Chosing a small business accountant

The starting point should be to ask friends/colleagues etc for a recommendation - and ask them if there is anyone they should avoid. You should get a few names from this and this can be whittled down by deciding what size of firm you would like to deal with. The larger, multi-office firms will have experts in every aspect of accountancy and taxation but you will pay a premium for this and, unless you are a large company, the day to day running of your affairs will be dealt with by a junior member of staff.

At the other end of the scale are 'one man bands'. This will be the cheapest option and you can be sure that you are always dealing with the boss but do they have the necessary knowledge and what happens when they are on holiday or ill?

There are obviously may firms in the middle and these suit most smaller start-up businesses. As for questions, you need to ask which professional organisation they are a member of and whether or not they have Professional Indemnity Insurance. You should also ask if they have any other clients in the same sector as you and if so, how they have helped them.

With regrards to services, you first of all need to decide what you will be doing yourself. Services avaiable will range from just assisting with the statutory accounts to offering a full book-keeping and management accounts facility.

as suggested ask friends but also i would recommend going with a chartered accountant .
quote :
otherwise, why aren't they working for the big boys!
maybe because like you they want the freedom of working for themselves

Like any other service provider, it's a risk whether you get a good one or a bad one. A professional qualification (i.e. "chartered") is obviously more likely to mean the accountant is good, but is still not certain and there are plenty of equally good unqualified accountants out there. NB remember that the word "accountant" isn't protected by law and anyone can set themselves up as one with no qualifications nor experience, so be wary and if professional qualifications are important to you, make sure that they have them and are regulated by a professional body which is more likely to mean that they have professional indemnity insurance etc if things go wrong!

The best way to get any service provider is get recommendations from family, friends or business acquaintences. Don't just randomly pick someone out of Yellow Pages! Go and talk to at least three accountants, most offer an initial free consultation of an hour or so, to get a feel of what they offer, charges, and most importantly how you get on with them.

Do you actually have any specialist needs in your business? If your business is going to be fairly typical, no unusual accounting, no outside interests requiring special audit reports, etc., no significiant international trade, etc., then I'd be very surprised if you need anything beyond the capabilities of any practising accountant. If you are engaged in a particular trade with special needs, i.e. estate agents, banking, financial services, healthcare, solicitors, etc,. then there are elements that may require a specialist, but otherwise, to be blunt, a bog-standard accountant is probably fine.

If personal service is important to you, then you'd be better chosing a "one man band" or a small firm where you're not going to constantly get passed from pillar to post. Obviously, a one man firm will go on holiday and will be off sick occasionally, but you have to ask yourself how often are you likely to need an immediate answer to a problem - most times you could wait a week or so for an answer, especially if you're not a "last minute" type of person yourself. It isn't true to say that all smaller firms are cheaper - some "one man firms" are exceptionally good and actually command higher charges because of the quality personal service they offer their clients. Of course, one man bands can't possibly know everything, nor do they pretend to do - they're the general practitioners (like doctors) who know a bit about a lot and know when to refer to specialists - most will have contacts with tax consultants etc for the more complex issues. It is worthwhile noting that there are a lot of specialist tax advisers out there, most of whom are also "one man bands", who come into regular contact with small scale accountants as they also do seminars/courses etc, so basically your "one man" band isn't isolated and most will have their own "networks" of other advisers.

The bigger the firm, the more likely that you'll never speak to the same person twice as they're usually fragmented, and often have high staff turnover, so if you have say a VAT question, you'll have to speak to their VAT expert, not your usual accountant who does your accounts, and then someone else deals with your tax return, and so on. If you're from a corporate environment and are used to dealing with different people for different things, then you'll probably not mind dealing with a bigger firm, but they will be a lot more expensive and the bigger firms will often simply not take on smaller clients.

As for questioning why a good "one man band" wouldn't be in a large corporate, there are plenty of reasons for that. Firstly, especially outside the few major cities, there aren't any corporates to go to if you don't want to travel for hours. Secondly, many people simply don't have the personality to be corporate bum-lickers. Thirdly, many people place importance on work/life balance and like working close to home or in a nice location, even if that means a lower salary. The void between small and big business is just as obvious as the void between private and public sector. Some people are suited more to one than the other and it is remarkably difficult to swap sides once you're established.