How to choose your accountant is this week’s episode of I Hate Numbers.  Not all accountants are created equally. Just like in any walk of life, any profession, some are more effective than others. In this podcast I'm going to share some tips with you as to how you go about making what will be a very important selection for your business, and it's going to be important because the right accountant can have a big impact on your ability to grow and move your business dial forwards.

Preparation

Firstly, do your homework before you start speaking to an accountant. Check out last week's episode where the topic was what do accountants do? Choosing your accountant is the same as finding good effective supplier for your business. It needs to be for purpose.

Deciding

What are your current and future business needs? Are you looking for someone to do the traditional compliance work, prepare your accounts and tax return once a year? Do you want more of an ongoing relationship? What is it you feel that you need for your business, now in all of these questions, you may not necessarily know what the answer is, but have some form of idea of what you think you need here and now, and what you believe that you will need for your business going forward.

Location

Do you feel that you need a local service provider, somebody who's located where you live, or does that not matter? On a personal note my clients are based locally, nationally and Internationally. Technology helps makes the world a smaller place.  Regular communication and the ability to access client support may be more important to you.

Qualifications

Not all accountants are the same. Lots of people describe themselves as accountants but have zero level of experience. Lots of people have experience but no qualifications. Qualified doesn't mean competent and competent doesn't necessarily mean qualified.

The ideal combination is got professional exams under their belt and real-world experience to back it up.

Recommendations

Seek recommendations from those in your network. Check out reviews on people's websites, which ones catch your eye and what are they saying? How old are they? How recent are they? Which ones look appealing?

Short list

Once you've got a short list of say five or six to begin with, then carry on with your research. Look at the firms in your short list, check out their websites, check out their social media presences. Look at the company, the staff, the range of services they offer. Make a short list of no more than two to three accountants that you can have a conversation with. The conversation should be a dialogue, not a monologue.

Meeting time

Have some form of agenda that you want to cover in your meeting. As with any future supply arrangement, then don’t be wary or afraid, or nervous in asking questions. They can be technical, ask about working styles, skills, experiences, meeting times and costs!!

People buy from people

Do you like accountants who are more formal, who are very jargon laden? This could be your bag, or it may not be for you. The interaction with that individual and their team. Who did you get to speak to? Do you feel relaxed when you speak to them? Are you someone who likes robust, straightforward advice, or, perhaps a bit softer?

Conclusion

How to choose your accountant is one of the more important business decisions you will make. Prepare, shortlist, have a conversation and then decide helps you make that decision easier. Contact us to find out more

What Next

Grab a coffee, make yourself comfortable, sit back and listen.

I love doing this podcast and sharing my love of Numbers with you. Check out the link to subscribe and do not miss an episode.

In This Episode

• Understanding the approach to choosing an accountant
• How to make a short list of accountants to talk to
• Speaking to prospective accountants
• Developing your own Numbers confidence and decisions
• Take more control of your numbers to help make you money, survive and thrive

Links

https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/proactiveresolutionss-podcast/id1500471288

https://play.google.com/music/m/I3pvpztpjvjw6yrw2kctmtyckam?t=I_Hate_Numbers

https://open.spotify.com/show/5lKjqgbYaxnIAoTeK0zins

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/proactiveresolutionss-podcast

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business–Economics-Podcasts/I-Hate-Numbers-p1298505/

You are listening to the I Hate Numbers Podcast with Mahmood Reza. The I Hate Numbers podcast mission is to help your business survive and thrive by you better understanding and connecting with your numbers. Number love and care is what it's about. Tune in every week. Now, here's your host, Mahmood Reza.

Hi, folks, and welcome to another episode of I Hate Numbers. The main aim of the podcast is to make you get closer to your numbers, so you can make more money and save time in your business. This week's podcast is how to choose your accountant. Not an easy thing to do, and it's a really important decision in your business

because once you've made that commitment, once you've made that decision, it's going to have a massive impact, hopefully positive in your business. So, we have to take care when we make that selection. Decision becomes even more challenging when you realise there are over 300,000 professional accountants in the UK and there are over 650,000 CPAs and equivalent around the rest of the world.

So, that's a lot of people to choose from when you make that vital choice in your business. Add to that, not all accountants are created equally. Just like in any walk of life, any profession, some are more effective than others. In this podcast, I'm going to share some tips with you as to how you go about making what will be a very important selection for your business, and it's going to be important because the right accountant, the right group of accountants, can have a big impact on your ability to grow and move your business dial forward.

