When most entrepreneurs and small business owners choose an accountant they look for a firm that can help them handle the bureaucracy involved in running a business and most importantly can save them money by structuring their business to be as tax efficient as possible. Yet shockingly in a recent survey only 9.7% of business owners said that their accountants helped them achieve the best possible savings. In my experience most small business owners wouldn’t actually be au fait enough with the tax laws to be able to correctly judge whether their accountant had achieved the best possible savings for them, but it’s still a shocking reflection on accountants that they are percieved to be so bad.
The survey also found that:
- 86.8% of respondents said that poor or incorrect advice had encouraged them to take their business elsewhere.
- 65.8% had switched because of a lack of a personal touch came second.
- 60.5% objected to high fees.
Personally I’m not surprised over the seven years I’ve been running my own businesses we’ve used three different accountants and I can’t honestly say that any of them have offered good service and value for money. The first two offered incorrect advice which cost us a considerable amount of wasted time and resulted in us paying more tax than was necessary. As a result I now know more about UK tax law that I really care to. The third was good until the partner we dealt with left to pursue a career in politics and the partner we’ve dealt with since has no concept of customer service.
So what’s your accountant like? Do you agree with the survey results? Are you an accountant, do you feel it’s a fair reflection on your profession?
The survey in question was a joint survey, entitled ‘You and Your Accountant’, carried out by the UK200 Group and Clydesdale Bank.
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First off: I am an accountant in practice in a 2 partner firm based in the City and Cockfosters. Sadly this does not surprise me at all. I have even reached a point where I have some theories surrounding this phenomenon. The first is that we accountants receive extensive, possibly excessive, training in “business” and we think we know a lot about it. However, we receive very little in general management and almost as little in sales. Almost everything I know about “selling” my practice has been gleaned through trial and error (and believe me there were some startling errors along the way).
Second a lot of accountants adopt a “black box” or “don’t worry your pretty little head” attitude to their clients’ work. In other words they attempt to keep what they are doing a “black art”. Now I can understand that as a sales approach as it keeps clients tied to you. But I tend to go a different way: namely this is the situation, this is what I recommend and this is why and if you don’t understand I am happy to keep explaining it. This means the client MAY one day decide they can do without me (fine they’re probably not paying me very much anyway at that point) but more often than not I hope they realise that we are more efficient than they are at doing the work, and efficiency is important in business.
The right accountant adds lots of value and almost every business should have one they can at least talk to. Indeed I subscribe to the old saying that everyone should know a lawyer, an accountant and a doctor! But like doctors and lawyers choose an accountant you get on with and trust.
Sadly accountants have a long way to go in running their own businesses well.
Darryl,
Thanks for that very candid comment.
I would agree that for most businesses they are better off spending their time selling/doing the work/improving the business than doing their accounts.
I suspect your approach will actually lead to more of the “good” clients staying, sure they might take the basic work in house but they’ll still regard you as an expert they can call on for specialist advice.
It can be counter-intuitive - I often tell clients that sometimes it pays to make it easy for their customers to “leave” them as low barriers to exit often reduce barriers to entry! I certainly always try to have exiting clients go on good terms (there will always be fairly high turnover round London) and a surprising number have returned after a few years.
“low barriers to exit often reduce barriers to entry”
Excellent point, worthy of a post in it’s own right.
I understand where the writer is coming from, but there are still many good accountants out there. Be prepared to pay steep fees, if you want excellent service!