Blog & News

Look at any accounting firm website and there is a fair chance that the word ‘proactive’ will be prominent. Ask some business owners and taxpayers whether they consider their accountant to be proactive.  There is commonly a gap between the two, between the intent of the accountant and the expectations of the client.

The tag ‘Trusted Advisor’ gets bandied around a lot. Without trying to be deliberately contentious, I often challenge its use. Undoubtedly, accountants were once the trusted advisor to their clients. When I came into the profession 44 years ago now, the older partners, especially, were seen by their clients as their trusted advisor, their ‘go to’ person on any issues, business, family or personal, that were troubling them. Without the filing deadlines of today, these clients were with their accountant primarily because they valued the relationship rather than the products.

All accountants are the same! We’ve all heard it said. It’s nonsense, of course, but, when you are asked what it is that your firm does that differentiates it from other accounting firms, it can be a challenge to come up with something tangible.  Accounting firms tend to offer similar services, that’s what makes them accounting firms. Differentiating from competitors based upon services provided is therefore an issue.

Question… Should accountants charge for the additional work and obligations they will have when MTD ITSA finally comes into play next April? Not sure? Let me ask another one… Should business owners and taxpayers be expected to pay for the work that their accountant does for them and for the expertise that they receive? Put down in black and white, the answer seems obvious but there are many in the profession who are losing sleep over this issue.

Accountants selling to their clients is a topic as old as the profession itself. I regularly hear criticism from those looking to monetise the accountants’ relationships with their clients that “accountants can’t sell”. I also come across an attitude within the profession that “accountants shouldn’t sell to their clients…it’s unprofessional…it’s not what my clients expect”.  Let’s tackle the issue.

Back in the 60’s and 70’s, when I was a lad, doing the family laundry was a time consuming chore. Mum would disappear into the kitchen and close the door so that the noise around the rest of the house was at least manageable. She would be in there for hours, swapping between washing, rinsing and squeezing out.  Every so often the noise level would resemble a fighter jet taking off on an aircraft carrier as the tumbler element kicked in and then she’d reappear, wooden tongs in hand, to ask for help to reposition the twin tub that had danced across the kitchen floor.

Do I deal with the client who is shouting the loudest, the most pressing deadline, the thing that is most stressing me out, the best thing for my cash position, the team member who is stuck without my help, the thing that I had set out to do today or any one of all those other issues that are lined up at my door?  I would love to give you a definitive or simple answer but, of course, there isn’t one. Welcome to every day decision-making, not just in an accounting firm but in life!

There’s something like 5.5million SME businesses in the UK. To use another measure, there are approximately 2.72 million VAT registered businesses on these shores. That’s an awful lot of potential clients for accountants. You would think that there would be some good ones in there for you.  Why is it that so many accounting firms end up with a significant proportion of ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ clients who absorb the firm’s resources for little or no benefit?

Do you feel in control today? You’re not on your own if you don’t. Running an accounting firm or client portfolio should be a relatively straightforward task according to the text books. Most of the deadlines are known well in advance and are cyclical so It’s simply a case of managing the resources, workflows and clients isn’t it?  We all know it’s just not the simple!