Need An Accountant? Here Are 7 Tops Tips To Help You Choose One

This article aims to give you a few pointers for choosing an accountant to look after the reporting of your finances – naturally, this will perhaps be on the most important relationships in you business, so you need to get it right.

With so many accountants to choose from those, getting the right for the job is no easy task. These 7 tips will go a long way towards making it easier for you though…

1) Analyze your own needs. If all you need is a company to put together your statutory reporting at year end and sign off then a larger, ‘brand name’ firm may be appropriate. For a new business needing a lot of ‘hand holding’ and direction, a smaller, more responsive firm might be more suitable.

2) Meet them in person before committing. The initial meeting should be free, with a partner, and will allow you and the accountancy firm to see whether there is a match between what you are looking for, and their ability to provide it.

3) Get a detailed, transparent pricing list. A reputable firm will be completely ‘up-front’ about pricing, and should make very clear what you can expect to pay for their services, and on what terms.

4) Request testimonials from existing clients. What better way to find out how good an accountancy firm is than by asking their current clients? Simply being given a list of company names isn’t sufficient. Neither is a selection of quotes. What you really want are the names and contact details of senior people within some of the companies that already are already their clients.

5) Visit their website. Check out the website of the accountancy firm – is it up to date, and a place with useful resources? If they don’t have one, are they really likely to have the most efficient use of technology within the firm?

6) Undertake some online research. Enter the name of the accountancy firm into Google and look through the results brought up. What you are looking for is recommendations and comments in general. Forums on your best bet as what is written there is almost certainly going to be unbiased. Be prepared to spend 15 minutes or so going through at least the first 5 pages of results.

7) Ask yourself if they are proactive. When you try to contact them initially, think about how quickly and efficiently they responded. Did they reply or phone you back straight away? Did you get passed around to a few people before finally being able to get answers from someone? You can take their initial speed and comprehensiveness as a guide to what to expect from them in general should you become a client of theirs.

Tags: accountancy, business, Finance, small business

Category: Finance