chartered accountants

kammx4

Hi I am in the process of setting up my own business and have had a couple of quotes of £1200 for chartered accountants. I have seen some on-line companies that seem to be a lot cheaper but you have to do a lot of the work yourself. Anybody had good/bad times with the on-line accountants and would you think that quote is good for a company with a turnover of 18000k. Thanks for a replies.

Pennywise

Best to get personal recommendations from friends/family who already use an accountant. Otherwise, contact a few, a mix of online and local, talk to them, most offer free initial consultations. Find one that you're happy with, that you can talk to openly, that you can get on with. Also get a mix of "one man" firms and larger firms. Trust your instincts to find the one that's right for you. Keep looking until you find one.

There are good and bad online firms, just as there are good and bad local/national firms. A lot of it depends on the person allocated as your accountant within the firm. If you're happy dealing with people by email/phone/internet then you should be able to deal with an online accountant effectively. If you prefer meetings, then a local accountant is probably best. A lot of it is down to you and how you learn best and relate to people.

Please don't base your decision solely on price. A "cheap" accountant may end up costing you far more in terms of poor advice, shoddy service, etc. If you look around, you will find local firms that will offer similar pricing to the cheap online firms. Online is seldom the cheapest. Accountancy fees vary enormously between firms. You will find a local "one man" firm who'll charge at similar levels to online firms - and probably get a better service if they're qualified as the bigger and online firms tend to use trainee/junior staff extensively and you'll seldom deal with the "chartered" boss.

Also, make sure you understand the role of you as the business owner and the accountant as the adviser. You can't abdicate your book-keeping, accounting and tax to them - you remain personally responsible, so you need to stay in control - you have to "delegate" it not abdicate it.

Also be clear about what you expect of the accountant. You mention that the online firms expect you to do the data entry - I think you'll find that local firms will also expect you to do the book-keeping. Were the £1,200 quotes you got to include them doing book-keeping, or is that just your assumption? What about VAT returns and payroll returns, what about personal tax returns.

Any decent accountant will be happy to spend time going through all this with you, setting clear boundaries between what you do and what they do, giving you clear, fixed pricings, helping you set up the right book-keeping systems, etc.

Please spend some quality time to find the right accountant. Far too many people just pick one at random, often based on perceived cheapness, and end up in real trouble, mostly not because of shoddy work by the accountant, but because of not understanding the relative roles and responsibilities between the client and accountant. Effective communication is far more important than price - if you can achieve both, brilliant, but if not, good service quality and communication is well worth paying a little more. A good accountant will keep you informed, keep on top of things, and ensure that you don't miss deadlines or get hit by unexpected tax bills.

Also, please be aware that "accountant" is not a regulated term and anyone can call themselves an accountant, even if they have no qualifications and little experience. There are a number of "chartered" accountancy bodies, so you should look for the word "chartered" which at least means that they'll have professional indemnity insurance, ongoing training and quality control. At a technician level, there is also the AAT which likewise has exams, insurance, and quality control. Be wary of "accountants" who don't have "chartered" on their website or letterhead - they may be fine, but you have no professional body regulating them and no-one to complain to if things go wrong. Having said all that, there are good unqualified and poor qualifieds - trust your own friend/family referrals and your instincts when you talk to them yourself.