Seven Signs You Should Look For A New Accountant

Seven Signs You Should Look For A New Accountant
Here's a very quick quiz. Does this sound like your
relationship with your current accountants ?

1) You call but your accountant isn't available, so you
leave a message.

2) Your accountant gets back to you - but they do so a week
and a half later.

3) Your company accounts are due, but your accountant
doesn't seem to have filed them.

4) Every time you talk to your accountant for even half an
hour, you get a bill in the post the next day.

However, strangely, when you ask them to do something
urgently for you, it seems to take far longer than it
should.

5) You are certain that there are other ways of reducing
your business tax burden and yet your accountant never
suggests any to you.

6) You occasionally read up about new legislation that may
affect the way you do business but only when you actively
chase up your accountants do they give you any advice on
these issues. Even though it's perfectly clear that your
accountant knew about the new legislation and how it might
effect you way before you happened to chance upon the
information.

7) You find yourself wondering whether you are really
getting good value for money. What exactly are you paying
all that money for every year? Surely, it can't take that
long to complete a tax return, can it ?

If any or, heaven forbid, all of these points sound
familiar to you, then it really is time for you to change
your accountants.

Thankfully, there are accountants out there who will return
your phone calls in a timely manner, who are proactive in
giving tax planning and business advice and do - honestly -
offer good value for money.

Luckily, changing accountants is not the arduous process
you might think it is.

Both the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAEW) and the
Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) have
strict guidelines by which their members must adhere.

Among other things, these guidelines cover how a IAECW or
ACCA accountant must behave if a client wishes to change
accountants.

Your current accountant must provide all the relevant
documentation and information to the new accountants in a
timely and efficient manner and may not charge for
supplying this information.

This should mean that, if you are fed up with your current
accountant and they are chartered by one of these
professional bodies, you can simply find a better one and
then contact your old accountants and ask them to pass on
all the accounting related information to the new
accountants.

Your new accountants will probably provide you with a
checklist of information that they need and some of this
information (ie: VAT returns and payroll details) may come
from you, but often the process can be almost entirely
hands-off.

Even if you are in dispute with your current accountants,
this should not prevent you from making a switch. The
Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAEW) and the
Association of Chartered Certified Accountants
(ACCA)guidelines state that, and here I'm paraphrasing
liberally, your current accountants should not be able to
hold you to ransom.

So, don't feel that you must stick with an accountancy firm
who is not delivering the goods. Changing is not that
difficult and you will almost certainly reap the benefits
in the long run.

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