Brightwater Accounting
Services overview slide with six icon columns
A services slide is read by someone deciding whether to call, so each service needs enough words to answer what the work actually is. This one covers six services at Brightwater Accounting, a fictional practice, with two sentences under each icon.
What is on the slide
- Headline and banner
- What Brightwater Does, with a centred banner reading Six services, one ledger.
- Bookkeeping
- Weekly coding, bank reconciliation and a month end pack you can read in ten minutes.
- BAS and GST
- Quarterly activity statements prepared, checked against the ledger and lodged as a registered agent.
- Payroll
- Pay runs, superannuation and single touch payroll for teams of two to sixty, with award interpretation checked before the first run.
- Tax returns
- Company, trust, partnership and individual returns, with the year end questions asked in March.
- Advisory
- A quarterly hour on gross margin, debtor days and the cash the next quarter needs, with notes written as actions.
- Cloud setup
- Ledger migration, bank feeds, receipt capture and staff training, with a written runbook left behind.
When this is the right slide
Six equal columns suit a services slide when every service carries similar weight and the reader is scanning for the one that matches their problem.
What to swap it for
Context: Image Left, 3-Column Icon Cards Right. Swap to three cards beside an image when the practice leads with three services and a photograph carries part of the story.
What this slide shows
A short headline reads What Brightwater Does, and under it a full width banner reads Six services, one ledger. Six tall columns then fill the rest of the canvas, each filled in a different tint from the theme. Every column carries a circular icon chip at the top, a service name under it, and two or three sentences of description below that. The services are bookkeeping, BAS and GST, payroll, tax returns, advisory and cloud setup. The descriptions are concrete rather than promotional: lodged as a registered agent, teams of two to sixty, the year end questions asked in March, notes come as actions rather than a slide pack, a written runbook left behind. Every icon comes from the same icon set at the same weight, so no column looks heavier than another, and the six tints are ordered so the slide reads left to right as one band rather than as three pairs.
Who this slide is for and when to use it
Capability decks, new client meetings, proposals and the about section of a firm overview. The reader is scanning for the service that matches their problem, so the layout is designed for reading rather than for narration. That is also its weakness in a live presentation: nobody can talk to six columns for more than a minute without the audience reading ahead. If the meeting is about one service, use this slide as a map, then move to a slide about the service the client came for. Six is also the ceiling. A firm with nine services should group them into six or fewer categories, because the columns get too narrow to hold a sentence and the icons start doing work that words should be doing.
How to adapt it
First, write the descriptions for the client rather than for the firm. Award interpretation checked before the first run is a fear being answered; comprehensive payroll solutions is not. Second, keep the six at one level of abstraction, all services or all capabilities, never a mix. Third, pick icons that describe the output rather than the profession, since six variations of a document icon leaves the reader with nothing to distinguish the columns. When a firm really leads with three services, three cards beside a photograph gives each one twice the space and lets the image carry the tone, which suits a practice selling relationship work rather than a menu. One last check before the slide ships is to read the six descriptions aloud in order, since six columns written by different people on different days will drift in length and tone, and the drift is far easier to hear than it is to see on the canvas.
What makes this slide work
Each column answers what the work includes
Bookkeeping is not a word on this slide, it is weekly coding, bank reconciliation and a month end pack. A prospective client can tell whether that matches what they need without a call, which is what a services slide is for. Six one word labels would have needed the presenter to speak all six definitions aloud.
The banner gives the six a single idea
Six services, one ledger sits in a centred banner above the columns, so the set has a claim rather than being a menu. It also pre empts the obvious question about whether the services connect, which is the deciding factor for a client choosing between one firm and three specialists.
The columns are genuinely parallel
Every column is a service the firm sells, at the same level of abstraction, with roughly the same amount of text. Mixing a service with a capability or a tool, for example putting cloud software beside tax returns, is the usual way a six column slide stops reading as a set.
Questions people ask
How many services fit on one slide?
Six in columns, or three or four if each needs a paragraph. This slide uses six and keeps every description to two or three sentences. Beyond six the columns become too narrow for a sentence, and a services list that cannot describe the work is a table of contents rather than a slide.
Should each service have an icon?
Only if the icons distinguish the services. Six icons that all look like documents add decoration without meaning. Choose icons that point at the output or the tool, keep them from one set at one weight, and accept that they are a scanning aid rather than an explanation.
How long should each service description be?
Two or three sentences, around one hundred and fifty to two hundred characters. That is enough to name what is included and who it suits, and short enough that six of them can be read in under a minute. A single line reads as a label; a paragraph makes the slide a document.
Should prices appear on a services slide?
No. Prices change the question from what do you do to how much, and a services overview is usually read before anyone is ready for that. Pricing belongs on its own slide with tiers and inclusions, where a client can compare packages without the descriptions competing for space.
What if one service is much bigger than the others?
Then equal columns misrepresent the firm. Either give that service its own slide before the overview or use a layout that weights one card larger. A slide where bookkeeping is ninety percent of revenue but takes one sixth of the canvas tells a prospective client the wrong thing about what the firm is good at.
Does this slide work in a printed proposal?
Yes, and it is often the page a client keeps. Check the contrast of the tinted columns in greyscale before sending, because six tints from one palette can converge when printed in black and white, and a column whose text loses contrast will be the one that is skipped.
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Sources
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