First tip would be to actually do some preparatory work. Do your homework before you make an approach to an accountant, before you start having that conversation, before you start considering whether that accountant is right for your business or not. It's worthwhile checking out last week's podcast episode where we look to the topic, what do accountant do?

And as a heads up, bit of a spoiler alert, it involves helping your business make money, helping you save money in your business, helping you with business growth, taxes, and your work-life balance. So, check out the podcast and that will be a good start point. I would actually take an unconventional approach to selecting an accountant, and I would see it in the same vein as what do you do when you seek a good, effective supplier for your business?

Your accountant is part of your supply chain. Your accountant is there as an important cog in your business here. So, having that correct supplier relationship is absolutely key. So, I want to actually put it in terms of, I've got to get a professional. You're looking for a service provider. You're looking for a service provider that's going to be a good fit for you, and also that accountant is probably going to make the same decisions whether you are a good fit for their business as well.

What that means is you've got to ask yourself that searching question, what is it I actually need for my business? What do I need for my business now, and what do I need for my business as I take it forward, as my business progresses onwards? For example, do you need support with somebody helping you keep the records in your business,

what we might conventionally call bookkeeping? Do you need support in terms of processing those records, establishing a system? Are you looking for somebody who's just going to do the traditional compliance work, prepare your accounts and tax return once a year? Do you want more of an ongoing relationship?

What is it you feel that you need for your business now? In all these questions, you may not necessarily know what the answer is, but have some form of idea or what you think you need here and now, and what you believe that you will need for your business going forward. A good accountant in the conversations, when you have them, will be able to guide you and you can have that conversation and get a feel for what's going to suit your business.

Having established a framework, an idea of what your business needs now, what your business needs going forward, you can then factor in other considerations. So, another consideration is do you feel that you need a local service provider, somebody who's physically in the same geographical area as yourself, or does that not actually matter?

Now, speaking from personal experience, I've got clients myself over the 25 years that are based overseas. And I've got clients that are based up and down. I've not physically met all my clients, but for us, it worked because technology can come in and actually make that world seem a much smaller space.

But you may feel more comfortable having a physical presence there. Now, we do go off and see clients. We go and visit them, but again, you got to have an idea about what you feel is going to suit you best. If you have concerns about that geographical distribution, then that's something you can flag up with your potential provider.

From a personal perspective, it's not the physical presence that's critical. It's the fact that you get regular communication and the ability to access and tap into that client support. I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that not all accountants are created equally. Now, for those who are not in the profession,

the word accountant is a very generic term here, and within that lies a whole host of people varying in skills, experiences, and qualifications. So, a number of people will describe themselves as accountants and all they have to their name, which is important, is just what I call academic knowledge. So, people who graduated from university, people who studied for their exams, but have no real practical experience will still call themselves as accountants.

So, do you look for somebody who's qualified? Now, that might be important when it comes to signing off accounts. That might be important when you're applying for mortgages. That might be important when you are actually looking to expand your business. So, qualification and all the major professional bodies will have a list of the members there.

Again, that's something to consider. Now, there are aspects of work that's required in your business that doesn't necessarily require somebody to be qualified. Qualified doesn't mean competent, and competent doesn't necessarily mean you need to be qualified. So, if you are looking at bookkeeping, I have met thousands of individuals who are extremely excellent at bookkeeping, record-keeping, who have got lots of practical accounts experience who may not necessarily be qualified. For me,

the ideal combination is somebody who's got some form of formal studies behind them, passed their exams, and also has real-world experience to back it up. The blend of those two is a powerful tool. Now, remember, folks, we are still at the preparation stage, so we've not actually made a formal approach to any accountants to have a conversation with them.

All we're doing is we're doing our research. We're thinking about what we need in our business now. What we need in our business going forward. We're talking about the physical locality. Do they have to be in the same town as you or are you comfortable with a way of remote working? And if so, what's the technology that they have to support them?

So, again, merely referencing my only experience here, we have technology at our fingertips from Zoom platforms to Skype to actually communicate with clients here. So, technology can make it much more accessible. Talk to friends and family. Do they have any recommendations? Are there any people that you connect with that have the existing businesses?

Do they have referrals, recommendations? Just as we do when we look for a holiday or we look for a restaurant, we use the equivalent TripAdvisor. We can also do so for accountants. Look for the listings on Google. Look at the reviews on people's websites. Which ones catch your eye? What are they saying?

