in accounting firms, especially when leaders wait until they are already overloaded. They dig into the difference between simply offloading tasks and actually delegating responsibility, and why real delegation is less about getting work off your plate and more about developing people who can own outcomes.

They also bring the conversation into Karbon, SOPs, firm workflows, busy season, AI, and the fear that holds leaders back from letting others make decisions.

The big idea: if everything depends on you, your firm cannot grow beyond you.

In this episode:

• Why delegation breaks down when it starts from urgency
• The difference between task delegation and responsibility delegation
• How Karbon workflows can either support ownership or reinforce bottlenecks
• Why mistakes are part of leadership development
• How to set expectations without over-prescribing every step
• Why firm owners need to multiply decision-making across the team
• What delegation has in common with using AI effectively
• Why training someone to “replace you” may be the best thing for your career

Books mentioned:

• The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
• Turn the Ship Around! by David Marquet
• The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell
• Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni

Question for the comments:

What’s one thing in your firm that you’ve been offloading, but should probably be delegating as real ownership?

00:00 Delegation is more than getting work off your plate

01:19 Delegation as team development

02:12 Why urgent delegation usually fails

04:10 Delegate before busy season hits

05:06 Task delegation vs. responsibility delegation

07:44 What this looks like inside Karbon

10:43 Setting expectations without over-directing

13:20 The fear of mistakes, cost, and client risk

14:07 SOPs, standards, and ownership

15:06 Letting your team improve the process

17:14 Turn the Ship Around and leader-led bottlenecks

18:58 From giving orders to approving ownership

21:52 Why everyone keeps coming to you with questions

22:52 Accounting leaders need space for AI and strategy

25:39 Training your replacement does not make you irrelevant

27:29 Delegation and AI use the same leadership muscle

29:19 Final thoughts on growth, oversight, and mistakes

30:18 Books, memory, and Brooks being Brooks

Fixed fee billing can create better incentives for accounting firms, better client experiences, and more sustainable profitability. But it only works if you know your costs, understand the effort required, run thoughtful fee reviews, and keep tracking time.

In this episode, Max and Brooks talk through why hourly billing can punish efficiency, how automation changes the pricing conversation, how to calculate a baseline fixed fee, and why time tracking is still essential even when clients are not billed by the hour.

Chapters:

00:00 Why fixed fee matters

01:55 Better incentives for firms and clients

03:52 Automation makes hourly billing risky

05:25 Fixed fee vs. value-based billing

06:31 Managing fixed fee work in Karbon

07:07 Know your internal cost

10:55 Use a short first engagement

13:28 Run better fee reviews

15:09 Improve process or raise rates

18:57 Explain the price increase

20:04 Pricing takes math and people skills

22:26 When to lower a fee

24:51 The danger of autopilot price increases

27:15 Clients buy peace of mind

29:05 Efficiency creates capacity

31:15 Keep tracking time

33:04 Time data is firm intelligence

34:02 Closing thoughts

Karbon's April 27 release is one of the biggest in recent memory — long-requested features like customizable timesheet periods, engagements that finally create work for you, and a Gusto integration that handles shifting payroll dates. Max and Brooks Wheatley walk through every change, what's actually useful, and where the gotchas still are.

This is the Karbon Release Party — a recurring segment on The Working Theory Podcast where two Karbon implementation consultants break down each Karbon release from a practitioner perspective. Between them, Max and Brooks have helped hundreds of firms get more out of Karbon.

00:00 Intro

00:53 Aider integration goes live

02:46 Engagements can now create work items

06:42 Gusto integration — payroll work items that handle shifting dates

09:50 Karbon API updates: time entries endpoint + self-service keys

12:20 E-signature expiration extensions (no more restarting)

13:50 Suspicious email warnings

15:29 Exact email send timestamps

16:30 Filing deadlines on repeat work

17:09 Customizable timesheet periods (finally)

19:56 Edit time entries directly in draft invoices

21:41 Wrap-up

• Engagements create work — sign an engagement and Karbon generates the work items, with better control than Ignition or GoProposal. Still in open beta, but shipping fast.
• Gusto integration reads upcoming payroll dates and adjusts your next work item's due date — solving holiday-shifted paydays breaking your schedule.
• Customizable timesheet periods — change Karbon from Monday–Sunday to Sunday–Saturday, 1st–15th, monthly, or multi-week. Found under Settings → Workflow.
• Self-service API keys in Connected Apps. No more waiting on the Karbon team to activate.
• In-invoice time entry edits — fix mis-coded entries without leaving the invoice.

The Working Theory Podcast is for accounting firms that are already on Karbon and want to actually optimize how they use it. Optimization, not onboarding. Hosted by Max (Navica Consulting) and Brooks Wheatley (Framework Solutions) — two Karbon implementation consultants who spent years inside accounting firms before going independent.

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Max — Navica Consulting

Brooks — Framework Solutions

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