Comments on: We Hate Accountants

By: Sean Goss

Sean Goss — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:14:07 +0000

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!

By: John

John — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:39:20 +0000

“low barriers to exit often reduce barriers to entry”

Excellent point, worthy of a post in it’s own right.

By: Darryl Ashing

Darryl Ashing — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:22:04 +0000

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.

By: John

John — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:36:40 +0000

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.

By: Darryl Ashing

Darryl Ashing — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:23:27 +0000

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.