Moving from “Low-Cost” to “Value-for-Money” to “Investment”.

During your business life your opinion or view of your accountant changes.

You will move from focusing, when your start up, on the “least cost” option because, well, you are more concerned about making enough money just to survive. You want a no-frills low cost service as you struggle from day to day to pay your bills without the support of a regular wage. You just need a little bit of basic financial advice about how to keep your records and stay out of trouble from the taxman. You have simple needs requiring a simple service. There are plenty of unqualified accountants working from home offering that type of service.

Then as you grow and start making a little more profit you realise that you may need a little bit more financial advice to progress so move to a “value for money” mindset. Perhaps the financial advice you are getting is not enough and you need help on risk and tax reduction. You start to have doubts about the advice or lack thereof from your current accountant. Perhaps you stay with them because it is too much hassle to change or perhaps you switch to someone because their website says they provide this type of advice and the fee increase is acceptable. Then you discover that the promised proactive advice doesn’t materialise. The regular check-ins don’t happen and you seem to be getting exactly the same as you got before but your are paying more for it.

You bump along because you are busy putting up with a once a year service until one of two things happen.

* You either plateau and no matter what you do growth stops and profits start to stagnate, OR
* You explode with growth and the issue becomes one of losing control of the beast you have created.

At that point you need a lot more than basic financial advice as you discover that you don’t know what questions to ask and that your accountant simply doesn’t know what you need so cannot be proactive.

Your need for additional support changes your focus as you realise that you need to view your accountant as an “investment”. The annual accounts become just a formality. What you need and what adds the biggest value is the regular meetings with a qualified and experienced professional. The cheaper, unqualified person you are currently using can no longer give you the support you need.

Our clients tell us that the regular meetings with us have become the most important element of our relationship because by having an agenda and taking minutes they can have frank discussions about goals and challenges and then be held to account on what they have said they were going to do.

At some point in the future the Ai driven software will replace the bookkeeper/basic compliance accountant but the real value we provide with our regular meetings will always be needed.

Do you need more than just a basic service from your accountant. Then you need to speak to Wood and Disney, The Advisors to Ambitious Entrepreneurs.