How can you choose the right accountant for you and your business - and avoid paying far too much in tax and professional fees?

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1 How can you choose the right accountant for you and your business - and avoid paying far too much in tax and professional fees? The 15 vital questions most accountants don t want you to ask! 1

2 Business owners often ask each other about how they can find their ideal accountant. Client care surveys consistently show that three criteria are vital: 1. Are they proactive? 2. Do they communicate well and have a good bedside manner? 3. Are their fees fair and transparent? And hopefully this little expert guide should now help you in your search. (1) Can anyone be an accountant? Not all accountants are made equal. There is nothing stopping anyone calling themselves an accountant and working from their bedroom. Look out for the highly respected and fully qualified Chartered Accountants (ICAEW / ACA) and Certified Accountants. They are regulated and are required to undertake continuous training to make sure they are up to date. You are likely to get an excellent level of technical service. Beware of part qualified accountants they may have failed their exams or dropped out of the training programme because of time limits (and so what does that tell you?). (2) Does experience really count? There s nothing wrong with having the energy of youth on your side but experience counts when you need it. How to deal with an HMRC investigation, how to present yourself to the bank, interpreting the rule book rather than just quoting it. Established High Street firms will be able to show where their experience counts. 2

3 (3) Are they friendly? Some people say that they find that their accountant is arrogant or looks down at them; others say that they are like a best friend. A really good accountant will challenge you rather than just say yes and you should enjoy working with them. They are not there to be your drinking partner or golf-buddy - but they should be friendly and follow this old fashioned code of common sense (but sadly not common practice) business etiquette: 1. Smile 2. Listen carefully and attentively 3. Respect you 4. Always says Please and Thank you 5. Always do what they say they are going to do 6. Be punctual 7. Under promise - and over deliver (4) Do they have a good and sincere bedside manner? Accountancy is all about people, not numbers. Good accountants need to be able to listen and quickly get a grasp of issues or opportunities. They need to be able to present their thoughts back to you in a way that you understand. If you feel like you are too embarrassed to say that you don t understand then something is not quite right. A good accountant will agonise about communicating well and seek first to truly understand your issues, feelings and desires. (5) Will they have the wit and the courage to keep you out of jail? At the end of the day the accounts and tax return have to be done and filed on time. Without that penalties and fines build up alarmingly and you also start to get earmarked for HMRC investigations. Your accountant should work with you to advise you on what could cause problems with HMRC. It might feel like your accountant works for HMRC sometimes but really they are just trying to make sure you don t have nasty surprises in the future and to keep you out of jail. A good accountant will do more than just rubber stamp the figures you give them. Don t forget that HMRC are not running a client care focused operation - their officers demand their pound of flesh - and if you upset them they are not nice people to do business with! 3

4 (6) Do they offer fixed and transparent fees (with no nasty surprises)? There is no reason why your accountant shouldn t be able to quote you a fixed price for the work over the forthcoming year. They will let you pay by monthly instalments to spread the payments out. You shouldn t get any nasty surprises from a good firm of accountants. (7) Do they pro-actively help you make more profit and save tax? Is your accountant proactive with advice? The answer should always be yes. They should be spotting tax saving opportunities and discussing them with you. They should be highlighting ways to increase profits and to have more free cash to draw from the business. There s nothing worse than being told that you have a huge tax bill and that it was a pity that you didn t take legitimate steps to reduce it a year or two previously (or before)! A good firm of accountants will also have specialists to help you with: Marketing, Advertising, Hiring and Retaining good staff and in fact most of the basic business disciplines. (8) Are they the cheapest game in town? That s probably the best reason for you to walk away and keep looking! We ve spent years picking up the pieces for new clients who regret buying cheap - because they ended up buying twice. Commonsense dictates that you only get what you pay for in this world. A good firm of accountants will invariably save you money and be a great investment for you over the medium to long term. Both in terms of value for money and true peace of mind. We can always point you in the direction of cheap firms but we d never allow a friend or family member to use them - and likewise, you probably won t need a Big Firm name or West End prices to match. How many people in this day and age really need a designer label suit or handbag - so wasting many hundreds of pounds? 4

5 (9) Surely I m stuck with, or would be better off with my (less than perfect) existing accountant because they know me and have all my records? You d think so - but nothing could be simpler. We help with the smooth and seamless transition of clients (often complex situations) on a regular basis. Relax - a good firm makes this painless. (10) Do they offer a complete and genuine one stop shop for all your financial needs? There is nothing more irritating than to be engaged by a firm and then handed around the entire practice (or your local town) like a parcel in a manic children s game. A one-stop shop saves you time, money and inconvenience and a good accountancy practice will be able to advise you on about 99% of all money matters. Also be aware of the firm that charges for a senior partner s time for all work - even that which should be appropriately delegated to cost effective and expert juniors! That s why good and fair dentists have hygienists and nurses. (11) Are they within sensible travelling distance for you - with easy parking? We re still amazed to learn about clients who have accountants 300 miles away because of historic reasons. Even with modern technology, how can that possibly help you to do regular and faceto-face reviews? (12) Do they have the confidence to offer a FREE and NO OBLIGATION first meeting - allowing you to assess all of these criteria? That s probably the best reason for checking out a firm before you commit pen to paper or your hard earned cash. (13) Can they produce an ample range of recent and relevant client testimonials? Our firm is fortunate in that nearly all of our new work is introduced by our raving fans on a word of mouth basis. So make sure that your chosen accountant can provide plenty of references - from clients just like you - to put you at ease. (So check their website for written recommendations or video clips). 5

6 (14) Is their website crammed full of useful business tools and other free downloads? If not - why not? (15) Is there a written guarantee? If all of these above are important to you, why don t you ask your accountant if he/she will guarantee this level of service in writing? All good firms will gladly and proudly give you a full written guarantee. If they don t provide a written guarantee - ask yourself, why is that? We hope our little expert guide will help you choose a great accountant and ensure you pay the right level of professional fees. If we can help further then please telephone for FREE discussion or book your FREE and NO OBLIGATION first meeting. Good luck and Thank You. Olly Evans Partner Evans & Partners Chartered Accountants olly.evans@evanspartners.co.uk Bank Road Kingswood Bristol BS15 8LS 6