Time to Find an Accountant - Help!

[MarkPearson]

Ok, The time has come and mark & Rosesbydesign.com needs an accountant.

Where would you recommend I look?

Of course someone local to me in surrey / croydon would be best.

Should I stick a pin in the yellow pages as I don't really have anyone who can recommend a good accountant to me.

What kind of fees should I be expectiong to pay for an accountant? Also how often do I need to meet them?

[Rob Holmes]

You could try Alpha or Joyous on the forums here

Alpha: http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=572

Joyous: http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=2323

Rob

[Alpha]

Mark

A little nearer to yourself than I am is Joyous.

As regards how often technically nowadays never in fcat I have numerous clients who I have never met. This is due to the power of the telephone, e mail and intenet access

:)

as to fees each businesses requirements are different so there would be a number of questions that would need to be asked before an indication of fees could be given but at least if you get an accountant on board early they can guide you through the many pitfalls and keep you straight from day one (much cheaper than sorting out the mess later)

By all means PM Joyous and she can talk you through everything on the telephone.

She specailises in helping start up businesses like your own.

[Eagle]

Talk to James Smith.

www.jamesesmith.co.uk

:)

[MarkPearson]

Talk to James Smith.

www.jamesesmith.co.uk

:)

Can you give me a reason why you recommend them?

[Eagle]

Straight to the point.
Very helpful.
Patient in explanation.
Clear talking.
Pleasant.
Always around when I need him.
.....
....
..

:)

[bwglaw]

Mark

Speaking from experience, if you are a relatively small business you do not need a Chartered Accountant, or a qualified accountant. Although our company has grown we have found our Finance Director to be more than competent to do what is required and we can call upon him at any time. He is not a qualified Accountant but we have had no problems and we save a huge amount in professional fees. He is currently running the company whilst I am out of the UK.

If you would like to use him, just PM me.


Jonathan

[DuaneJackson]

I highly recommend Alpha, fast and efficient, useful advice - don't want to praise him too much, he might get embarrased!

And ofcourse, use something like www.kashflow.co.uk to manage your books and minimise your accountancy bills.

[KM-Tiger]

Just a thought on this - you are going to get a better deal and have a happier relationship if you are clear in your own mind about *exactly* what you want your accountant to do, and not do, before you make the approach.

Same is true for all professional advisers.

[MarkPearson]

Just a thought on this - you are going to get a better deal and have a happier relationship if you are clear in your own mind about *exactly* what you want your accountant to do, and not do, before you make the approach.

Same is true for all professional advisers.

Yes, I agree.

But I am not really in a position to know what I want need.

I need an accountant to advise/help with all the financial stuff thats involved with the limited company.

To make it all ship shape and proper

[multilingual]

Mark,

Whilst I agree that using an unqualified accountant can save you money (in direct charges) I would argue that a qualified accountant can save your business more money in the long term.

I have run different businesses over the last 14 years and having a good accountant is no. 1 on my list of business essentials.

I have changed accountants recently from a small three man operation to a big accountancy firm employing over 500 people. Whilst the initial costs are higher than before, I feel more confident in the people who are now looking after my accounts.

Plus on th first day they noticed three minor faults that (once corrected) saved me over £1800 straight away. Then last week managed to reduce my tax bill (prepared by the previous accountant) by nearly £4000.

They have already paid for themselves, but if I was looking at initial costs alone I may have gone elsewhere. They are not the cheapest, but I am not so well off that I can afford to have a cheap accountant!

JB

[bwglaw]

Again, from experience as a small business the smaller the accountant firm the better as they will have a more personal approach. A friend, who is a Chartered Architect is changing from a large firm accountant to a smaller one because "larger firms tend to be like 'getting blood out of a stone' and not forthcoming with advice" - his words.

You need to decide if you are going to be doing the book-keeping yourself or just want someone to file the formalities. Presumably you will need a Company Secretary if going Ltd. A unqualified Accountant will probably act as CS for nothing (like us) whereas a larger firm is going to charge anything around £100/year.

A tax bill of £4000, and identifying a mistake of £1800 is hardly a small business, correction, micro-business, as may be in Mark's case. A small business is not going to oversee £1800! I would notice £10 missing and don't need someone qualified to tell me £10 is missing!

Going to a qualified accountant you will be looking at a fee of £600-700 for annual accounts, plus the rest, however dependant on size of your business. My first year as Ltd I went to a qualified accountant and paid about £40/hour. Now I pay £15/hour to our unqualified accountant!!

I don't do much accounts other than processing invoices and keeping them in good order for our 'unqualified accountant' to record. He does the payroll as well for £10/month/person. He doesnt even charge for his time to chat!

[Hayles]

We've changed from a big accountant firm to a smaller outfit recently. Main reason is that the guy was never available to speak to. There are probably pros and cons either way.