How old are they? How recent are they? Which ones look appealing? Once you've got a short list and I would recommend around five or six to begin with, then carry on with your research. Look at the firms in your short list. Check out their websites. Check out their social media presences. Look at the company, the staff, the range of services they offer.

Once you've done a bit more research, your list of five or six, depending on the criteria that you're using here, then you can narrow down the choice. And I would recommend probably having no more than two, maybe three accountants that you're going to have a conversation with. Now, you can look at it as an interview, but remember, the dialogue will go both ways.

The more that you do some background preparation, the stronger the conversation will be, and therefore, it's a more balanced conversation that you're having. It gives a bit more equality into the conversation that you will be conducting. And remember, it's a conversation that you are having between yourself

and your prospective accountant. When you arrange that conversation with your prospective accountant, it's usually best to have some form of agenda that you want to cover in that particular meeting. When we talk to prospective clients, we like to have an indication of any particular questions or issues they've got, so the meeting could be very effective and well prepared.

Just as with any future supply arrangement, when you talk to your prospective accountant, then you must go in there with positivity and not be wary or afraid or nervous, actually, of asking questions. I have come across situations before where business owners will either feel slightly intimidated or defer

to the accountant and therefore, a lot of questions they might have, they don't really feel comfortable in asking. They might want to ask questions like how long the job will take? What experience they've got in a particular arena? What sort of client base they actually have? How long they think a job will actually take to complete?

And part of that conversation is going to be talking about money. It's going to be talking about how much it's going to cost. Part of the answer to that question is going to be based on what your requirements are, what you need. So, therefore, that can be reflected in any proposal that you have coming back and always look for options as to how that price is structured.

Is it based on a price per hour, a price per day, a price for the actual work that's being carried out? Are fixed prices actually offered? You don't want any nasty surprises coming out there, but defining the scope, the services that you actually require will make the pricing and the proposals much more certain.

Let's recap what we've got so far. We've talked about doing the preparation work, doing the homework, checking out reviews, checking out the accountant's website, social media presence, asking friends for referrals, recommendations. Referrals and recommendations are still a very powerful tool. Look at the listings on Google. So, gather all your information.

Think about what you need from your business now, what you want for your business going forward. What's your own personal aspirations and dreams? And your accountant, your effective accountant, will be there to help you realise those dreams. You've had the conversation, you've had the dialogue, you've asked those questions, you've got some feedback, and now the final part is the time to choose.

You found out what the fees are. You found out how they work. You found out if you can contact them, when you can contact them. How do they respond to questions? Part of the decision process is the fact that people buy from people. So, what's your communication style? Do you like accountants who are more formal, who are very jargon laden?

Do you want somebody who's more formal, the traditional suit-wearing accountant? Now, they could be your bag or it may not be for you. Ultimately, you've got to make a decision what's going to be best for your business, the interaction with that individual and their team, who you actually get to speak to.

Do you feel relaxed when you speak to them? Do you feel they're going to give you robust, straightforward advice? So, those are really quite important criteria that you've got to take on board. One size does not fit all. I would highly recommend as I do to all prospective clients that we talk to is make sure you've got at least two or three that you're selecting from.

If you've got further questions to ask, ask them. Once you've done your preparation homework, once you've decided what you need for your business now and going forward, once you've looked at the reviews, you've done some evidence and research, you've spoken to your prospective accountant, you can then come back and then it's time to choose. Weigh up.

You've got some preset criteria. You've got a feel about how that conversation actually went. You feel what's going to be good for your business, and then you make your final choice. Once that final choice happens, the formality of the relationship begins. Okay guys, let's recap what we said. So, when choosing an accountant for your business, think firstly what you want your accountant to do.

What is it you need in your business? What is it you need in your life? What is it that accountants do that's going to fit with you? What's the field of expertise? Can you check out, get some social proof, some evidence of not just the competence, but in terms of how they interact and behave with clients?

Have that conversation. You got a short list of two or three. Have that conversation where you find out more about the person that you may be doing business with that's going to be part of your business team. They will, likewise, do the same, and then it comes to decision time. Hope you got some value from this podcast.

I've loved doing this podcast. So, I Hate Numbers. We're on a mission here to connect you closer to your numbers so you're less scared of them, so you can make money and save time in your business. If you've loved the podcast, I'd love it if you could subscribe. Spread that number-loving joy amongst your friends and colleagues,

and I look forward to speaking to you again on next week's podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode and appreciate you taking the time to listen to the show. We hope you got some value. If you did, then we'd love it if you shared the episode. We look forward to you joining us next week for another I Hate Numbers episode.