Imagine if you were a sports star and you had a great coach to help you with your game but you only had their attention once a year. You would be amazing for the one or two weeks after their input but you would probably pick up some bad habits the other 50 weeks.

Now imagine you have access to a trained business and financial professional, someone who not only knows how to run their own business but who had also seen many other businesses succeed and fail and who had picked up great advice along the way. Imagine what a difference this person could make on your business.

Now imagine that you only get this persons attention at year end, what a wasted opportunity.

Seeing or hearing from your accountant more regularly makes a massive difference to your business, an accountant, who keeps in contact regularly, can really get to understand your business and help by being available when you need them for guidance. What’s more this type of accountant is more likely to spot tax planning opportunities or potential issues and help you avoid these.

Only yesterday a prospective client of mine said “my accountant is lovely but he just doesn’t take an interest. I think he is a bit old school”

This summed it up for me “old school” vs “new School” the old school accountants focus is on making sure the business complies with all relevant tax and accounting requirements and making sure that the company does not fall foul of HMRC and Companies House. This is why they only need to see the records once a year. They don’t actually mind how the client keeps their accounting records as long as they aren’t in too much of a mess come year end.

The new school accountant is interested in the business, how it runs, what problems the business owner faces and how they can help solve these issues. The new school uses the latest technology to allow them to get a glimpse of how the business is doing, they look at the business as a whole and make sure the owner is getting great financial data. Yes they take care of the compliance work and whilst this is important it isn’t the be all and end all.

Here are ten ways to spot an old school accountant:

  1. They let you use a spreadsheet or an offline bookkeeping package that doesn’t give you financial information
  2. They don’t ask you any questions about your business and make no attempt to understand what you do
  3. They don’t really understand your business
  4. They bill you seemingly random amounts sometimes not even warning you this is going to happen
  5. They charge you for phone calls instead of making advice all inclusive
  6. You talk to them once a year and only about the accounts and tax
  7. You wouldn’t dream of asking them about non accountancy matters either because you think you would be charged or because it’s just not something you discuss with them
  8. They still send you letters or fax’s when you would prefer an email
  9. They don’t have a website or don’t understand what this “internet thing” is all about
  10. You have to ask them about the latest change in tax or about something new you heard on the news.

If you have an old school accountant then give us a call – we are not old school and would love to chat to you about how we can help your business. Call 01622 671 835 or email will@accsysltd.co.uk