We pay our new guy £150 per month + vat, 12 months a year - avoiding any large invoices at the end of the year which we like :D

[multilingual]

I didn't say £1800 was missing, I said that there were errors in the way my books were being presented which, once corrected, will save me £1800. And the tax bill wasn't for £4000, it was for £12000 but he reduced it to £8000 after looking through the accounts and finding different discerpancies in the way the accounts had been prepared.

Both of these eroors were accounting errors and would not have been picked up without a trained eye.

I will also notice if £10 has gone missing, I am not so sloppy, I was simply pointing out the positive side of using a professional service where quality of overall service and attention to detail is more important than initial price.

I am charged £1400 per year for my Ltd company accounts and that includes handling payrolls, VAT payments and director's tax returns. I do not get charged for any other ad-hoc meetings or phone calls we may have during the year. Based on what I have already said, I am quite happy with that arrangement as it gives me total peace of mind.

I am simply putting forward an opinion based on my own experience that's all.

JB

[Joyous]

On balance I think I'd have to agree with Matrixx and Alpha and recommend me as well. Thanks guys by the way.

As Alpha points out the wonders of modern technolgy mean that it's not necessary to be near your accountant and indeed I have clients as far away as the Midlands. Haven't broken Scotland yet but I'm working on it.

If you'd like a free initial consultation to discuss your concerns at no cost and with no obligation then please give me a call.

Regards

Joy

[Richard Glynn]

Talk to James Smith.

www.jamesesmith.co.uk

:)

Yep. I use James too. Top lad.

[Anonymous]

From reading these replies it looks like physical meetings with your accountants aren't as important as I'd have first thought.

Is everything done via phone and email or are you posting off a bunch of accounting documents regularly?

[Alpha]

Is everything done via phone and email or are you posting off a bunch of accounting documents regularly?

Whatever is required.

Clients can do their own book keeping on a spreadsheet or an accounting package and then send them to the accountant for putting into management accounts or final accounts and tax computations, or they can send their documents to the accountant for them to do the book keeping.

We have several clients where we actually act as a full blown accounting department, book keeping, payroll, managing their cash flows (banking and paying suppliers), producing management accounts, statutory accounts, tax computations, budgets and act as Financial Director by attending board meetings :D

Its very easy to do!!

[openmind]

Straight to the point.
Very helpful.
Patient in explanation.
Clear talking.
Pleasant.
Always around when I need him.
.....
....
..

:)

Seconded. I have yet to come across a more approachable person who actually gives a monkeys about saving me money :)

[Ian J]

On balance I think I'd have to agree with Matrixx and Alpha and recommend me as well. Thanks guys by the way.


I use Joy and can thoroughly recommend her as my tax bill is a lot less less than I thought it was going to be. :D

[James Smith]

Thanks for all the positive comments, it’s always great to know you are making your clients happy.

In terms of the size of your accountant I think as a rule of thumb your accountant should be of similar size to your own businesses, this tends to ensure they are used to dealing with people of your size. When I trained with KPMG (huge firm) a “small” client left to us juniors to get on with would in my current practice seem really quite big and be a key fee. It doesn’t take much to work out where the better service naturally lies, although there will always be exceptions. By the same logic I don’t think a large client should use a tiny firm. I know I wouldn’t take on anything too big as not only am I little rusty on some of the tax and practical issues relating to bigger businesses, I just wouldn’t have the resources to deal with it and my smaller clients may suffer.

In terms of remote working I think it depends on what type and size of business you have. Ie if you are a smaller service business then remote working is fine, and probably preferable to both parties. The larger the business, the more complexity tends to arise and therefore meeting face to face becomes more important. I tend to meet regularly with my larger clients, but sometimes not at all with my smaller ones. So if you expect to stay quite small (under 5 employees) then location probably isn’t an issue. If you plan to grow to a decent size, I would go for a local mid tier firm now, probably someone with 2-5 partners to build a relationship. Smaller 1-2 person firms such as mine probably won’t be able to help as much with some of the issues that will arise as we are more used to dealing with smaller entities looking to stay small, although some of course will be able to help. Its hard to generalise.

The main issue with smaller accounting firms is that any monkey can call themselves an ‘accountant’ with no experience, you do need to due your due diligence:

1. Check that they are a member of a professional body, i.e. call themselves “chartered”. You can easily check this with the relevant institute. This gives some measure of quality, and you have recourse to complaints procedure if your accountant gets it wrong.
2. Check your accountant has actually been qualified for more than 5 minutes. Ask the date they qualified, and the date they got their practising certificate (this gives the ability to work on their own), and their work experience to see if it is relevant. If they have only been had it 12 months, then you can see that you will be a guinea pig to a certain extent, so bear this in mind, although everyone has to start somewhere!
3. Ensure they deal with similar businesses to your own – as with any professional, the more familiar your accountant is with something the better they will be at it.

Ultimately it’s down the whether you get on with your accountant or not – if you don’t feel comfortable with them, get someone who you do feel comfortable you can speak to about your business and will take the time with you.

Regards,

[ebonybailey]

would you liek the details of my accountant very good and a good friend of mine, and he is local to surrey cos he lives their!!!

Michael