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Accountants - Know Me, Know My Business

Accountants have still got to learn that the customer is king.  Here Robert Craven presents the needs of the typical growing business.  All the accountants have to do is implement a strategy to satisfy them.

 

I run a consulting company that employs between seven and ten employees depending on the time of year and state of the economy.  My accountant is very important to me!

Accountants live in a very different world from the one that I inhabit.  Likewise, accountants no doubt think that I live in a different world from the one that they inhabit.

I feel like a small player when I enter the accountant’s office – I am a nothing – going to see the accountant stirs up childlike feelings that I haven’t experienced since being sent to the headmaster’s office in the third form. 

And to add to these differences we must add the baggage of the past.  Accountants have been consistently presented as grey number-crunchers. 

Likewise the small business has often been represented as helpless, whinging incapable and incompetent, or little better than a parasite living on the back of profiteering and racketeering. 

So, what is it that I want my accountant to be able to do?

First, and foremost, I want my accountant to understand me.  

I am not a number, I am not a series of digits; no, I am a person and I have very specific needs.

From where I stand, I am totally unique.  No-one else has the same specific problems that I have and no-one else has the same worries and concerns. When I am going to talk about money and my business I want the other person to have a real interest in me and my aspirations.

My business is my baby; I have nurtured it from conception through its birth, through its first faltering steps and into the healthy infant it now is.  This journey has been a total learning curve for me.  I spend just about my whole waking life thinking about my business and how I could make it better.  I want the accountant on the other side of the desk to understand that.

But how can an accountant understand me?  I could never imagine wanting the type of environment that the accountant works in; and the accountant would never want the environment that I work in.  That’s why they are accountants and we are ‘business people’.  Their concerns are about ratios and balancing the books; my concerns are about where the next piece of work is going to come from, will the last client pay, cash-flow and how to continually motivate my staff. 

Second, I want my accountant to understand business. 

If I am going to share the intricacies of business and finance with a relative stranger then I want them to really understand (or at least be able to empathise with) just how brilliantly skilful I must been to grow a business despite all the odds.  Accountants need to understand the whole picture.

Business is not simply about money – accountants often seem to think that it is!  Business is about people; employing and motivating people, getting people to buy from you and getting people to buy from.  Business is about sales and marketing and about delivering your service or product. 

And business is about passion and dreams and thrills and disappointments – it is a way of life, you don’t work to live – you live to work.  A ‘passionate accountant’ is an oxymoron… like fighting for peace or fun run!

I do not expect an accountant to understand all about business but a decent rudimentary understanding is required and not unreasonable.  Most businesses are fairly simple – understand how a business works, not in theory but in reality, that is what I want my accountant to be able to do.

Third, I want my accountant to understand my business.

I have specific problems – problems that are specific to my industry, to my market and to the way that I run my business.  The accountant should know this and be able to assist with specific industry-related support – at a minimum, a knowledge of benchmark ratios would help - a bit of research would do no harm!  But really I want them to add value – tell me what the accounts mean and tell me what options I have – I want a partner in my business!

Fourth, I want swift action.

I will accept most of the output from my accountant.  The systems and procedures in most accountants appear to be relatively similar so I will accept whatever calculations are made.  I have a certain inertia and it will take a lot to make me move accountants.

What I cannot accept is intolerable delays that sometimes seem to occur.  I want swift actions or at a minimum I want the answers to be there when promised.  Or a to be offered a date when work will be completed would be nice.  A little courtesy is all that I ask.

What I want, I believe, is relatively simple. How about guaranteed Service Level Agreements e.g. to turn around all work within 14 days or your money back! – My last accountant took 14 months to deliver year-end accounts even though they were given all the information within 3 weeks of the year-end.  What was going on there! 

Fifth, I want to know what I am paying for and I want to know how much I am going to pay.

If an accountant charges by the hour then surely they are incentivised to work slowly.  Other professional service firms (architects, dentists, doctors) work to a price (and a deadline!), so why can’t accountants?  Surely fixed price agreements would incentivise them to work more efficiently!

All I want is..

All I want is an accountant that understands me, understands business, understands my business, gives me decisions when promised and explains how they charge. 

And what is more I am willing to pay for the service if I have to – if mobile phones can charge a series of tariffs for different service/product mixes then why can’t accountants do the same!

I think that my requirements are relatively straightforward and I would welcome the opportunity to work with any accountant who can satisfy my simple requirements.

PS A Happy Ending – at last I have found my Prince Charming, my Knight in Shining Armour…..

…..and they all lived happily ever after.

 

 

 

about the author

 Robert Craven is a keynote speaker and author of the business best-sellers 'Kick-Start Your Business' and 'Customer Is King'. He has recently been described as 'one of the UK’s leading marketing specialists' and the 'entrepreneurship guru'. He runs The Directors’ Centre, helping growing businesses to grow.
For further information, contact Robert Craven on 01225 851044. (rc@directorscentre.com) www.directorscentre.com

Robert Craven©2005, In Practice (ACCA)

publication details

First published in In Practice, June 2005.